Where Newspapers Thrive

By: Judy Muller | Los Angeles Times

We've been hearing a lot of depressing news in recent years about the dire financial prospects for big daily newspapers, including the one you're now holding. Or watching. Or, in the argot of the digital age, "experiencing."

But at the risk of sounding like I'm whistling past the graveyard, I'd like to point out that there are thousands of newspapers that are not just surviving but thriving. Some 8,000 weekly papers still hit the front porches and mailboxes in small towns across America every week and, for some reason, they've been left out of the conversation. So a couple of years ago, I decided to head back to my roots, both geographic and professional (my first job was at a weekly), to see how those community papers were faring. And what I found was both surprising and inspiring.