By Melissa Davlin

Happy December! We’re rounding out a busy year in Idaho journalism with celebrations, while gearing up for a busy few months at the Idaho Legislature.

Coming soon, be sure to watch your inbox for updates on our upcoming contest, as well as an invitation for the Idaho Press Club’s Legislative Preview Event, scheduled for Jan. 4th. For those who can’t make it to Boise, we’ll livestream the event through Idaho In Session. I’m moderating the event, so please feel free to e-mail or text me questions during the event, and I’ll relay them to our speakers. This year, we’ve invited Gov. Brad Little and legislative leadership, as well as the co-chairs of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee to explain upcoming changes to JFAC hearings, and to field any questions or concerns you may have about the process. 

Congratulations to former Idaho Press Club president Betsy Russell for receiving the Stimpson Award from the Boise City Club. Betsy received the award on Nov. 30th at the JUMP Center in Boise. Marcia Franklin of Idaho Public Television moderated the event, and former Attorney General Lawrence Wasden honored her with a speech. 

And congratulations to Kenton Bird on his retirement from the University of Idaho Journalism and Mass Media department. Kenton is retiring after nearly 25 years at UI, where he helped mentor many of Idaho’s current reporters. The school sent him off with a celebration on Dec. 4th at the ICCU Arena’s Alumni Lounge in Moscow. 

We hope you have a safe and happy holiday season! 
 
If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out. My e-mail is melissadavlin@gmail.com.

NOTE: This column first appeared in the Idaho Statesman on Nov. 9, 2023; it is reprinted here by permission.

You’d think that after 48 years and covering an estimated 1,000 City Council meetings, Mark Steele would take a break. 

But last week, even after he ceased operation of his weekly newspaper, the Caribou County Sun, Steele found himself at Soda Springs City Hall. 

“Believe it or not, I was driving past the City Council meeting the other night, the first meeting after we shut the newspaper down, and I pulled in there just to attend,” Steele told me in a phone interview. “You miss the knowledge of what’s going on and the habits that you’ve done all these years. You still want to be a part of the loop.” 

Oct. 26 was the final issue of the Caribou County Sun, owned by Mark and Wendy Steele, who were a young couple in their 20s when they bought the paper in their hometown 48 years ago. 

Steele, 74, told me revenues dropped 40% from 2019 to 2022, mostly from advertising, a combination of businesses closing during the Covid pandemic or cutting back on their advertising. Add in inflation, retiring staff and no buyers for the paper, and the time had come to close up shop. 

So what does the community lose when it loses its newspaper? 

“I think you become a town and not a community anymore,” Steele said. “I think that the print newspaper in a small town was this historical record. It was a place to go to find out the events of what was going on. And with that gone and not replaced, I think the community is not near as close, and then you become just another town.”

NATIONAL TREND 

Unfortunately, the closing of the Caribou County Sun is not an outlier. On average, since 2004, two newspapers have closed per week. That’s 2,500 closures, according to research from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. From 2019 to 2022, 360 newspapers closed, almost all of them weeklies. 

The result is what’s called “news deserts,” primarily in poorer and rural communities. 

Meanwhile, the Kuna Melba News, which started in 1982, will no longer exist as a newspaper title, as it’s being wrapped into the Meridian Press, which is rebranding as the Meridian-Kuna Press. The loss of the Kuna Melba News hits close to home, as my wife and I owned that weekly newspaper from 2006-11, which were among the most gratifying years of my journalistic career. 

The community loses something vital when it loses its newspaper. 

“I think a good newspaper is a community talking to itself, whether it’s letters to the editor, or the guy next door to you doesn’t like your editorial and comes over and tells you so,” Steele said. 

LOCAL WATCHDOG 

An even bigger loss is the loss of a watchdog on local government that just isn’t being replaced.

“Sometimes you hold the feet of officials to the fire, which in my opinion is all good,” Steele said. “They know darn well the budget’s going to get discussed, the new truck they buy, you know all of that stuff sees a little bit of light of day. And if it’s a reasonably good newspaper and doing its job, that community will benefit from that.” 

That type of accountability reporting leads to lower government costs. A 2018 study from the University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Notre Dame found that municipal borrowing costs increased by as much as a tenth of a percent after a newspaper shuttered, translating to millions of dollars in additional costs between 1996 and 2015. 

Further, as was suggested by a PBS News story in August, the loss of a newspaper fuels an increase in political divisions, something Steele said he’s seen himself. 

“What I’m seeing as a trend is some people are getting a little more demanding and entitled — they’re still rare, at least in rural communities that I’m familiar with — but this trend in this tribalism we talk about and see nationally is also more and more locally in some respects. And that bothers me a great deal for the future.” 

Other research has shown that communities that lose their newspaper have lower voter turnout, a greater spread of misinformation and lower trust in democratic institutions, according to the Local News Initiative at Northwestern’s Medill School. 

IS THERE A WAY FORWARD? 

The Local News Initiative points to the rise in digital-only outlets providing local news, and there are success stories out there. 

Steele and I reminisced about the culture and work ethic of putting out a weekly newspaper, having our kids in the next room while we worked on that week’s edition of the paper. The weekly newspaper editor does it all, covering high school sports and school board meetings, shooting our own photos, laying out the paper, picking up the copies from the printer (in Mark’s case, two-and-a-half hours away in Brigham City, Utah) and delivering it yourself. 

“I don’t think very many people realize how much work goes into putting out a print newspaper,” Mark said. “I think they would be shocked how labor-intensive it tends to be.” 

But the flip side of that is that without a printed paper, the barriers to entry are super low. Without the need to design and lay out a 20-page newspaper every week or pay to print it, mail it and deliver it, running an online news site is easier than ever. But that’s not for Steele. 

“I’ve been a man of ink-on-paper all my life, and I don’t know what the hell you do now,” Steele said. “It’s very, very sad.” 

Steele said he looked for a buyer of the Caribou County Sun, but there just aren’t any young couples like him and Wendy, and me and my wife, who are looking to take over a small weekly newspaper these days. 

“My hope is that if I’m out of the way, maybe something will come in and fill that void, whether it’s an existing publication, something existing online, and I think there will be several avenues of that,” Steele said. 

The question is whether a small community like Kuna or Soda Springs would have enough digital subscribers and a large enough advertising base to support a niche online-only local news outlet. But if you can do it, I can attest, and Steele would agree, it’s probably the most rewarding experience you can have. 

“You don’t make a great living, but you make a living,” Steele said. “You pay your bills, you keep people working, you’re the heartbeat of the community, and you feel like when you go to bed at night, you’ve done some good.” For the past 48 years, the Steeles, indeed, have done some good.

Scott McIntosh is the opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman, and is a member of the Idaho Press Club board and chair of the club’s First Amendment Committee.

Mario Miguel, a student at BYU-Idaho, is just completing his term as the student representative on the Idaho Press Club board.

Interviewed by Melissa Davlin

Hometown?
I was born in California but grew up in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area. I have grown to love the West, however, and plan to stay on this side of the country for as long as I can.
 
Current job?
I am a staff reporter for BYU-Idaho Scroll, our student news organization. I cover crime/courts. 
 
What brought you to Idaho?
I came to Idaho four years ago to study at BYU-Idaho. I am a senior studying communication and will graduate in December. 
 
What first drew you to journalism?
I have always been drawn to politics and current events as they were frequent topics of conversation at home. My dad studied journalism and was a radio reporter when he was young. Naturally my brothers and I all gravitated towards the communications field, especially writing. I was originally studying data science but found I wasn’t very good at programming, so I switched majors twice until I found myself in the journalism program. 
 
What’s your dream job?
I’m not sure if I have one dream job, there are several things I would like to do in my life. I would love to write for Deseret News and/or do investigative journalism at a local level. I am also considering careers in law or law enforcement. At some point in my life, I want to have my own commercial climbing gym.
 
Who is your journalism hero, and why?
I really look up to Nate Eaton at East Idaho News. I admire how he became the expert on the Daybell case. Even though he is a local reporter, he’s been the guy much of the country has gone to for information about the trial and I hope I can do something similar in the future. 
 
Do you have any pets?
I had a rabbit as a kid, but aside from that, no.
 
Hobbies?
Since I started college, I started rock climbing and practicing jiu jitsu. I also love to read about history, politics and interesting people.

BOISE STATE PUBLIC RADIO

Murphy Woodhouse joins the public radio team as the Idaho reporter for the Mountain West News Bureau. Previously Murphy was reporting from Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, covering cross-border issues for KJZZ in Phoenix. Previously, he was a reporter at the Arizona Daily Star and Nogales International newspapers. His work has appeared on NPR, the World and the BBC.

Amanda Niess, a recent Boise State University graduate and former intern with KTVB, becomes newsroom assistant. Sofia Blenkinsop of Boise State joins as newsroom intern. 

KBOI CBS2 NEWS, Boise

Anchor Brent Hunsaker is retiring from CBS2 after nine years. And longtime Chief Photographer Clyn Richards is retiring from CBS2 after 41+ years.

Marcos Guadarrama is the anchor of KLEW News which airs in Lewiston. Previously, he was a multi-media journalist/weather anchor for CBS2. Preston Pfau joined KLEW News as producer. He joins the station from Boise State University.

Sophia Doumani returns to CBS2 as reporter/fill-in anchor. Sophia previously worked at the station before launching her own show. She also worked for a non-profit.

Dakota Castets-Didier joined CBS2 as a reporter/weather anchor. He comes to CBS2 after working for the East Oregonian. Savannah Hankard joined CBS2 as a reporter after completing studies at Boise State.

Angela Kerndl is leaving CBS2. She covered the legislature. Angela has taken a job with the state of Washington.

KTVB-TV Newschannel 7, Boise

Tyson White, KTVB’s former chief photographer, was promoted from newscast producer to assignment manager. 

Investigative reporter and digital producer Alex Duggan left Boise for a public safety reporter position at The Spokesman-Review.

University of Idaho grad and VOCES alum Richard Rodriquez came from Boise State Public Radio to KTVB as a digital content producer and contributor to KTVB En Español.

Sierra Nevada University graduate Zoe Tuttle joined the team as a digital content producer after a couple years in local radio.

Kaylin Lechner, also a University of Idaho graduate, joined KTVB as a broadcast producer for Wake Up Idaho.

BOISEDEV.COM

Sydney Kidd joined BoiseDev as a reporter; she previously was a reporter and editor for the Idaho Press. 

POST REGISTER, Idaho Falls

Daniel Ramirez, a recent University of Idaho journalism graduate, has joined the Idaho Falls Post Register as a general assignment reporter. Ramirez served a Voces of Idaho internship this summer with the Idaho Statesman.

The Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce recognized Post Register reporter David Pace in its 2023 Distinguished Under 40 class. Pace, who graduated from Brigham Young University in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in public relations, joined the Post Register in April after having spent the previous nine months at its sister paper, the Rexburg Standard Journal.
 
 THE TIMES-NEWS, Twin Falls

Hannah Kinson, a 2021 graduate of the University of Iowa, where she was photo editor for the award-winning campus newspaper, joined The Times-News Oct. 5 as our primary photographer/videographer.

After 2 ½ years as a one-man sports show at The Cherokee Scout in North Carolina, Justin Fitzgerald joined Oct. 19 as a sports reporter to help cover Magic Valley preps and College of Southern Idaho athletics.

IDAHO CAPITAL SUN

Brydon Black has joined the Idaho Capital Sun as a fall intern. Raised in Twin Falls, Black graduated from Boise State University in 2023. He wrote and edited for the student newspaper, The Arbiter. He’ll cover labor-related issues, including trends with unions and labor laws, as well as other general assignment stories.

IDAHO STATESMAN

Ian Max Stevenson was promoted to state politics/investigative reporter. He previously has covered the City of Boise and served as a breaking news reporter.

IDAHO EDUCATION NEWS

Reporter Sadie Dittenber has left to move to California. Ryan Suppe, former state government and politics reporter for the Idaho Statesman, replaces her, covering state education policy and the Legislature.