Bringing Important Stories Home

Did you make it through the heat wave? During the hottest days, I kept reminding myself that July is typically North Dakota’s warmest month. Now, we’ve made it to August. That doesn’t guarantee the end of the heat, of course, but I’m choosing to consider it progress.

You may be reading this month’s update through the link in our new weekly newsletter, This Week from the North Dakota News Cooperative. Instead of sending a separate email every time we publish a story, we’ll now gather the week’s reporting into one convenient newsletter. That means fewer emails in your inbox and one easy place to catch up on anything you may have missed.

Last month, I wrote a little about our coverage of the president’s visit to Medora. This month, I want to go deeper than the coverage and talk about why we do it.

North Dakota is home to just over 70 newspapers, and the vast majority don’t have the resources to send a reporter to an event like that, no matter how important it is. But at NDNC, we believe everyone around the state should have access to the important stories happening here.

Rural newspapers are often the only organizations consistently covering the communities they serve. They report on local government, schools, businesses and the decisions that directly affect people’s lives. They also help their readers understand how events elsewhere in the state may eventually reach their own communities.

But rural news coverage is disappearing across the country. Nearly 40% of America’s local newspapers have vanished over the past 20 years, leaving about 50 million people with limited or no access to reliable local news. The communities most likely to be left behind are rural ones.

The need remains. Rural Americans are less likely than people in urban or suburban communities to have a television station covering their area. Earlier Pew Research Center findings also showed that 57% of rural residents believed their local news media primarily covered somewhere else, such as a nearby city, rather than the place where they lived.

When local reporting disappears, people don’t stop needing information. Instead, they may be left relying on social media, word of mouth or national cable networks that have little connection to their communities. Those sources can tell people what is happening in Washington, but they generally won’t tell them what a decision means for a school, farm, business or family in North Dakota. A narrow diet of partisan national news can also contribute to a more polarized understanding of public issues.

That is where the North Dakota News Cooperative comes in.

By covering major events and making our reporting available to newspapers across the state at no cost, we give local publications access to stories they couldn't always produce on their own. One NDNC reporter can help dozens of newspapers bring important statewide reporting home to their readers.

We’re not here to compete with North Dakota’s newspapers. We’re here to make them stronger. We're glad you're here, too.

Sabrina Halvorson

CEO, North Dakota News Cooperative