Despite what new owners and the economy have done to the WTE, residents should ride to its rescue

NOTE: For the sake of transparency, we note that the author of this post was laid off from his position at the Wyoming Tribune Eagle by Adams Publishing Group on June 20, 2016. It was the first of many cuts made by APG to Cheyenne’s long-time local daily paper.)

BY D. REED ECKHARDT

         It came as no surprise in this corner when The Wyoming Tribune Eagle announced last Friday that there will no longer be a Tuesday edition of the paper, starting June 2.
As far back as 2010, there were discussions among the then-WTE management team (which included myself as executive editor) that the Monday and Tuesday paper might be discarded since they weren’t making

The WTE sits at 702 W. Lincolnway in downtown Cheyenne.

any profit. The proposal was rejected at the time, but when the new owners bought the WTE in the fall of 2015, it was pretty certain the Monday edition was headed for the dustbin of Cheyenne’s long-storied newspaper history.
And sure enough, on Sept 15, 2018, the paper’s new owners, Adams Publishing Group, followed through. Now Tuesday has been placed on the chopping block, and I fear this is not going to be the end. The Thursday paper also is not a money-maker — or at least it wasn’t when I was there — and many other papers across the nation have ditched that day of publication as well.
        I told a friend a year ago that the Tuesday paper was not long for this world. Mark my words, given the negative impact on advertising revenue of COVID-19, the Thursday edition will be next, and the city will have just a four-day paper when, less than five years ago, subscribers could get one every morning, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
        Much of this backsliding in the commitment to local news can be laid firmly at the feet of APG. The owners already have reduced staff hours due to the pandemic — they easily could have waited for federal help instead — with more of that to follow. In the end, APG, like so many owners of local newspapers these days, is focused first and foremost on the bottom line, and it will do what it has to do to fill the pockets of its stockholders.
        Indeed, the commitment to the production of local news at the WTE is so far secondary to what it was a under the previous McCraken regime as to be unrecognizable. That McCraken family reduced its own dividends on more than one occasion to maintain the high quality of news it was producing. If you think APG is going to even consider doing that, I’d like to sell you ownership of the Union Pacific overpass on Central Avenue.
        Additionally, this situation provides APG with a prime union-breaking opportunity. A newly formed union was just getting on its feet in the WTE newsroom when the pandemic hit. That APG will try to use this as a tool to break that up is a given. You probably can expect layoffs as well — further reducing the local news output — as Cheyenne and the rest of the nation emerge from the current pandemic.
        But to be fair, this is not only about the financial priorities of Cheyenne’s carpetbagging owners. Local newspapers have been hammered for most of the 2000s, leaving the industry struggling just to stay afloat.
        While a vast majority of residents think their local papers are doing well financially (about 70 percent nationally in a recent Pew poll), the truth is that local news has been devastated by the moving of advertising away from the print newspaper and toward other platforms. And unfortunately, the dream of replacing lost print revenue with digital never has materialized. Instead, that has been swallowed up by the digital giants Google and Facebook.
        In all, 1,800 American newspapers have closed since 2004, and the number of working journalists has been reduced from 114,000 in 2008 to just 88,000. It has been even worse for newspapers — their newsrooms have shrunk from 71,000 in 2008 to 35,000 by 2019.
        It easy to see the impacts of such shrinkage, And that news is not good for Americans who used to rely on their newspapers for the information they needed not only to live their lives but to serve as active participants in the American democratic experiment. There now is less

overall local news and even less coverage of local government, leaving citizens in the dark and allowing public officials to run rampant. The in-depth reporting, whether investigative or just providing deeper context to the local world around us, is almost a thing of the past.
        Consider that the WTE is trying to do with a staff of about a dozen what at one time took the work of 30 in the newsroom. The current staff can barely cover the daily news much less do investigations or the kind of projects that the WTE used to undertake. A year-long look at the potential impacts of a local fracking boom that was done “back then” will never be seen again in Cheyenne.
        And all readers are worse of for it despite foolish chants by some on the far right that they can’t wait for the so-called Mainstream Media to fade away. Those are based on the kind of ignorance that seems to be treasured by too many Americans today. These people won’t even know what they will have lost until it is gone.
        But those who understand the meaning of local papers and their roles as government watchdogs and seekers of truth already can see the negative implications of it all. The Founding Fathers knew the value of their local newspapers, and they enshrined them in the First Amendment. Now those papers are mere shadows of their former selves.
        It pains me to say this, given my personal history with APG, but now is the time for all good Cheyenne residents to come to the aid of their newspaper, which has been at the center of the community for nearly as long as Wyoming has been a state.
        If you are not a subscriber, I am asking that you step forward and plunk down your $10 or so a month to provide the support that will be needed to keep the WTE running at even its current minimalist level. If you are a subscriber, your paper is seeking donations to strengthen its local journalism efforts. If you have a little bit extra and you appreciate the efforts of the young but determined staff, I suggest you donate.
        True, I cannot guarantee that APG won’t just pocket the money and run off to its home office with it. But I can guarantee that if you don’t reach out, you’ll have a lesser local newspaper by year’s end, and maybe a whole lot less after that.

        D. Reed Eckhardt is the former executive editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. If you are interested in learning more about the pressures on local newspapers, he suggests you listen to the “After the Fact” podcast produced by the Pew Charitable Trusts. A three-part series on local papers lasts about an hour in total.