Eugene, Or – Since the internet became a reality, newspapers around the country have been dropping like flies. With advertisers completely moving online, local newspapers have been declining, even sports media giant Sports Illustrated closed its doors for good last week. Because of the change, nearly a third of newspapers in the U.S. have closed since 2005, forcing hundreds of communities to get news from the closest metro city.

Noel Nash is the owner and publisher of Southern Willamette Valley newspaper, The Chronicle. Nash has spent over 40 years working within the newspaper industry. He was the Sports Editor for the Gainesville Sun and then for the Dallas Morning News. ESPN saw his clear knack for communicating with a large audience and hired him as the Vice President of ESPN’s Stats & Information Group. Nash worked in the largest possible environment with the highest stakes, revolutionizing the way sports statistics are broadcast around the world. 

This type of large-scale work made him curious about deconstructing what he had learned about reporting to cover and focus on a small community. After 12 years at ESPN, Nash left for something he hoped would make an even larger impact. He bought The Chronicle. 

The former vice president in corporate America bought the newspaper with a vision of a nonpartisan paper that cares about building up and covering the community. Shining a light on local businesses and nonprofits through a hyper-local focus. 

A hyper-local focus is a term Nash came up with himself. He defined it by first asking the question: “What is local? We go even deeper locally, we don’t just cover local news, which could be anything,” Nash said. “No, we’re hyper-local. We go into the neighborhoods, we cover Springfield, Creswell, Cottage Grove, and Pleasant Hill. Communities that have no other coverage, that no one else is covering.”

Researchers at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University completed a study in 2023 that showed 2.5 local newspapers close per week and more than half of US counties are without a weekly newspaper like The Chronicle. 

“Medill’s modeling estimates that 228 counties are at an elevated risk of becoming news deserts in the next five years.” A news desert is a community that is not covered by an online or physical newspaper. The losses and dangers that come with losing an unbiased source of information can lead to issues as large as loss of accountability among public officials. And the losses to keeping a record of community member’s accomplishments, tragedies, disasters, high school sports, and more. These issues are happening most in rural, high-poverty areas, with a large population of people of color. 

Steve Rader is a prime example of why a hyper-local newspaper is important. He told PBS’ Judy Woodruff, about a wildfire that burned 12 sections of his ranch, including his equipment and 85 cows. The hyper-local paper ran a story, documenting what the fire had done to the community and specifically Rader. Within a few weeks, people from all around the country had donated hay, equipment, and even cows to help him and his family get back on their feet. “If the paper hadn’t told about it nobody would have known. And people responded. People from all over the country.” 

“That paper was a part of our life,” Rader said when describing the loss of his local newspaper. “It’s almost like a death in the family.”