Vindicator closure a worrisome sign for community media

On a date when many in the journalism world focused on the newspaper merger in New Orleans that resulted in the loss of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, there was another development that hit me much closer to home.

The Youngstown Vindicator had just celebrated 150 years of operation. It was family operated. It had a union newsroom where reporters received reasonable salaries. It was active on digital platforms. Ownership was active in the publication, in fact, the owner was there nearly every day. The paper won many awards in statewide competitions. Yet, the Vindicator still closed.

I have a personal connection to The Vindicator having worked there early in my career in academia going from the newsroom to adjunct teaching and back during breaks in the calendar. Many people I consider friends lost found out they will no longer have jobs at the end of August.

The closing of the Vindicator means that a city of 65,000 in a county of about 240,000 people will have no daily newspaper. In a city that has a history of corruption, the media will be manned by two television stations with news programs.

Poynter brought up one of the more shocking elements of the closing. The Vindicator had been on the sale block of two years and no companies were willing to buy, even at a reduced price.

However, not everything in Youngstown is without hope. There have been conversations occurring on social media about potential options. There is some hope that the Warren Tribune-Chronicle will expand to provide more coverage of Youngstown and Mahoning County. This seems unlikely since recent weekend editions of the Vindicator had less than 10 inches of advertising.

Another option that has been proposed is the creation of a small web-based publication that is behind a hard paywall. I’m skeptical of this option because of the suggestion that all reporters are paid as contracted stringers.

Finally, there has been some mention about the creation of a non-profit publication possibly connected with Youngstown State University. While this may be a tenable option, unless a wealthy donor provides seed money there would be significant time with significantly reduced local news coverage in Youngstown until grant funding can be secured or smaller donations collected.

The Youngstown Press Club has gotten involved having a meeting about the future of Youngstown News. Yet, Vindicator Managing Editor Mark Sweetwood showed skepticism on his podcast about the meeting.

“The first thing I’d ask is how many of them are current Vindicator subscribers,” Sweetwood said.

Now as I head into the completion of a summer semester and prepare to teach students about the business of journalism, I find myself at a loss. How do I describe the demise of the Vindicator while still leaving students with hope?

The online conversation shows an interested in news in Youngstown. So maybe it’s possible that the loss of the Vindicator may provide us a guideline for how community news can evolve without any legacy models.

I’m rooting for Youngstown to find a model that will work. The people of the Mahoning Valley need watchdogs.