Big Publishers Gobble Up Local Newspapers
Big Island Press Club’s Torch of Light Luncheon honoring Julia Neal at Pāhala Plantation House.
Photo by Laila Moiré-Selvage
Local newspapers’ success could depend on non-profit publishers versus bottom-line operating styles and internet competition
By Laura Stocker
Editor’s Note: Kaʻū News is a 501 (c) (3) (status pending) newspaper that covers the entire Kaʻū District of Hawaiʻi Island.
“Doesn’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone? They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot,” songwriter Joni Mitchell sang. The sentiment in her song highlighted the idea that people don’t appreciate what they have until it’s forever lost. Mitchell’s lyrics initially made a lot of sense to people who saw their environment vanishing in favor of malls with expansive parking lots, and their woods and green spaces lost to suburban housing developments — concrete deserts.
That’s essentially what’s been happening in an insidious way to local newspapers for a long time, too, particularly smaller publications. Many newspaper readers only started noticing these so-called news deserts in the last few decades. However, it’s been happening for much longer.
The Media Barons’ goal today is to prioritize maximizing a return on their investments and assets in their diverse portfolios. It was the opposite when Adolph Ochs bought and saved The New York Times in 1896. Surely, he wanted to make money. But he swam against that profit-based priority and sensationalized yellow-journalism style of newspaper publishing by making The Times’ commitment to reporting the news impartially. He put editorial independence ahead of profits. The Times’ new motto became “All the news that’s fit to print.” It first appeared on the editorial page in October 1896 and was moved to the front page in February 1897.
According to the Institute for Quantitative Social Science’s “The Future of Media Project” at Harvard University (published in 2025), the News Media Alliance counted 672 major daily newspapers in this country, more than half (382) are owned by fewer parent companies, including the seven largest. According to the American Journalism Project, 3,300 newspapers are closed; 1,800 communities have no local newsroom, and only 40 percent of journalism jobs still exist.
The seven major owners of daily newspapers today in the United States are Advance Local Publications (22 dailies), Alden Global Capital Venture Capital– owner of Digital First Media (56 dailies), Chatham Asset Management owner of McClatchey and Canada’s Post Media newspapers (30 dailies), Gannett Company Inc.* (250 dailies), Hearst (23 dailies), Lee Enterprises (90 dailies) and the Tribune Company (10 dailies).
Perhaps an even more important encroachment on broadsheet newspapers today is the advent of the internet. Long-time journalist and former editor of Hawaiʻi Island Journal Peter Serafin says, “The desire for local news is as strong as ever, but few people under 50 read live-streaming.”
One positive example of online news, Serafin said, is that people can get updates on whatever is going on in real time. Another is that often there are links in those updates to previous stories at readers’ fingertips to put new information into context. And with a Hawaii Public Library card, anyone can have full access to The New York Times and many other newspapers.
There is also a downside to the new technology, Serafin added, “That old model that’s worked for 300 years doesn’t work anymore, but where is it going? There’s a permanence to ink on paper or taking notes by hand. You can retain these notes. Retention is better. I think kids, millennials, understand that.”
Nancy Cook Lauer had a 30-plus career as a newspaper reporter, editor, and bureau chief in Florida and Hawaiʻi. Today, she is an advisor for the publications staff at the University of Hawaiʻi-Hilo.
Cook Lauer retired from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in late 2022, after it was bought by O’ahu Publications Inc. The new publisher, she said, laid off many employees, mainly in production, but left reporters and editors in place for a time. “I decided to retire because I was very frustrated by the publisher,” she said. “We were never given any resources we were promised.”
The editorial staff at the Hawaiʻi Tribune-Herald was reduced from five to two and today has three reporters, Cook Lauer said. West Hawaiʻi Today had three-plus photographers, but none today, and only one sports reporter. A glance at the front pages of those papers often is identical except for the mastheads. “I think it’s a sign of the times. When you own the means of transitions, you own the market. Instead of having journalists, you have non-journalists looking at the bottom line. Non-profit news is coming (and) it’s the successful business model to keep news local.”
Cook Lauer expects that with the costs of paper and every other aspect of print newspapers rising, online news media is coming into its own. “In my opinion, newspapers were very slow in adapting to that model – not giving away content for free,” she said. “They resisted putting stories online because they couldn’t monetize them.”
Another aspect of the new technology of news reporting is reliability, truth, and reliable sources. It’s sometimes hard to tell if a purported “news” story in a blog without attribution, for example, is gossip or reliable facts. “Depending on the swing back to valid news sources, people will get back to real news sources,” Cook Lauer said. “Generally, it’s going back to non-profits.”
The first major daily newspaper in the United States to make the change to non-profit was The Salt Lake Tribune in 2019.
Amy Pyle, executive editor-in-chief of Honolulu Civil Beat, knows about the problem facing newspapers, but says it’s more than a corporate or community news problem. To ensure that the concept of self-government outlined in The United States Constitution remains a reality into future centuries, the founders guaranteed that Americans must be well informed to make decisions that affect their lives, and their local and national communities. “It’s a problem,” Pyle said. “A problem, not for the papers, but for democracy.” About local news reporting, she added, “People trust local news more than national news. People said they are really engaged in local news.”
But the fact is that big-fish publishing companies have worked to monopolize smaller, less powerful newspaper publishers since the second half of the 20th century. It came about in stages that started in the early 1900s with founders of urban newspapers, including The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, whose publishers put the competition out of business. By mid-century, corporate newspaper managers, including Gannett, McClatchey and Knight-Ridder, made the transition into the second stage by moving into smaller publications to build large newspaper chains.
The New York Times cited a 1976 report by the newspaper trade magazine Editor and Publisher that ownership of 72 daily newspapers changed hands, compared with 49 the year before.
The current stage began in the last decade of the 20th century when investment entities run by financial portfolio managers (AKA media barons) made “newspaper groups.” Although real reporters and editorial staff work for these publications, few of their bosses are or have been journalists and don’t share journalism’s traditional mission – to provide accurate, comprehensive, timely, and understandable information. Pyle cited numbers from the American Journalism Project (one of the funders for Honolulu Civil Beats’ expansion): 3,300 newspapers have closed; 1,800 communities were left without a newsroom; and 60 percent of newsroom jobs no longer exist.
Honolulu Civil Beat polled about 1,500 Hawaiʻi and Kauaʻi residents in Summer 2025 about how they receive news. More Big Island residents who responded in the poll said they trusted local news more than news (daily) from the national level. Participants in the survey said they seek the news for knowledge (90%) and to understand the news (70%), but said they currently were only getting 64% knowledge and only 14% understanding presently from available news sources. Kaʻū News reports exclusively about the Kaʻū District, people associated with it and other areas that have an impact on Kaʻū.
As the world changes, means of communication are evolving, and local newspapers all over the country are striving to maintain footholds in their communities by steadfast presence and timely reporting.
As a local non-profit newsroom, Honolulu Civil Beat has one mission, “to cultivate an informed body of citizens, all striving to make Hawaiʻi a better place to live,” Pyle said when she addressed the Big Island Press Club’s Torch of Light Luncheon honoring the late Julia Neal on Dec. 13. “We’ve been doing that work... through deep, investigative reporting, thoughtful analysis, and stories that hold power accountable.”
After years of focus at the Capitol and reporting on the folks who make decisions for Hawaiʻi’s residents, Honolulu Civil Beat is shifting to a grassroots approach to include statewide coverage, “every island, every community, every voice,” Pyle said. That includes listening first, reporting second and meeting people where they are – in markets, community halls, the paper’s pop-up newsrooms, and people’s kitchen tables.
The fate of newspapers isn’t set in stone yet. But one thing is clear – readers are hungry to know and to understand what’s happening in their hometowns, states, the country and the world. And non-profit newspapers that emphasize news reporting first, not the bottom line, might be the best way for readers to keep themselves informed.
The Society of Professional Journalists’ mission that every journalist aims to follow when reporting the news:
Promote this flow of information.
Maintain constant vigilance in protection of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press.
Stimulate high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism.
Foster excellence among journalists.
Inspire successive generations of talented individuals to become dedicated journalists.
Encourage diversity in journalism.
Be the pre-eminent, broad-based membership organization for journalists.
Encourage a climate in which journalism can be practiced freely.
Questions? Comments? Email Kaʻū News at Aloha@KauNewsHawaii.org
