Reviving Rural News: Transforming the Business Model of Community Journalism in the US and Beyond

Based on extensive research into weekly rural publishers and rural readers, Reviving Rural News demonstrates that a new financial approach to community journalism is urgently needed and viable.

This book provides historical context for the state of local news, examines the influence of journalistic identity and boundaries that have prevented change, and offers practical guidance on how to adapt the financial strategies of weekly newspapers to the habits of modern readers. Findings are grounded in robust data collection, including surveys, focus groups, and a year-long oral history study of a small weekly newspaper group in the United States. A new model known as Press Club is presented as a template via which memberships, events, and newsletters can better engage community journalism with its audiences and create a more sustainable path for the future.

Reviving Rural News will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of local, community, and rural journalism as well as practitioners looking to bring about real-world change in journalism organizations.

Teri Finneman is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas, USA. She is a journalism historian who also studies local news. She coedited Social Justice, Activism and Diversity in U.S. Media History. She is the founder of the Journalism History podcast.

Nick Mathews is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism, University of Missouri, USA. He studies local and rural news and information ecosystems. He often seeks to represent the audience, translating their lived experiences for news organizations to help those news organization’s stability and viability in their communities.

Patrick Ferrucci is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Journalism at the University of Colorado, USA. His research is in media sociology and primarily concerns itself with how shifting notions of “organization” in journalism lead to influence on journalism practice. He is the author of Making Nonprofit News: Market Models, Influence and Journalism Practice, and coeditor of The Institutions Changing Journalism: Barbarians Inside the Gates.