Publisher of farm paper and weekly wins Ky. award for public service through community journalism

Sharon Burton

Sharon Burton, publisher of Kentucky’s statewide agricultural newspaper and a community weekly in her native Adair County, is the winner of the 2016 Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian.

Burton will receive the award Sept. 29 in Lexington, at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which co-sponsor the award.

For more than 27 years, Burton has published The Farmer’s Pride, a newspaper for Kentucky farmers and other agriculture interests. For more than 14 years, she has published the Adair County Community Voice, a weekly paper that has frequently been cited on the Institute’s Rural Blog as an example of journalism that serves the public.

“Sharon is a great example of a local individual who saw a need, and through entrepreneurial hard work, created publications that serve the need of her local community but also of the agricultural community of Kentucky,” wrote Jimmy Henning, associate dean for extension in the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and director of the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, in his nomination.

Nick Roy, the Adair County extension agent for agriculture, also nominated Burton, saying the Community Voice “was quickly recognized as a credible source of information with coverage providing openness and transparency of local government” after its founding as a monthly in 2002. “Its popularity grew and soon became a bi-monthly publication in 2005, and then a weekly newspaper in May 2007. While the Community Voice has grown and made minor changes through its development, its commitment to the betterment of the Adair County community has remained.”

One recent example was her coverage of the March referendum in Adair County that legalized the sale of alcoholic beverages, one of the most controversial issues that a rural community can address. The Community Voice covered it thoroughly, offering insightful commentary without taking sides, including a front-page essay by Burton that began with reliving her experience of buying liquor from a bootlegger on her senior prom night and went on to the current experiences of students at the local, Methodist-sponsored college and federal survey data on local drinkers. She wrote that the county has "already said yes to alcohol. But we've said yes in a way where we don’t have to take responsibility. We allow alcohol to be sold in the shadows, treating it like a heroin den; people can get their fix, but we don’t have to look at it.”

The year before, Burton played an unusual – and probably for most journalists, controversial – role in her community by serving on the board of the local hospital, which had been driven into bankruptcy by mismanagement. When the new county judge-executive asked her to serve, she had many reservations because journalists are supposed to cover news, not make it. But she agreed "because I could not think of anything more important to do as someone who loves this community and the people who made it great," she wrote, adding that she felt she could make sure the board was more transparent than it had been. She recused herself from reporting or editing any hospital stories, and had an outside professional edit them for publication.

“Sharon’s deep commitment to public service drove her to make a decision that most academically trained journalists like her wouldn’t make,” said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and associate professor in the UK School of Journalism and Media, where he teaches community journalism. “Public service ought to be the primary thing that drives journalists, and there are times when your role as a member of the community can conflict with your role as a journalist. Sharon did an exemplary job of managing those conflicts, which is a key to success in community journalism.”

The Al Smith Award is named for Albert P. Smith Jr., who published newspapers in rural Kentucky and Tennessee, was founding producer and host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky,” and federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. He was the driving force for creation of the Institute, headed its national advisory board for many years and remains active as chairman emeritus. (Read more)

Good journalism is good business, rural editor-publishers testify at National Summit on Journalism in Rural America

Seventh in a series of reports on the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, held June 3-4 by the Institute for Rural Journalism and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky. Previous articles were on the state of rural journalism, the Summit-driven effort for sustainability in rural journalism, nonprofit models, help from higher education, philanthropic support for rural news media and how two rural newspapers, a daily and a weekly with identical print circulation, are raising revenue. Summit sessions can be viewed on YouTube.

By Al Cross
Director and Professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

The research question posed by our National Summit on Journalism in Rural America was "How do rural communities sustain local journalism that supports local democracy?" We phrased the question that way to make the point that the sustainability of rural journalism depends more than ever on the communities it serves. In other words, it will need to get more of its revenue from its audiences, and that will require engaging more with those audiences and giving them real value for their money. As I said at the Summit, "People aren't going to pay good money for bad journalism."

Doing good journalism in rural areas has always been more difficult than in urban areas, because there are fewer resources and often less willingness to run against the grain. The latter factor has become more common lately, as the divisiveness of national politics changes the character of local politics in some places. But there are ways to turn both challenges into opportunities, and we explored that in several Summit sessions, including one called "Good journalism is good business."

The speakers for that session were two editor-publishers of excellent weekly newspapers that are not the only papers in their communities, but are financially successful: Sharon Burton of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., and Marshall Helmberger of the Timberjay in Tower, Minn. In the hills of Southern Kentucky to the forests of Northern Minnesota, both try to be relevant.

Marshall Helmberger (CJR photo by Stephanie Pearson)

Helmberger said the Timberjay does that with "solid, fearless reporting on local and regional issues," maintaining its independence while showing civic leadership. He said his editorials often "run against the grain" of local opinion, but he doesn't think it has hurt the paper. He said editorials have cost it some subscriptions, but more may have come from people appreciative of campaigns like the one that changed a law on public access to contracting between public bodies and private entities; it's called "the Timberjay law."

"They know when it comes to our investigations we don't play favorites," Helmberger said. "Over time, the light bulb clicks on and they realize newspapers can play an important role in bringing positive change to the community. . . . We don't just have readers. We have engaged readers who can't wait for the next issue." That showed when the Timberjay was the target of a frivolous lawsuit that would still take a big part of its annual cash flow to defend. Crowdfunding for the defense raised $30,000, Helmberger said, and one reader paid for a $35 obituary with a $500 check and said to keep the change.

Both Helmberger and Burton have played unusual – and probably for most journalists, controversial – roles in their communities. Helmberger is the executive of the local economic-development authority, and Burton served on the board of the local hospital that had been driven into bankruptcy by mismanagement. When the new county judge-executive asked her to serve, she had many reservations because journalists are supposed to cover news, not make it. But she agreed "because I could not think of anything more important to do as someone who loves this community and the people who made it great," she wrote, adding that she felt she could make sure the board was more transparent than it had been. She recused herself from reporting or editing any hospital stories, and had an outside professional edit them for publication. For more on Burton's exploits, click here.

Sharon Burton

Burton told the Summit crowd that when she told the judge-executive (the county's elected administrator) that she liked her but that wouldn't affect her watchdog reporting and commentary, the official replied, said "That's why I try to make sure I don't do anything wrong." Burton said, "I don't think that you can get a greater compliment in your town . . . that they'll acknowledge when they make decisions, they think about you. You know? And that's what we should be in our communities. That's what we're supposed to be."

That said, Burton volunteered that today's more contentious political landscape has made her more careful about commentary. "I shy away from hard-hitting editorials now, because there's so much hate" and focus on "local issues that need to be discussed," she said.

Burton concluded with a personal statement that many independent editor-publishers would make, and one that could be useful in reassuring or alerting readers concerned about owners' motives: "I make money so I can be in the newspaper business. I'm not in the newspaper business to make money," as she said most buyers of newspapers are today. "It's obvious by the quality of what they're doing that they're not in it because they love newspapering. I think they're part of our problem, because they hurt our reputation."

Speakers in other sessions gave other ideas for rural journalism that serves the public and helps make money. Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University, who popularized the term "news deserts," said that as the deserts appear, irrigation can come from across the county line: "Successful papers don't think geographically" but are "breaking out of geographic jail" with news coverage and advertising sales, she said.

Abernathy also passed on a line about the value of community journalism that could be a good pitch for subscriptions: "It helps you realize whom you're related to that you didn't know."

Jim Iovino

Burton and Jim Iovino of West Virginia University said it's important to get information to people when they need it most. Iovino said that means publishing advance stories on public meetings, and well in advance, so people can make time to attend. "The audience, in many cases, is a bystander in all this," he said. He noted that Crystal Good of Black by God West Virginian, created a "Citizens Guide to Advocacy," outlining how to attend a meeting and participate.

Iovino also touted electronic newsletters on particular topics, which "can turn weeklies into seven-day brands by creating a daily check-in for readers" and competing with social media. He noted the advice of the Table Stakes program: "Audience first, digital first, print better."

Tom Silvestri of The Relevance Project of the Newspaper Association Managers promoted his central idea of the local newspaper serving as "THE Community Forum."

In today's media landscape, Silvestri said, "I wouldn't launch a newspaper or a website, I'd launch a forum. He said that as publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, he did 78 "public squares," and offered a set of tools for replicating that work, down to the layout of the seating. He said forums on local issues don't cost much to do, but can build audience, and "You can make money off an audience." Also, the experience can help you do paid and sponsored events that generate income.

Dink NeSmith

More than one speaker stressed that rural newspapers can't afford to ignore minorities in their markets, as many have. Dink NeSmith of The Oglethorpe Echo in Georgia said the nonprofit weekly is finally covering the county's Black community, with the help of students at the nearby University of Georgia.

"I cannot praise the students enough," NeSmith said, citing a Black truck driver who made a big donation to the nonprofit and a reader who said, "There's actually something to read in that damn paper now."

NeSmith said the weekly is also engaging readers by asking them to write essays answer the question, "Why do I love Oglethorpe County?" That's uplifting, engaging and inviting, and that's what we need.

Farm-paper editor identifies self-employed folks' problems with Obamacare, and hers with Congress

Farmers and other self-employed people may have special trouble maneuvering through the process of obtaining health insurance on HealthCare.gov or a state-run exchange, writes Sharon Burton, editor and publisher of The Farmer's Pride, Kentucky's statewide agricultural newspaper.

Sharon Burton

"The first thing I realized is the system doesn’t know how to deal with people who are self-employed," Burton writes. "I figure that’s just about every farmer in the commonwealth" of Kentucky, which is operating its own exchange, Kynect.

"My husband is a owner/operator commercial truck driver, so his income can fluctuate from year to year. When I adjusted our income based on that fluctuation, the system was not happy with me because I estimated our 2014 income to be different than our 2012," Burton writes, adding that her kynector, a state-paid adviser who helps people use the exchange about it, "She said she too had problems signing up anyone who was self-employed. She also warned me that we should notify Kynect if our income varied even within $1,000 or could face serious ramifications at the end of the year."

Kynect spokeswoman Gwenda Bond told Kentucky Health News, "If self-employed individuals have variable incomes there might be an extra step for them to accurately verify income. They would have to submit additional information, in some cases, because the income verification system accepts the amount reported only if it is within 10 percent of what the IRS has on file for the most recent year."

Burton adds, "There are a lot of bugs in the system. For one, if your spouse’s employer offers family coverage – even if they don’t pay any portion of it – you are not eligible for any subsidies. We all know insurance offered through companies often provides family coverage but it isn’t affordable.
Now you will be disqualified from Obamacare because that unaffordable plan is out there."

Burton has also lost patience with Congress. "The ones who voted for it spend all their time defending it, and the ones who voted against it spend their time trying to make sure it fails," she writes. "Just fix it people. Get on with it. It’s like starting a business. You have a plan, but where you end up often looks a lot different than where you start because you make changes as needed. This is a starting point; let’s move on to the next stage and stop bellyaching." (Read more)

Paper draws the line at feeding the beast of social media

Newspapers need to stop feeding the beast that is devouring them. That's one way to summarize what the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., announced last week.

Sharon Burton

"We won’t be promoting social media pages unless there is a good reason to," Editor-Publisher Sharon Burton wrote. "For instance, if a government entity or an organization is part of a news story, we usually offer readers a way to gather more information by going online to…….

"What you probably won’t be seeing very often at the end of that sentence is the name of a social media platform. Social media can be good but it also appears to offer a whole lot of bad. We use social media to promote our publication and promote links to our website, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say I am banning social media. I am simply saying we only use it when it is necessary."

Alluding to the threat that social media pose to newspapers, Burton continued: "Social media platforms hope to control all content so that everyone starts there. They are being very successful in that, and statistics show that an alarming number of people only read news if they see the news item as part of a social media link. That’s a problem because that social media page is deciding what readers do and do not see. A computer algorithm is feeding readers information with the sole purpose of keeping them entertained, thereby keeping them online."

And she sees a broader threat: "Because those social media companies have been under pressure for promoting false information, they have gotten into the censoring business, so now that algorithm might even be designed to get you to think a certain way, a way in which the people designing those algorithms believes is the right way to think. That’s just downright scary."

But her decision seems driven mainly by self-interest, and she takes the opportunity to remind readers of the difference in social media and news media: "Those sites take the hard work of others and generate money but they don’t share the revenue with the ones creating the content. Reporting the news well takes a qualified journalist, and journalists need to eat and pay the bills just like everyone else."

Burton then urged local organizations to stop relying on social media and "get their own websites," which can be done for "a reasonable monthly fee" to a vendor, and she named several. "After building your own website, you will use social media to promote your page and generate readers, but you will gradually become less reliant on social media and develop your own web presence. That is smart business, because who knows what platform will be popular in the future?"

Burton combined her announcement with one saying that her paper would no longer publish press releases about events that "take money out of Columbia at no benefit to local businesses," and concluded, "We treasure our role in this community, and we constantly review how we do what we do to try to be fair and balanced. While we may be the watchdog of local government, we are also your source for reliable news and information on local events, and we are a conduit between consumers and local businesses. We take all those roles seriously, and we thank you for allowing us the privilege of being your newspaper!" 

Rural editor explains why she gave her hard-earned money to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Sharon Burton

By Sharon Burton

In the fifth anniversary report of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, there was an explanation about what IRJCI does and how it does it. One sentence in particular resonates with me:

“We do that by helping rural journalists and their communities overcome the isolation that defines rurality.”

I’m not one to whine, but being a rural journalist can truly be isolating, especially if you do the job well. We may have the mobile phone number for every “important” person in our community, but we aren’t exactly invited over for the holiday dinners – not if we do the job well.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues is my sounding board, my support team and even part of my reporting staff. The Institute helps community newspapers break down important statewide and national topics for our readers. Honestly, the Institute helps us do important things we should do but don’t otherwise have time to do.

I’ve attended seminars sponsored by the Institute and came away much better prepared to serve my community. I’ve published articles from The Rural Blog with thanks because I knew that without it we would not have had the resources to provide the coverage. I’ve called Director Al Cross and said something like, “Al, I have to tell you about this story I’m working on and get your take.”

I just recently provided financial support, and Al asked me to write why I would give my hard earned money to the Institute.

It’s simple, really. I want to do this job well. I make mistakes, and I sometimes make bad decisions but I have a heart for my community. I love my community and I love rural journalism and all that it represents. I need all the tools I can get to help me do this job well. The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues is a vital tool in that endeavor. I’m proud to help support their mission because they support me with mine.

Sharon Burton is editor and publisher of The Farmer's Pride, Kentucky's independent agricultural newspaper, and the Adair County Community Voice, which she founded and maintains against competition in the county seat of Columbia, population 4,500. In 2016 she won the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism, given by the Institute and the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In her acceptance speech, she said she is a hard-nosed journalist because she believes in the Bible and the Constitution. Several examples of her work have appeared on The Rural Blog, most recently here, here, here and here.

To donate to the Institute's endowment via credit card, click here. To give to its operating fund, send a check to IRJCI, 343 S. Martin Luther King Blvd., University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0012. To Sharon and others who have already donated this year, we extend our sincere thanks. For more about us, click here.

Weekly gets attention, praise for hard-hitting package on local cost of opioid epidemic, 'the elephant in the room'

Sharon Burton

A weekly newspaper in Southern Kentucky recently published a hard-hitting package on the local impact of the opioid epidemic. And to make sure everyone read it, Editor and Publisher Sharon Burton mailed free copies of the Adair County Community Voice to all 8,000 households in the county, Al Tompkins reports for The Poynter Institute.

The stories included one about how social workers failed to prevent the death of an infant who, along with his mother, tested positive for methamphetamines. Another story talked about how drug cases were overwhelming local courts and jails, and a third story told of a local mom whose 23-year-old daughter died from a fentanyl overdose after she couldn't get an opioid prescription refill, Tompkins reports. 

"This is the elephant in the room. It is here and it is something we have to, we will discuss," Burton told Tompkins. "For people who are thinking, 'Hey, you are writing a bunch of negative stuff about our town,' I say it is because we love our town." Burton won the 2016 Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian, given by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog, which Tompkins reads.

Adair County (Wikipedia map)

The package is unusual for a weekly, Institute Director Al Cross told Tompkins: "Weeklies don’t like to cover this topic — it reflects poorly on the community. When they cover stuff like this, it is only from a criminal justice point of view. It is a health story. It’s a community well-being story. It is the kind of thing communities ought to work together to solve."

It's notable that Burton chose to cover addictions as a community issue, and not just as court cases and criminal complaints; that tends to stigmatize the issue, Cross said: "Community newspapers need to step up … to bring awareness to the problems, not sweep them under the rug."

Award-winning weekly editor says she has a hard nose because of the Bible and the Constitution

Sharon Burton accepted the Al Smith Award, which was on the table at the left.

The winner of an award for hard-nosed but community-oriented journalism said in accepting it Thursday night that “If there is a boldness to me, some might even call it an arrogance. it's because I believe two things,” the Bible and the Constitution.

Sharon Burton of Columbia, Ky., gave a passionate, inspiring speech to more than 200 people in Lexington at the Al Smith Awards Dinner of the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. She won the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian, for her establishment and maintenance of The Farmer's Pride, the statewide agricultural newspaper, and the weekly Adair County Community Voice, which has campaigned for openness and transparency in local government.

After recounting some of her experiences, including a return visit to a bootlegger after 30 years, during a local-option election, Burton explained her boldness: “First, I believe in the Bible…. and there is a tremendous freedom when someone is trying to pressure you to write or not write something. . . . Two, there's this document called the Constitution. And the Bill of Rights. It protects our inalienable rights. Our freedom of speech. Of the press. People died on this soil to have the right to make our own laws. People died on foreign soil to protect the rights we have built into those laws. We give them away too freely. When people tell me they won’t talk to me about an injustice because they are afraid for their job, I find that sad. With those freedoms come responsibility. To be informed. To speak out against injustice. To look out for one another.”

Al Smith, the former weekly publisher for whom the award is named, told University of Kentucky journalism student Alex Kerns, “I was really touched by what she said about the role of the community paper and the importance of independence, and the important of the paper being the cheerleader of the community.” For a copy of Burton's remarks, click here.

How to celebrate a newspaper's anniversary: engage, help out, ask for advice, and keep producing good journalism

By Al Cross
Professor and Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Twenty years ago, as smart people were beginning to predict the death of newspapers, Sharon Burton started one. In a county that had another one (and still does). In a county of only 18,000 people. In a county listed as "economically distressed" by the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Most of a recent Community Voice front page

Last week, the Adair County Community Voice celebrated its 20th anniversary, and its success may show the way for rural newspapers, which are in a lot more difficulty now than they were then.

Burton spoke at our National Summit on Journalism in Rural America in June because she is an example of the principle that good journalism is good business. Her weekly paper does investigative reporting, runs pages of official records, has a strong opinion page and is a force to reckon with. Here are several other examples.

To celebrate, the Community Voice is matching the first $1,500 in donations it receives for the local food pantry, and held an open house with soup and snacks, and invited readers to help it plan their future together: "We are also busy developing our strategy to bring you the timely news that you want, and the news that you need in the future," Burton wrote. "We want to hear form you about your news consumption and what you value the most, the least, and how you like to receive your news (print, phone, computer, etc.)."

Asked how the open house went, Burton told us, "We had one reader bring us some flowers with a note, 'To the ethical conscience of Columbia.' . . . Many of our elected officials dropped by. That tells me we can do our job, ask the tough questions and still gain their respect if we treat them with respect."

And the things that may seem small to the paper our outsiders can be really big for readers. "A woman came by and told us how much it meant to her that we ran a thank-you card for free back a few years ago (we cannot bring ourselves to charge for those)," Burton wrote. "She had been injured and was facing massive medical bills but she wanted to thank the emergency people who helped her through a very difficult situation. She said not having to pay for the thank you card meant the difference of her being able to eat." Burton had a message for her readers:

Weekly editor-publisher, one of several speakers at Nov. 15 workshop on Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery, tells why and how she covers it, and why you should too

Sharon Burton has been getting national attention for her series "The Cost of Addiction" in her weekly Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Kentucky. On Nov. 15, in Ashland, Ky., she will discuss with journalists how to cover a subject that can be difficult and many don't want to cover.

"It's something that's affecting everyone's lives, and we need to be talking about it and we need to be looking for solutions," Burton says in a video interview with Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. IRJCI is sponsoring the workshop with Oak Ridge Associated Universities, where research has shown that the stigma attached to drug abuse inhibits news coverage and community conversations about it.

Burton, who has a local competitor, says in the video that she understands rural journalists' reluctance: "It's not a pleasant thing to discuss, and I think a lot pf people feel embarrassed because they're talking about their loved ones. . . . A lot of times, they're talking about themselves." However, people have mostly been cooperative when approached for a story, she says: "They want to help other people. . . . They want to share their experiences and help others."

For details and registration, click on the link in the paragraph below.

Burton says rural newspapers contribute to the stigma of drug abuse when they cover it only as a criminal-justice issue: "We as newspaper people have probably been some of the most cynical when it comes to, you know, 'Put em in Public Record and throw 'em in jail' kind of attitude."

She says the problem is primarily a health issue, but also also affects the general public through higher jail costs and difficulty of employers and prospective employers to find drug-free employees.

At Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery: A Workshop for Journalists, Burton says, "I hope to encourage them" to help their communities: "If nothing else, to say its worth the effort." For details on the workshop, registration and accommodations, click here. The fee is $50 until Nov. 1 and $60 until Nov. 8, when registration will close. Space is limited.

Weekly paper audits custodians of local records

One of the more ambitious local projects we have heard of during Sunshine Week, which ended Saturday, was a local records audit by the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky. The weekly newspaper engaged eight "average citizens" to seek specific records from eight public agencies and published the generally good findings in last week's paper, with an explanation of the audit and the issues, and an editorial by Editor-Publisher Sharon Burton giving her motives.

Burton wrote that since she started the paper 10 years ago, "We have seen a dramatic improvement in the understanding for openness and the cooperation we receive, so "We didn't do it to harass or put local officials on the spot," but rather "to get a better idea of where we are and where we need to continue educating and informing public officials and the public about the role of government."

The audit found the least cooperation when it asked local law-enforcement agencies for salary information. Burton told us in an email, "Our sheriff's department provided a copy of salaries with the names marked out. Numbers only. lol. Then the secretary called and said we made them sound bad. Love this job." The sheriff's department claimed that the auditor said he didn't need the names; "The auditor said he didn't specify that he needed the names," the story by Burton and Allison Hollon reports. The Kentucky State Police didn't reply to a mailed request.

The Voice does not put most news stories online, but we have posted its front page, Page 2 and Page 3 on the site of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. If your newspaper conducted an open records audit for Sunshine Week, please let us know so you can be recognized, too.

Rural newspapers weigh in on the election; send us editorials and columns worth sharing

One of the most unusual presidential elections in American history, and the unpredictability of the winner, is prompting editorial comment from rural newspapers that don't often weigh in on national issues. The Rural Blog is interested in seeing examples of editorials and columns like the one Editor-Publisher Sharon Burton of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., in a strongly Republican part of a largely Republican state.

Burton writes that Trump wasn't among her top three choices for the GOP nomination, but "I do believe I understand at least part of the message Americans were sending when they elected Trump. If nothing else, I think I can clarify what many Americans were not saying," such as "It is okay to degrade people for any reason. . . . I believe Americans weighed Trump's flaws against Clinton's flaws."

Neither are Americans xenophobic, Burton writes: "I think Americans are saying that our nation is spending too much of its resources caring for others and not enough resources taking care of its own. We have approved trade agreements at the expense of jobs. . . . I think the majority of Americans are okay with immigrants coming into America . . . to be contributing members of society."

Burton concludes, "If nothing else, we need Trump to be teachable. . . . I hope we can survive Trump. I hope we can thrive with Trump. Mostly, I think our elected officials have been awakened to the frustration Americans feel toward their inability to address the nation's problems. Frankly, I think the Trump vote was a message to the political elite ... clean up your act, or 'You're fired.'"

Helping rural journalism helps democracy

When a rural newspaper publishes its last edition, a part of democracy dies with it. Local officials aren't held accountable, and that's just the beginning. Studies show that when a paper dies, fewer people run for office, fewer people vote, and more people vote along party lines because most news they see is on cable TV. That deepens the rural-urban political divide—a gap that grows as rural coverage shrivels. More than 500 rural weeklies have closed in the last 15 years, and metro papers do much less rural coverage.

But you can help bridge the gap by donating to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. We work hard all year to help rural journalists all over the U.S. with training sessions, news aggregation, resources and recognition.

Sharon Burton

Sharon Burton, editor and publisher of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., is a longtime ally of the Institute. She writes: "While listening to speakers during a recent workshop co-hosted by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, I thought about how much we rural journalists need each other. We learn from one another; we realize we are not alone when we share with one another. The Institute does many things for rural journalists, but perhaps its most important role is helping us help one another."

Please support the Institute for Rural Journalism today. Your tax-deductible gift helps us continue creating a community of rural journalists nationwide.

In promoting journalism as essential, let's not forget it has problems with bias and misinformation, rural editor writes

If your newspaper took note last week of National Newspaper Week, did your editorial, column or other material acknowledge that while "journalism matters, now more than ever," as the week's theme had it, journalism also has some issues? Some did not, and Sharon Burton noticed.

Burton is editor and publisher of The Farmer's Pride, Kentucky's statewide agricultural newspaper, and the Adair County Community Voice in her hometown of Columbia. She stands tall for good, watchdog journalism, as evidenced by her Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian and her work that has been excerpted on The Rural Blog. She promoted Newspaper Week, but with caveats.

"I tend to disagree that journalism matters now more than ever," Burton wrote. "I think it has always mattered. The industry is on the defensive, however, and part of that comes from the barrage of accusations of 'fake news' and a president who said he considers 80 percent of the press to be the 'enemy of the people.' In all of the articles I have read concerning National Newspaper Week, I have yet to see anyone in the industry admit that we do have problems with bias and misinformation.

"Let me first say that I do think we have some house-cleaning we need to do. There have been inaccurate stories in several large newspapers across the country and there is plenty of one-sided news on television every single day. There are also, however, a whole lot of hardworking, honest journalists out there covering the news and doing everything they can to ask the hard questions and be a watchdog for the people."

Burton concluded by thanking her readers for subscribing (she competes with The Adair Progress, also a weekly) and summing up the reason for Newspaper Week: "Journalism may not be done perfectly, but this nation would be ill served were journalism not allowed, encouraged, and supported by our citizens."

Weekly editor says he'll be at Nov. 15 workshop on drug coverage because 'We cannot continue to wear blinders'

Why should journalists attend a workshop on covering local drug problems?

"We cannot continue to wear blinders and ignore this problem that is now affecting every member of our communities," writes Dennis Brown, editor and publisher of the weekly Lewis County Herald in Vanceburg, Ky. who has signed up to attend the Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery workshop in Ashland, Ky., on Nov. 15.

Dennis Brown

"I’m looking forward to attending the workshop to get some tips on covering what has truly become an epidemic for our area," Brown told the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog and is holding the workshop with Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

"The vast majority of law enforcement activity in Lewis County is directly related to substance abuse. Our jail is overflowing," Brown wrote. "The number of deaths in our community attributed to overdosing or long-term substance abuse has skyrocketed."

Brown reported that he has written stories "on school teachers, politicians, and otherwise 'good' community members who have fallen victim to this demon. . . . I feel we should be directing much more of our attention to this matter and exploring ways we can help curb the spread of addiction and provide our community members with information on helping themselves and/or family members through the limited available avenues of recovery."

The workshop will be held at the Marriott Delta hotel, 1441 Winchester Ave., Ashland, from 8:30 a,m. to 5:15 p.m. Nov. 15. space is limited, and the early-bird registration rate of $50 is good until Nov. 1. Registration will close Nov. 8. Click here to register. 

Sharon Burton

The presenters include Pulitzer Prize winners Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette-Mail and Terry DeMio and Cara Owsley of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Beth Macy, award-winning author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, will appear via Skype. Sharon Burton, editor and publisher of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, a national leader in substance-abuse coverage by weeklies, will discuss her recent efforts.

"The lineup of presenters for the workshop have the background and experience to arm journalists with the information we need to do the job we should be doing," Brown writes.

Research by ORAU has shown that the stigma attached to drug use and addiction are major obstacles to news coverage of the problem, which makes it harder for communities to find solutions.

The workshop will be preceded by informal gathering at the Delta hotel on Thursday evening, Nov. 14. A room block with a favorable rate of $109 a night is available at the Delta. The registration site has a link to the hotel reservation site. Please contact Institute Director Al Cross with any questions: al.cross@uky.edu.

Rural editor dreads writing her column, because 'The world has become an ugly place for us to exchange ideas and thoughts,' with 'baseless cynicism and unwillingness to think'

By Sharon Burton
"One Voice" column, Adair County Community Voice, Columbia, Ky.

I’ve been a journalist for several decades now, and I’m honored to have won my share of awards over the years. When it comes to annual newspaper contests, the ones I’ve been most proud of were awards for writing this column.

I’m proud to say I’ve won first place more than once, and there was a time when that encouraged me to bravely share my thoughts on this page, hoping that readers would take the journey with me as I called out elected officials when I believed it was needed, when I shared words of wisdom I had learned from life’s experiences, or even when I shared a warm story about family.

I often heard from readers who either loved what I have written or really, really didn’t like it, and either way, I knew I had encouraged others to spend at least a moment in thought about something important.

Sharon Burton

Today, the part of my week I dread the most is sitting down and writing this column. I leave it until I can no longer avoid it, and this page is often the last one to make it to the printers.

Our world has changed – no, we say, the world, but in all honesty, people have changed. Because people have changed, the world has become an ugly place for us to exchange ideas and thoughts. So many people no longer value the voice of others, and it breaks my heart every week when I realize that I no longer feel encouraged to share ideas with hope that we can all learn together.

When I would write something others might disagree with, I enjoyed the calls or visits from them as we talked about our disagreements. I learned from a better journalist than myself to use the opportunity to ask for letters to the editor – to even offer to type them up so that the person who disagrees with me can share his or her opinion on the very same page where I express mine.

Those have always been my favorite conversations, the ones with the people who disagree with me. I didn’t always change my mind, although sometimes I did, but mostly it helped me view the world from a different perspective, and I think we all become better people when we can do that. I don’t have to agree with someone to empathize with a countering viewpoint; I only have to respect that person as another human with ideas, emotions, thoughts and experiences of his or her own.

I wanted to write this week about the past year and my hopes for 2023, but to be honest, I don’t feel like sharing. While newsprint doesn’t give readers the chance to write nasty little comments below the article, the free-flowing river of hate and trolling we are bombarded with daily on social media has cost us more than we realize. It has cost us accountability.

We embrace the free flow of opinion without expecting any forethought or, heaven forbid, some research or thorough reading. In the past, I always knew I better do my homework before writing about a subject on this page. Readers expected me to be informed, and I did not want to disappoint.

We used to be a community where we stood side by side with the very people we considered different from ourselves. Now, we can’t even have a winter storm that people aren’t ridiculing others because they do or don’t believe in global warming, because they think electric vehicles do or don’t make sense, or whatever the latest thing is that most people have done very little research on but hold a very strong opinion about.

It’s not even the lack of being informed that bothers me the most. It’s the attacking attitude toward others with a different opinion that boggles my mind. Why be so mean?

Don’t misunderstand – I can handle mean. I’ve had someone come into my office and rip the newspaper up in front of me (or attempt it; newsprint does not tear easily). I’ve had the paper slung across my desk in anger. I’ve had phone calls where some very nasty words were used, and I’ve had my Christianity questioned more than once. It’s all part of the job.

But I understood that those people were invested in the topic I had written about. An article didn’t sit well with their values; an elected official didn’t get his way; a family member made the news for breaking a law and they wanted me to cover it up. Those tirades I can handle.

It’s the baseless cynicism and unwillingness to THINK that has me discouraged about mankind. It’s the blind support of viewpoints with no interest whatsoever of exchanging thoughts and ideas. It’s the inability to think there is more out there for you to learn.

It takes the fun out of being right, and it certainly takes the fun out of being wrong. In the past, I’ve used this spot to share my thoughts, knowing it could go either way. I knew my readers were looking out for me, letting me know when I said something that made an impression on them and having my back when I missed the mark.

While the awards have been fun, in truth, my favorite response to “One Voice” has always been, “I don’t always agree with you, but I enjoy reading your column.”

When did we stop enjoying the people with whom we disagree?

If I were to pick out my hopes for 2023, it would be that we become a kinder, gentler world, that we see and embrace the imperfections of one another, that we seek knowledge, and we view the world through the lens of grace.

We can only better ourselves when we allow ourselves to be imperfect in front of one another. It’s through that experience that we learn, and we still have a lot to learn.

After a tough call, rural editor shares her thoughts

"The greatest part of reporting for a community newspaper is the variety," including the more challenging parts, Sharon Burton, right, writes in the latest edition of her paper, the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., which recently became a paid weekly after starting as a free fortnightly. "A community newspaper is about the people, provided for the people," Burton observes. "Sometimes, that means writing articles that are fun to write, and sometimes the job is not as pleasant."

We doubt Burton thought it was pleasant to publish a story in last week's paper about County Judge-Executive Ann Melton being named in a lawsuit against her contractor husband for failure to pay home-construction loans. The story says Gary Melton "criticized the Community Voice for reporting the civil case, saying the only reason the county judge-executive is listed in the lawsuit is because she is married to him." But in our view, it's still worth a story.
Burton made no reference to the story in her column, but we're sure some readers made a connection. She wrote, "Whether we are covering events or interviewing people, I try to always keep in mind that after the story is published and gone, the lives of the people we cover continue, and what we write or do not write can impact them forever. I pray that I never make rash decisions about our news coverage and that my heart and motives are right when I make editorial decisions." We wish more editors shared such thoughts with readers. (Read more)

The state of rural journalism: Buyers are needed, news deserts are expanding, and social division can be a problem

Second in a series of reports on the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, held June 3-4 by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky. Summit sessions can be viewed on YouTube.

The challenges of rural journalism are mainly the challenges of the communities it tries to serve, and many of those challenges are daunting. But they are not dispositive. That was made clear at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America by some sharp, innovative and courageous editors, publishers, academics and other journalism supporters.

"Community newspapers are still trusted" more than other news media, said Lynne Lance, executive director of the National Newspaper Association, citing at Friday's opening session the recent survey done for NNA in its the markets of its members, mainly weeklies and small dailies.

But more broadly, when you ask how America's rural newspapers are doing, you also need to ask, and answer, this question: "How is rural America doing?" said longtime Georgia publisher Robert M. Williams Jr.. "It's hard for any newspaper to ever rise above the quality of the community it operates in," but there are exceptions, he said Friday.

Tony Baranowski

The biggest problem in most rural communities is shrinking population, and that's a problem for their news media, as well as the shift of retail business to big-box stores that advertise little, Tony Baranowski, co-publisher of the Times Citizen in Iowa Falls, Iowa, said Saturday morning.

For many older newspaper owners in small towns, the biggest problem is finding an acceptable buyer for their newspaper.

"What we see are thousands of independent owners across the country who want to leave their legacy but don't have someone to buy their paper," Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro of Columbia University said Saturday morning. She is founder of the National Trust for Local News, which tries to keep local news media in local hands, rather than profit-motivated chains or politically motivated buyers.

Sharon Burton

Sharon Burton, editor-publisher of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., said Saturday morning, "I make money so I can be in the newspaper business. I'm not in the newspaper business to make money," like most recent buyers. "It's obvious by the quality of what they're doing that they're not in it because they love newspapering. I think they're part of our problem, because they hurt our reputation."

Some owners who don't want to sell to such buyers just close their papers, and some such buyers eventually merge or close them, or strip them down so much they create what Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University calls a news desert: a community "with limited access to the sort of credible news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level and helps residents make wise decisions about issues that will affect their quality of life and that of future generations."

In some cases, that means a "ghost newspaper." In others, it means no paper at all. Abernathy, who has tracked the trend for years, said Friday that the recent rate of mergers and closures is double what she expected, and they are now being seen in affluent communities. She is in the midst of writing an update of her research.

Oregon has lost a fourth of its newspapers since 2004, Jody Lawrence-Turner, executive director of the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism, said Friday. She said half the incorporated cities in the state lack a local news source: "Nobody is watching them."

Bill Horner III

Social and political divisions are a growing problem for rural communities and their newspapers. Bill Horner, publisher of the Chatham News+Record in North Carolina, said is county is do divided along racial and political lines that it made him and his partners question whether it was still a place for a general-interest newspaper.

Horner said his twice-weekly lost its largest single-copy vendor (three stores, 200 papers) because his sports editor told the owner that the paper was doing a story on the history of lynching in Chatham County. But he said he continues outreach to Blacks and Hispanics, each 12 to 13 percent of the county's population, because sustainability relies on engagement and helping audiences solve their  problems. He said one recent success is a parenting newsletter, because most people are parents, and that crosses the social and political divides.

Baranowski said, "We have to embrace immigration, refugees, wherever they're coming from." His PowerPoint presentation said, "These are facts that are difficult for many of our overwhelmingly white communities to embrace, but we have to illustrate the successes" of embracing immigrants and refugees. He said "The community is not embracing their stories," one exception being an Afghan who was an interpreter for the American military. "Never underestimate the value of people being proud of lifting up an underdog," he said.

Dink NeSmith, a newspaper chain co-owner who came out of retirement to save The Oglethorpe Echo in northeast Georgia and made it a nonprofit staffed by University of Georgia students, said Saturday, "We began to cover the Black community for the first time," The county is 17% Black. He said a Black truck driver was appreciative, and donated $500.

Further reports on the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America will appear later. Topics will include nonprofit status, philanthropy, help from universities, and editorial approaches.

Attention must be paid: Rural journalists attend workshop on covering substance abuse and recovery, confronting stigma

"His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person."
–Linda Loman, speaking of husband Willy, title character in "Death of A Salesman" by Arthur Miller

By Al Cross, Director and Professor
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Many human beings are suffering terrible things in America today, and not enough attention is paid to them. They are the victims of substance-use disorder, or addiction. Too many of their fellow human beings – their neighbors, even their relatives – don't want to pay attention. "Not my problem," they say. Even when someone dies of an overdose, some say "Better off dead."

Quotes like that were gathered by Jennifer Reynolds and Kristin Mattson of Oak Ridge Associated Universities for their study that showed how the stigma attached to drug use is a big obstacle to addressing the problem in Appalachian communities. It's also an obstacle to news coverage of the issue, so we brought journalists in the region to Ashland, Ky., Nov. 15 for a workshop, "Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery." This is a summary; more detailed reports will follow.

We made sure to include "recovery" in the title to emphasize that there is hope for recovery, and that stories of recovery need to be told, to encourage those who need treatment for substance-use disorder to get it. Reynolds noted a Johns Hopkins University poll that found 30 percent of Americans said recovery from mental illness or drug addiction is impossible, and 50 percent said they would be uncomfortable being friends with someone in treatment.

Kriston Mattson, right, listens as Jennifer Reynolds discusses
their research on stigma's effects on addressing opioid abuse.

"Stigma keeps people out of treatment, and stigma keeps people from getting recovery support," Reynolds told the journalists. She said people who have been in recovery for years are still called junkies or addicts and can't find work, and "A lot of them cited unbalanced media reports as a significant contributor to stigma."

Contrary to the belief of many, she said, addiction is not a result of "weak moral character," but is the result of genetic, community, economic and societal factors. About half of the predisposition to addiction is genetic, but that still isn't completely understood, said Dr. Matt Christiansen of the Marshall University medical school in nearby Huntington, W.Va.

Other factors include adverse childhood experiences, social determinants, parenting and peer pressure, Christiansen said, adding that "Addiction is primarily rooted in trauma," both mental and physical, such as sexual abuse, other forms of abuse and the use of pain medications after surgery.

Even the experts' favored method of addiction treatment, medication-assisted therapy, suffers from stigma applied by people who call it "trading one drug for another," said Dr. David Wolfe and Kelly Whitley of Huntington-based Valley Health Systems. "It's not just the medication," but weekly groups, biweekly individual therapy, blood and urine tests, and medication checks, Wolfe said.

Wolfe and Whitley discussed the many barriers to treatment and recovery, including things that complicate recovery: lack of effective treatment in many rural areas; many rural doctors who could be prescribing MAT but don't, some because of stigma; lack of transportation; shortage of mental-health professionals (mental illness and substance abuse are co-occurring problems, and one can contribute to the other); and personal and professional responsibilities. "Most employers won't let you leave for a couple of hours once a week" for group therapy, Whitley said.

Jacqueline Pitts of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, which has tackled the problem in a way that no other state chamber has, said many employers are no longer dismissing employees for failing drug tests, but working to get and keep them in recovery: "I think the stigma is slowly changing."

Pitts said the opioid epidemic is having a significant effect on employers and the economy, and could account for 20 to 25 percent of the lack of workforce participation by Kentuckians. She said the problem isn't defined by any socioeconomic class: "It's people we all know."

Reporting

The workshop began with Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette-Mail discussing his Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of how drug companies funneled vast amounts of opioid pills to small towns in West Virginia, and how his paper and others forced the Drug Enforcement Administration to release the information, including a recent release of data through 2014. "There's an incredible amount of data here, and it's easily accessible," Eyre told the group.

Beth Macy

The keynote speaker was Beth Macy, author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America, recently issued in paperback. She said that after she signed the deal for the book, one editor told her "Your job is to make readers care," and another said "Your job is to impose hope and order to a sad and chaotic story."

The former Roanoke Times reporter said only 20 percent of people with substance-use disorder have access to medication-assisted treatment, so "We've largely left it to the institution of the American family to deal with the worst public-health epidemic in the history of our nation."

Macy, who is teaching in New York and participated in the workshop via GoToWebinar, said the best way to start finding and telling the stories of addiction and recovery is to, as public TV's Mr. Rogers said, "Find the helpers."

She said many relatives and friends of overdose victims aren't willing to talk soon after the tragedy, but putting their names in a "later" file can be a good investment. As moderator, I suggested that journalists watch for deaths that appear to have been caused by overdoses, and make regular checks with coroners; also, families that publish frank obituaries about losing a loved one to addiction can be approached immediately.

Terry DeMio, lead reporter on the Cincinnati Enquirer's Pulitzer-winning "Seven Days of Heroin" series, followed Macy. She has been on the heroin beat for more than five years, and told the journalists, "Some of the best reporting is from the ground up," in homes and neighborhoods. She said some call her an advocate, but she is not: "I'm a reporter. . . . I'm a reporter who carries naloxone," the drug that reverses overdoses.

Deborah Yetter, health and social-services reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal, said in-person contact is better than the telephone, and suggested one conversation starter for people in recovery: "The one thing they always know is . . . the day they got sober."

Yetter said she follows experts' advice to to avoid attributing individual traits to general populations, by work in general information about the topic. She said long stories work: "Readers have told us they stick through to the end because they want to see what happened to this person."

Finally, Yetter said, when it comes to writing about substance abuse, don't forget about tobacco and electronic cigarettes. She said she learned form teenagers how e-cigarettes have become epidemic in high schools.

Sharon Burton displays the first edition of her rural weekly.

The rural journalist on the program was Sharon Burton, editor and publisher of the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky., which appears to have done more in-depth coverage of drugs and recovery than any rural weekly in the nation -- starting with the first edition of her paper 17 years ago this month.

Burton said she grants anonymity to subjects only "when people are talking about their loved ones," and "I'm not doing stories on people who are in recovery for a short time. That puts pressure on them . . . especially in a small community."

She said that after her recent series on "The Cost of Addiction," she was invited to an Al-Anon meeting and a Celebrate Recovery meeting, but wasn't invited to a pastors' meeting with subjects of those stories. She said the organizer told her that he wasn't ready for publicity, and that "God had put it on his heart to call pastors together and pray." As a Christian, she said, "It really took a lot of weight off my shoulders."

Earlier, she said, "I'm a fixer. . . . I was really getting frustrated." In conclusion, she said, "The government's not gonna fix this. . . . I'm optimistic because I think I see lights of hope."

National summit sparks a continuing effort for innovation and sustainability in rural journalism; here's an initial report

Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University was the first presenter at the rural journalism summit.

By Al Cross

Director and Professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

"I leave hopeful for community newspapers," one attendee said as she left the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, which concluded Saturday. And there were reasons to have hope.

At a time when newspapers must get more revenue from their audiences, who won't pay good money for bad journalism, there's plenty of evidence that good journalism is good business, even if you're not the only paper in your market. "It's still possible to run a successful small-town newspaper, if you do it right," said Marshall Helmberger, co-publisher of the Timberjay in Tower, Minn.

His co-presenter, Sharon Burton, won applause when she said "I wish people in this business would stop writing our obituary." Burton publishes the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Ky. She said the county's top elected official told her that she keeps the official from doing wrong.

That fit a statement from the Summit's first presenter, Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University: "A strong news organization build democracy and it builds community." To sustain such organizations, "There's not going to be one business model, there are going to be many," Abernathy said. "It just depends on what kind of community you're in."

The Summit had a research question: How do rural communities sustain local journalism that supports local democracy? The question was based on the increased need for community support for newspapers or any other form of news media, in an environment where people are "bombarded with information," as Burton described it.

Many local news media are getting more support from their communities with membership models that give subscribers extra benefits, but many publishers are reluctant to ask their readers for more. At least in the Great Plains, that attitude is off base, said Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas, reporting on her team's recent survey of publishers and readers in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas.

Finneman found that 40 percent of readers said they are likely or very likely to donate to their local paper to keep it going. She and Kansas Publishing Ventures, which publishes four weeklies, are testing that by implementing such a model later this month. "This is live, ongoing research," which should produce its first report this fall, she said.

At the close of the Summit, I observed that we are in a fast-moving environment in which news publishers and people who want to help them need to remain in contact, so the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues will create a platform for Summit attendees and others to share information, questions and answers. And we will hold another Summit via Zoom in a few months, again focused on innovation and sustainability.

The Summit was held at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in Kentucky, where the first summit was held 15 years ago. "It was a once-thriving community that faced oblivion only to be saved by a collaborative effort. Shaker Village, now Kentucky's largest National Historic Landmark, was a fitting setting for the rural journalism question that we need to keep asking," wrote Tom Silvestri of The Relevance Project of the Newspaper Association Managers. "A jam-packed agenda covered a lot of ground, from the state of community journalism, to groups working to uplift the industry, to the roles of philanthropy and national funders, to newspapers being run as non-profit organizations, to examples of journalism adapting to change, innovating and responding to coverage needs, to the research needed to help community journalism, and to new business models that can be viable options based on dynamic data."

Watch The Rural Blog for more details on discussions, questions and answers from the Summit.