Newspaper Morgues

Print is dead, but not for small town newspapers. With over 2,000 local newsrooms shutting down since 2005, news deserts are cropping up across the country. But the need for local news hasn’t diminished, and there are a great many older Americans picking up the print edition every day.

As local news struggles for engagement on digital platforms and survival with new business models, the presses are still churning out ink stained pages in many small towns. The people and places that produce these paper editions may seem insignificant, but they will impact the health of our democracy.

To capture the plodding transition of an industry straddling analogue and digital I am turning my lens on the newspaper morgue.

In a corner of every local newsroom you will find stacks of print spanning weeks, months and years. These throwaway pages represent the hard work of dedicated, often underpaid journalists who are firmly embedded in their communities.

As the move toward digital reaches rural America, these newspaper morgues will start to phase out. And like print, they will disappear