JUDY WOODRUFF: The past couple
of weeks are showing once
again just how tough the news

business is right now,
with layoffs by digital
upstarts and by the
country's largest newspaper

chain, Gannett.

BuzzFeed laid off 15 percent of
its staff, while The Huffington
Post and Yahoo News cut

hundreds of jobs under
their new owner, Verizon.

Many in the field are more
worried that a hedge fund-backed
group known for gutting

newsrooms might buy Gannett.

That would potentially
be an even bigger hit to
local coverage nationwide.

All of this has led to
the growth of so-called
news deserts, places
where there's limited

access to news outlets.

For a look at the fallout
from all this, we're joined
now by Steve Cavendish.

He's editor of The
Nashville Banner.

That's a nonprofit news start-up
that he's in the process of
relaunching after the paper

by the same name folded in 1998.

And Penny Abernathy of
the University of North
Carolina, she's written
a major report about

the shrinking of local
news organizations and
how it increases our
country's political

polarization.

Welcome to both of you.

Thank you for joining us.

Steve Cavendish, I'm
going to start with you.

You wrote the other day that
what's going on right now for
journalists is a bloodbath.

Is it really that bad?

STEVE CAVENDISH, Editor, The
Nashville Banner: Well, it has
been over a long period of time.

It's over the last -- over the
last couple of decades, we have
seen journalism jobs around

the country being cleaved off at
a rate like either coal miners
or steelworkers or fishermen.

And those are not what you
would call thriving industries.

Journalism has had revenue
problems for years,
and we're starting to
see, as print is really

sort of -- is sort of wiped
out, that the conversion over
to digital for many of these

properties, many of these
newspapers just isn't the same.

And so we're seeing with
it a lot of jobs lost.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Penny Abernathy,
you agree it's that bad,
and, if so, what's driving

this?

PENNY ABERNATHY, University of
North Carolina: Well, I think
there are two things we need

to look at.

One is the total loss of
newspapers, because newspapers
are often the prime, if not the

sole source of news and
information, especially in
small and mid-sized communities.

So, over the last
decade-and-a-half, we
have seen 1,800 newspapers
disappear off the landscape

of the U.S.

But there's also the equally
troubling situation that we have
with the surviving newspapers,

where we have lost more
than half of the newspaper
newsroom journalists
that we had just in 2008.

We're calling that the rise
of the ghost newspaper,
in which papers are
basically shells of their

former selves.

And, as Steve suggests,
it's being driven by
a couple of things.

One is the rapid decline
of advertising, especially
print advertising, and
the inability of news

organizations to make up
for that in any kind of
digital revenue, be that
subscription revenue,

be that advertising revenue.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Steve Cavendish,
a lot of conversation about the
role of these organizations that

have become so powerful over the
last decade, Facebook, Google.

What is their role in all this?

STEVE CAVENDISH: Well, as
newspapers have tried to become
digital operations, and tried

to sell digital advertising,
the problem is that they get
into these markets, and Google

and Facebook have, between the
two of them, about 80 percent
of the digital ad market.

And so what's left pushes --
really pushes down on what
they can make as -- what you

can make as an organization.

And so the print dollars that
many news chains have walked
away from have been replaced by

digital dimes or
even digital pennies.

And that replacement is
reflected in the number of
jobs that have been lost.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Penny
Abernathy, what does that mean
for news consumers, people

who have counted on whether
it's a newspaper or something
else for news and information?

PENNY ABERNATHY: Well, it means
the rise of news deserts, in
which residents in communities,

hundreds of communities, even
thousands, in this country have
limited, very limited access

to the sort of news and
information that's been
the lifeblood of our
democracy, everything

from when and where to vote,
to topics such as education,
health, emergency and safety

information that we need.

The FCC put out in -- earlier
in this decade a list of eight
topics that they considered

to be critical information
needs for communities.

As we have looked at
newspapers and the content
that comes out of newspapers,
as well as digital

start-up sites, we often
find that some essential
information that we need
as citizens and just

residents to make wise
decisions, we don't
have access to anymore.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Steve
Cavendish, how do you see
that playing out in Tennessee?

What are people missing now?

STEVE CAVENDISH: Well, so,
take for example, The Nashville
Banner, which was the afternoon

paper here and where I got
my start in the early '90s,
was sold to the Gannett paper

here in town, The
Tennessean, and closed.

Well, they took about a
third of that newsroom
into and combined it
into The Tennessean's

staff.

So you had about
180 journalists.

That number is now less than 70.

And what does that mean?

It means that, you know,
large swathes of what
was once covered, of
courts, of institutions,

of major kind of stories
just don't get covered.

And it affects everything,
from the cover of health care,
which is a big industry here,

to high school
sports, to politics.

In the last set of elections
where you had a -- we had a
Senate and governor's race here

back in the fall, you had
basically one reporter
covering those races
each for Gannett-owned

dailies in three of the four
biggest markets in Tennessee.

And so you're seeing fewer and
fewer people covering things.

The statehouse reporting is kind
of a crisis across the country.

In Tennessee, there were 35
people covering the state
legislature and the government,

state government, at one
time about three decades ago.

That number is now 10,
and, really, a couple of
those are specialists.

So you only have eight people
covering a $37 billion -- a
$37 billion state government

and the legislature.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we have
seen that in state after state.

And, Penny Abernathy, it's
so important for us to
highlight this, because,
here in Washington,

you look at, say, a presidential
news conference, and you
see a lot of journalists.

You don't get the sense,
looking at Washington, what has
happened around the country.

PENNY ABERNATHY: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But I
want to ask you something
you have pointed out.

And that's how all this
contributes to the political
polarization in the country.

How is that happening?

PENNY ABERNATHY: Well, one of
the things that we found through
our study of looking at where

people -- communities have lost
newspapers and where they are
living with severely diminished

newspapers is that it tends to
-- news deserts tend to coalesce
around areas that are much

poorer, much less well-educated,
and much older than other
types of communities.

That can be communities
that are middle --
inner-city neighborhoods.

That can be suburbs
around metro areas.

And it can be what we call the
flyover regions of the country,
the rural areas that are out

there.

I live in a -- what
you would call a news
desert, the Congressional
9th, where we still

do not have a House of
Representatives member because
of alleged voter fraud.

It is -- and it is a classic
news desert, where, in 20
years ago or so, you could have

gotten ample coverage of the
congressional race through
three different newspapers, the

Charlotte, the Raleigh and
the Fayetteville paper, and it
is -- there are no newspapers

that circulate in my county now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What
determines, quickly, Penny
Abernathy, whether this
is going to turn around

anytime soon?

PENNY ABERNATHY: Well, I'm
most optimistic that if you
have a publisher and an owner

in an area that has a good
economic foundation, that if the
publisher is both creative and

disciplined, that you
can turn it around.

We have seen several
examples of that.

Where I am most concerned is on
the low-income areas, which I
do not see a viable for-profit

economic model emerging.

And I'm hoping we can begin to
get media funders to begin to
look at these overlooked areas,

because it's critical
for our society.

It has political, social
and economic implications
that are long-term.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So
important to focus on this.

Penny Abernathy, Steve
Cavendish, thank you both.

STEVE CAVENDISH: Thanks, Judy.

PENNY ABERNATHY: Thank you.