Missouri’s local news is under pressure — and still essential

In rapid succession this year, the Washington Post laid off half its newsroom, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut 15% of its staff and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced it would close in May.

What’s perhaps most alarming is that the collapse of major newspapers no longer arrives as a civic emergency. It’s become routine.

Journalism is the immune system of democracy. When it weakens, corruption lasts longer. Abuse of power goes unchecked. Public money disappears more easily. When reporters vanish, so do public records requests, accountability stories and the quiet, grinding work of telling citizens what’s being done in their name.

It’s tempting for Missourians to see this as someone else’s problem. But the same forces are reshaping newsrooms across the state.

In the past few years, Missouri has quietly lost newspapers that once served as connective tissue in their communities. The Nodaway News Leader and Oregon Times Observer closed last year. The Bland Courier is gone. The North Missourian — more than 150 years old — shut down. The Monett Times ceased publication and merged with a neighboring paper. The Riverfront Times, once a loud, scrappy alternative voice in St. Louis, was effectively erased.

Many of the newsrooms that remain have been hollowed out. The Springfield News-Leader has two reporters. The Columbia Daily Tribune has one.

In December, two major changes rattled Missouri journalism in very different ways.

The Jefferson City News-Tribune was acquired by Scott Faughn, a politically connected publisher with a long and controversial history in state politics. The paper has a robust staff producing award-winning journalism, and Faughn said all the right things when he announced the takeover. Hopefully he lives up to those words, though his track record gives reason for caution.

Whatever one thinks of Faughn, the arrangement raises an obvious concern: Can a newspaper maintain its independence when its owner is so entangled in the political culture it is meant to scrutinize?

In St. Louis, billionaire businessman David Hoffmann bought a controlling interest in Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based company that owns the Post-Dispatch. He’s been candid about what drew him into newspapers.

After his ventures in hotels and Missouri wine ran into headwinds, Hoffmann said he grew frustrated with how some media outlets covered his projects. He says the Post-Dispatch is “a little too left,” that it should be “in the middle” and that journalism should promote the community rather than “tear it down.”

He has promised accuracy, credibility and investment, not layoffs. Maybe he delivers. But recent history — see the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post example from above — offers little reason to assume billionaire ownership is a safeguard for independent journalism.

Despite its challenges, Missouri journalism is still bristling with life.

The Kansas City Beacon launched in 2020. The Excelsior Citizen launched a year later. The Trenton Telegraph, Chariton Marquee, Phelps County Focus, LakeExpo.com and Springfield Daily Citizen have all joined the Missouri Press Association in recent years.

And I’d be remiss not to mention The Missouri Independent, which launched in October 2020 and, with reader support, has grown into a six-person newsroom.

Which brings us to the unavoidable question: Why should anyone who isn’t a journalist care about any of this?

Because this is not just a story about layoffs, closures or ownership changes. It is a story about whether communities still have independent institutions capable of holding the powerful accountable.

A free press is not “free” because it costs nothing. It is free because it is independent of the people it is supposed to cover. And when that independence erodes — through closures, cuts or capture — democracy erodes with it.