EDITORIAL: Newspapers help drive civic involvement
Oct. 7—"Goodbye, Colorado," the Rocky Mountain News announced in 2009, after nearly 150 years in print. "Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world is over."
Studies have shown that voting declines when communities lose newspapers and that fewer people run for local office, but the demise of the Rocky Mountain News (and the decision to discontinue the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a print paper that same year) revealed a much deeper hole left in communities by the closing of a newspaper.
In 2014, Lee Shaker, at Portland State University, used data from the 2008 and 2009 Current Population Survey (conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau) to assess year-over-year change in the civic engagement of citizens in some of America's largest metropolitan areas and to determine what happens to that engagement when newspapers close.
Shaker noted: "Newspapers are vital institutions in our democracy, and their decline warrants our concern."
The study identified five measures of civic engagement and looked at levels of involvement before and after the papers closed: Had the respondent contacted or visited a public official — at any level of government — to express their opinion? Had the person bought or boycotted a certain product or service because of the social or political values of the company that provides it? Had they participated in a school group, neighborhood or community association such as PTA or neighborhood watch groups? Had they participated in a service or civic organization such as American Legion or Lions Club? And had they been an officer or served on a committee of any group or organization?
Denver and Seattle were compared to eight peer cities.
"The results show that, in Denver, four of the five civic engagement indicators declined significantly from 2008 to 2009. In Seattle, two of the five indicators decreased significantly over the same period. The other indicators in both cities were not significantly different year-over-year."
Overall, the declines in both Denver and Seattle outstripped declines (or increases) in their peer cities. Some peer cities even saw increases in these indicators of civic engagement. Nationally, there also was a "slight decline" in these civic engagement indicators during that period, but what happened in Seattle and Denver outstripped the national trend.
Why differences? Two explanations were noted. In Seattle, about 8 percent of households received the Post-Intelligencer, while in Denver about 20 percent of households received the Rocky Mountain News. Second, the Colorado paper went completely out of business, while the Seattle paper quit printing but continues as an online-only newspaper to this day.
The author concluded: "In sum, the evidence reported here implies that Seattle and Denver suffered significant negative declines in civic engagement when they lost one of their daily newspapers."
Multiply this by the thousands of papers that have closed in the last two decades and the impact is dramatic.
We've used this week, National Newspaper Week, to highlight the important impact newspapers have on their communities, and to stress again that healthy communities need healthy newspapers. Thank you for reading, and for your support.
CNHI News Service
