Residents are at a loss after newspaper that bound community together shuts in

By LEAH WILLINGHAM

The Associated Press

WELCH, W.Va. Months after Missy Nester ended The Welch News’ 100-year run, she can barely stand to walk through the office doors of the newspaper her mother taught her to read with growing up in West Virginia’s southern coalfields. It’s still too painful.

The Welch News owner and publisher’s desk is covered with unpaid bills and her own paychecks — a year’s worth — she never cashed. Phones that used to ring through the day have gone silent. Tables covered with typewriters, awards and a century’s worth of other long-abandoned artifacts are reminders that her beloved paper has become an artifact, too.

Wiping away tears, Nester said she wishes people understood why she fought so hard to protect the last remaining news outlet in her community, and why it feels like the people left behind by the journalism industry are often those who need it most.

“Our people here have nothing,” said Nester, 57. “Like, can any of y’all hear us out here screaming?”

In March, the McDowell County weekly became another one of the thousands of U.S. newspapers that have shuttered since 2005, a crisis Nester called “terrifying for democracy” and one that disproportionately impacts rural Americans like her.

Residents suddenly have no way of knowing what’s going on at public meetings, which are not televised, nor are minutes or recordings posted online. Even basic tasks, like finding out about church happenings, have become challenging. The paper printed pages of religious events and directories every week and that hasn’t been replaced.

Local crises, like the desperately needed upgrade of water and sewer systems, are going unreported. And there is no one to keep disinformation in check, like when the newspaper published a series of stories that dispelled the rumors of election tampering at local precincts during last year’s May primaries.

“It was like a heartbeat, like a thread that ran through the community,” said World War II veteran Howard Wade, a retired professor specializing in Black history.

Sitting on a rocking chair in pajama pants in his ranch house at the base of lush, green hills, Wade said he hasn’t read any news since the paper stopped printing. He’s worried about the county history the newspaper chronicled throughout his life. At 97, he was born three years after it opened its doors in 1923.

The decline of American newspapers is well-documented. The people most impacted tend to be older, low-income and less likely to have graduated high school or college than people living in well-covered communities.

For McDowell residents, the news was still a shock. Many said they didn’t realize how much they depended on the paper until it was gone.

Sarah Hall, the first Black prosecutor elected in McDowell County in the 1980s, said it’s tragic when any community loses its newspaper. But for communities like hers, it’s detrimental.

The 535-square-mile (1,385-square-kilometer) county is dominated by rugged mountain terrain, where residents live miles apart in hollers connected by winding roads and no interstate access, leaving people isolated. Cell and internet service is inconsistent — or nonexistent — and there are no locally-based radio or television stations.

“We’re in a unique situation because our community is unique,” she said. “We have no other substantial way of communicating.”

It bothers Hall not to know about decisions county commissioners are…