WESTHOPE, ND—In filing a column about the future of newspapers, it seems appropriate that the dateline should have the word “hope” in it.
As your hometown publishers ramble across the Midwest and parts of Canada on a working vacation with its destination the annual Western Writers of America conference, it’s only natural that thoughts might turn to the future of newspapers.
Our industry, well equipped at telling the stories of fires, floods and foreclosures, reports vigorously when the changing tides of our business result in a closure—and then wonders why new blood isn’t flocking to become journalists.
Last week was a tough one for those of us in the industry. The Ozona Stockman announced an end to its 131-year history. Crockett County, population 3,068, about an hour and a half south of San Angelo, joins the list of what’s known as a “news desert,” a county without a newspaper.
Poytner, the nonprofit media institute, reports that across the U.S on the average two newspapers a week close.
But those of us on the front lines are here to report that for every newspaper closing, there’s another one reinventing itself for the long haul—from Marfa’s Big Bend Sentinel, which has a bar with a liquor license in its newspaper lobby, to the Westhope Standard, whose sign on its front window proclaims “News and Brews.”
On a Saturday afternoon, we stopped into the combination newspaper and coffee shop, six miles south of the Canadian border.
Jaidyn, our barista, gave us the scoop on the newspaper’s backstory. The owner had been looking to open a coffee shop in Westhope and wasn’t able to find a location, but when the newspaper came up for sale in 2020, he had an inspiration to buy it and continue both.
In September 2020 The Standard News and Brews opened in the same building on Main Street where the newspaper has been published since 1903.
People have always started their day with a cup of joe and the newspaper, but at The Standard in Westhope, people can start with a cup of joe at the newspaper.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
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