How do you tell the story of a slow disaster happening in front of everyone’s eyes and still make the world sit up and take notice?
For reporters Dave Bauder and David Lieb, the answer was by focusing on the residents of one small town as they explained the death of local journalism in an authentic, vivid and compelling way.
For Waynesville, Missouri, the loss of its newspaper has meant there’s no one covering church picnics and youth sports triumphs, no outlet for the sheriff whose son died of a heroin overdose to refute whispers around town and rumors on Twitter. Bank workers can no longer scour the obituaries to prevent deceitful relatives from attempting to drain the accounts of the deceased, and as one prosecutor plainly put it, the only news the community hears about his office is positive.
It’s a story that’s happened repeatedly across the country, with 1,400 cities or towns losing newspapers in the last 15 years. The aftermath of the loss of the Daily Guide was richly told by a multiformat team of text, video and photo journalists as the centerpiece story for the AP’s Sunshine Week package on the decline of local news. Called “Fading Light,” the package succinctly captured the shroud of local news deprivation many communities face.
AP Media writer Bauder and Lieb, a member of the state government team based in Missouri’s capitol, spent several days in the Ozark hills community of Waynesville and its twin city, St. Robert, speaking to community members, former journalists and elected officials about the Daily Guide’s demise. They interviewed the one man trying to keep the towns informed, a former Guide reporter whose delivery method for news is Facebook. Denver video journalist Peter Banda and Kansas City photographer Orlin Wagner worked closely with them to shoot visuals, including of the shuttered Daily Guide offices and of residents describing what the loss of a local news outlet has meant for them. Alina Hartounian, the multiformat coordinator for the U.S. beat teams, used the materials to create social videos that drove readers to the story.
Lieb’s knowledge of Missouri’s newspaper landscape helped identify the community as a likely reporting target, and a daylong scouting trip laid the groundwork for the visit by the all-format reporting team. Lieb and Bauder set up a roundtable discussion with residents at the local library, where residents candidly discussed why they missed the paper, and in some instances the reasons they stopped supporting it. They worked together with Banda and Wagner so the stories worked across formats. Lieb’s analysis of statistics on the demise of local news outlets helped give the story a broader feel, as did reporting on the stark economics facing newspapers. Bauder also secured an interview with executives at the company that shuttered the Daily Guide.
Facebook blogger Darrell Todd Maurina speaks during an interview at his house in Waynesville, Mo., Feb. 20, 2019. Since the local newspaper folded last year, Maurina is virtually the only one reporting on local government. Maurina says journalists need to go back to the basics to survive in small-town America.
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
Pulaski County Sheriff Jimmy Bench stands outside city hall in Waynesville, Mo, Feb. 20, 2019. For painful, personal reasons, Bench wishes the Daily Guide was there to report on the December death of his 31-year-old son, Ryan, due to a heroin overdose. It would have been better than dealing with whispers and Twitter. “Social media is so cruel sometimes,” Bench said.
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
A reader displays a microfilm copy of the Daily Guide at the library in Waynesville, Mo., Feb. 20, 2019. The paper folded in September 2018.
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
Natalie Sanders speaks during an interview in St. Robert, Mo., Feb. 20, 2019. Sanders, the Daily Guide newspaper’s editor and last newsroom staffer, quit last June – she was burned out, she said. The final edition was published three months later, on Sept. 7. “It felt like an old friend died. ... I sat and I cried, I really did. Because being the editor of the Daily Guide was all I wanted for a really long time.”
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
Pulaski County Coroner Nick Pappas talks with a reporter at city hall in Waynesville, Mo., Feb. 20, 2019. Pappas said readers are more suspicious of news releases than they would be of a fully reported news story. Posting press releases to official Facebook pages isn’t quite the same.
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
The former Daily Guide office stands for sale in St. Robert, Mo., Feb. 19, 2019. With the shutdown of the newspaper in September 2018, this area in central Missouri's Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities across the United States to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University North Carolina.
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor, stands with the daily newspaper selection in the Park Library at the School of Journalism in Chapel Hill, N.C., March 7, 2019. “Strong newspapers have been good for democracy, and both educators and informers of a citizenry and its governing officials. They have been problem-solvers,” said Abernathy, who studies news industry trends and oversaw the “news desert” report released the previous fall.
AP Photo / Gerry Broome
A mural greets drivers along old Route 66 just before the square in Waynesville, Mo., March 6, 2019.
AP Photo / Orlin Wagner
The story received incredible attention and sparked discussion online. Bauder and Lieb’s text story has been viewed nearly 120,000 times with an average engagement time of nearly a minute and 20 seconds. Hartounian’s social videos have been viewed more than 109,000 times. It has landed on nearly 30 front pages so far, and has been cited in several influential newsletters, including Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources,” the Columbia Journalism Review and two mentions by Politico.
For masterful work shining a light on a problem that has left whole communities less informed, Bauder, Lieb, Banda, Wagner and Hartounian win AP’s Best of the Week award.