Make things better for herself . Guest that is a hard question. I think having an open mind to what kinds of jobs they will pursue. He talked about before women are paid categorically less than male professions even with the same skills and experience. If you can think about going into one of those fields that are dominated by men, you will have a chance to make a higher salary. I would say that is something to think about. Host i found this to be a fascinating book what do you agree or disagree it starts an important conversation about working women in america. I really enjoyed this conversation. Guest i did as well. Host good thank you. Guest ing what means this . Yes. Well, thats a Police Blotter item from a small newspaper in colorado, and the town is egnar. And they wanted range but that was taken. So they spelled it backwards which gives you an idea about the town. And there was a rancher raising emus, but his neighbors didnt know about this and they got out. Of course, the Police Dispatcher was getting call after call about these prehistoriclooking creatures. People either called the sheriff, or they stopped drinking. That was the answer to that. [laughter] but big stores from small towns, this is emblematic. The Police Blotter item is one part of what makes local newspapers so charming. Host well the first sentence in your book is, this just in, journalism is not dead. Guest thats right. I was so sick of sitting on panels about is journalism dead, and what about the Business Model and this huge digital revolution that were going through, which is actually a very exciting time. But i wondered about the weeklies out there the kind of papers i grew up with, the kind of paper i started on, how are they doing . I thought i better get this while the gettings good, because theyre probably going to go out of business too. And i found the opposite. About 10,000 weekly newspapers with populations under 30,000, say were thriving. They werent just surviving, they were thriving. And the reason is people couldnt get that news anywhere else. They covered that town, and you cant find out whos marrying who, whos dying whos doing what, what the mayors up to, is he corrupt or is he not. Anywhere else but that paper. Host and are they still printing that, or is it online. Guest both. Most of them are making it over to the online side too. They do both, generally, and its a subscription. And people are willing to pay lets say 20 a year to get the news from their hometown. They can look it up and see whats happening even though they may be far away have moved away, but its one way to keep in touch. And so the advertising, the legal ads are still important. If municipalities take away the legal advertising, which is such a sharp important funding for these papers, and go online wit that could be a problem. But so far theyre doing quite well. Now, when i say quite well, i mean you can make a living and live in a nice place, the town you want to live in. Your not going to get youre not going to get rich, but thats quite well these days with journalism. Host youre not going to get rich as the owner of one of these locals. Guest not really. Especially if its not a chain, you know . Generally, chains that have little local outlets arent as invested in the journalism. Theyre more invested in the ads. And the coupons and that kind of thing. But i went around the country interviewing editors and reporters, which is often the same thing. Its often a one or two or threeman newsroom and woman. And i was so impressed with the passion they bring to this, the standards, the ethics. They do it under tremendously tough pressures. Its hard to report on your neighbors, you know . Its one thing for me to report on people in los angeles around the world, but when the guy lives next door to you and doesnt like what you said even though its the truth that comes back to you at the Grocery Store in the checkout line when people are giving you the cold shoulder, you know . One thing that i found is the people who do best are people who are married, happily married, and can go home to somebody at night and share some of these woes with it can be very lonely if youre a purr i suerover pursuer of truth and youre alone in a town. Host if you are a pursuer of truth in a small town and how many punches do you pull . Guest well, thats theres a range of ways to do this. Some people bury the lead. I remember in my little hometown in norwood colorado where i go in the summers there was an item about a Town Council Meeting in which a lot of people showed up to protest this new cop they hired. Pulling over dui stops and they came to protest. And at very end of the article there was one quote, and it said the mayor admonished people that if they were going to come to Town Council Meetings they had to not with inebriated next time. That would be the lead anywhere else. The bunch of drunks came to protest the new dui pressures. You have to read these things a little bit like the dead sea scrolls. You have to know how to translate. There are some very, very brave editors and theres a courage in Journalism Award that the university of kentucky awards and i visited a couple of those places. Shes amazing, and shes had gunshots fired at her windows because she has taken on strong stands. Her own brother, who is a city official yes, thats lori stopped talking to her for a year because she took him to task for violating sunshine laws open Public Meetings act. So, you know, thats a tough, tough woman. And shes one of my heroes. On other end of the spectrum are what i call chamber of commerce kinds of go along to get along editors. And i dont know how many of those there are, but in lake woe be gone the fictional place that Garrison Keillor created, the name of the local editors harold starr, and he is the editor of the herald star and his quote on the mass haled is, hey i have to live here too. [laughter] that would be the other extreme you know . Im not going to say anything that rocks the boat. Host are these small town newspapers attracting recent journalist students . Guest i dont think so. Host recent grads . Guest but i wish they were. I push it here at usc and, of course uscs in the city and our student sos tend to have more students tend to be more metro metropolitan, and i teach broadcast so thats different too. But this is a great opportunity for young journalists who want to really make a difference and have an impact. One reporter editor i met hes now in new mexico and now owns the Guadalupe County communicator, he was one of the Rocky Mountain news biggest correspondents. And the rocky bit the dust, like so many newspapers are. When that happened he went around and sort of kicked the tires on various papers in new mexico because thats where he wanted to live and where hes from, and he found this paper. And he has he wins all the awards every year in new mexico. The papers amazing. He he brought along a photographer and an editorial cartoonist. I mean, this town didnt know what hit them this quality paper, all of a sudden. And he stuck with it. I think this is now ten years hes been there. Its hard. He sometimes hand delivers to mailboxes. Hes everything. Whats the subscription size of a small town newspaper . Are they getting 50 percent of the town . Are they getting 30 percent of the town . Guest it depends. Lori brown in the panhandle of texas, people line up on the day that the paper comes from the printer. Theres a she has a flag out. She puts a green flag out its the papers here and people line up. Now, i think thats unusual. Its such a good paper. But people buy it at the local store, you know for 25 cents. As i said, subscriptions dont really pay the freight here. Its ads. Its legal ads. Thats a what sometimes you can get a patron which helps. Host young people, are they subscribing to these local papers or is it the older population . Guest oh, i think young people subscribe to them because ive often said as long as there are refrigerator magnets, there will be local papers. If you were the High School Quarterback star of the Football Team and your pictures on the front page with the winning touchdown at the state championships, youre going to clip that out and put it on the refrigerator. So i think as long as its about you, its going to survive. And thats what local papers are theyre all about you who live in this town. Host judy mull muller what do you teach here at usc . Guest i teach broadcast journalism at the annenberg school. I was a correspondent for abc news for 15 years and before that cbs news. So my background is primarily in broadcast, radio and television. But before that my very first journalism job was at a small weekly newspaper in new jersey where i really, i really got hooked. I mean, we were, we thought we were just so great. There were three of us, and we were all in our 20s and we would take on the mayor. Now, in new jersey there are a few more kind of crooked politicians than most places, or there used to be. [laughter] and so it was kind of easy pickings. But we would write editorials and commentaries, and wed go out, and we were crusaders. It really was fun and ive never forgotten that feeling. And thats i just love local papers. Host have these local papers become chains . Guest some of them have. And to survive some of them have. The ones that have been in the family passed down from father to son or daughter, they have a certain amount of pride of ownership thats very important to them. The chain its a little bit more difficult because your publisher may live in another town. So when you get an ethical dilemma and they come up all the time and you try to get ahold of him or her and try to get an answer, it can be tough. And i think that thats why they had these state press conventions. And these are the folks who come to those. I mean, they just love those conventions because everybody shares their woes, what would you do in the situation what did you do because it isnt such a handson deal with the publisher in those chains. And theyre kind of proud. They dont always want to reach out to find out what they should do. A lot of them dont have journalism training, its onthejob training. So, you know, its really a potpourri of all kinds of ownership and standards. I tried to visit a whole range of things. But i just fell in love with so many of these papers and the people the curmudgeons and the characters really who run them. You have to be really tough. You have to have a lot of grit. And they are tough. Theyd say, well, you know, thats very nice. You come and do a story about us but you can only come on thursdays and fridays because were busy the rest of the week reporting, and they are. You have to come folding newspapers and getting them out and putting the coupons for the Grocery Store inside. And thats still people unfolding, you know, those kinds of things. And friday is their day off. And to give me the time talk to me on their one day off some of them dont even take christmas week off. Its a tough go. You have to love it. Host whats one of the families that have passed down their newspaper from generation to generation that impressed you . Guest well, lori uzell her father hand down to her, and he started that paper in texas in the 40s. But the family, i think that really stands out is the beacon, is the gish family in kentucky. They started the mountain eagle actually, they bought a paper called the mountain eagle ben gish and his wife, back in the 30s or 40s. And they changed the slogan on the masthead to the mountain eagle, it screams. And this is coal country, and they took on poverty they took on abuse by the Coal Companies against the miners. Their offices were burned down at one point, turned out that it was a local cop whod been hired by one of the coal guys to burn the office down. And he was so proud of this, he went around with a vanity plate that said eagle burner. And the family got the paper out next week anyway even though their offices were in ashes. They did it from their home, and the masthead that week read the mountain eagle, it still screams. And its just such a triumph. They are the ones who brought attention to the poverty in the area that brought down homer biggert from the New York Times who came down and wrote a whole series. First, he read this stuff and thought, oh, they have to be exaggerating. And he went down, and he said if anything, theyre underplaying the horror to down here in these hills. And that led to Lyndon Johnsons war on poverty. So it started with the mountain eagle. I just love that story. Host judy muller, the New York Times for a long time owned a lot of smaller papers. Did they get down into the into the local weeklies . Guest i dont know. No, i dont think so now. I really didnt look at that, so i really looked more at infeint weeklies. There are independent weeklies. There are a couple like the one in my hometown norwood, colorado that is owned by something of a chain. He owns three papers including one in telluride which is just up the river from us. We like to think were telluride adjacent but our town is just a thousand people. And theyre the people who work in telluride or ranchers. And so our paper kind of, it kind of became the taco in the taco shell of the bigger paper in telluride. Oh and by the way heres whats going on in norwood, you know . And thats too bad because id love to see a more thriving paper come back. Host but if youre in a town like telluride colorado, and ranching and skiing is the livelihood of your area, what kind of pressures do these publishers face not to report negative stories about this industry . Guest thats a very good question. I talked they werent really highlighted in my book because the resort town to me didnt really fit my definition of small towns but i wanted to find that question out and i asked Marta Tarbell who was then the owner and editor of one of the bigger its a daily in telluride. And she said, she was trained in new york. Her husband had worked for the village voice, and they were you know, hard core journalists. They came to telluride, and what they found out was that you bend your rules a little bit. We are taught never you dont read your article or let the person see the article before its published as though they want to apave it. But approve it. But just to relax people a little bit and get them to trust you, you might say look, im going to write this up, and you can take a look and make sure your quotes are accurate. People would see themselves in print and go, oh, i didnt say that even though you might have proof they did. You just wouldnt get that go down that road. But in a small town, it makes a big difference. The ski industry and real estate is its a tough one because all your friends, again its the people who live next door to you are working at the ski area, they are working in real estate, and their livelihoods depend on this. And if you write negative things about those industries, it can come back at ya. Those people were happily married, luckily. [laughter] to each other and, you know theyd come home and have somebody to complain about. Host and we have got a rather famous journalistic name dont they . Tarbelle . Guest i dont know if shes i never asked that. Ill have to ask her. They sold the paper. I think theyd kind of had it. But they did a good job for a long time. And now its part of a group. Host well we kicked off this conversation, and the first thing you said was i think the digital revolution is wonderful. Why is that . Guest oh i think this is the most exciting time. Even though people say oh, its got to be the worst time to be a newspaper reporter that may be true unless your youre trained for whats coming and thats what were doing here at annenberg, if i may put in a plug. Our students do everything, they shoot the thing, they edit, they can do audio, they can write according to the great old standards that we believe in that we think makes this a professional school. They learn social media so that they know how to interact with their readership in a much more real way. So i think its a very exciting time to watch old model blow up and see whats going to settle and whether the cream will rise to the top as people demand good journalism, and they will. Where will they go and what will it look like . The New York Times has done a very good job with their web site. Once they figured out we better get people to pay for this, you know we cant pay our reporters once they went behind the pay wall it made sense. But i think that this is as big or bigger than what happened to the world when the Guttenberg Printing press cape out. Came out. The internet is equally or more as life changing to press and information and democracy. I mean, look what its doing around the world. The arab spring wouldnt have happened without social media and people out there with cameras and reporting has just become a whole different, you know animal. Host so in a sense these oneman bands that youre training are the same oneman bands that are running these local