The newspaper industry has changed since the Seward County Independent began 135 years ago. And over time we have continued to keep the price of the newspaper reasonable. In the United States, and here in Nebraska, “news deserts” are growing, unfortunately. More and more weekly newspapers are closing their doors, leaving communities without a reliable source of local news.
Teri Finneman, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas and co-author of the book Reviving Rural News, has done national studies with different newspapers, including two in Nebraska, The Custer County Chief in Broken Bow and the Aurora News Register, and according to those studies, newspapers have to change their business model.
Currently it costs about 80 cents to send a paper to our subscribers and buying it over the counter was only $1 – until last week when we raised the price to $2. It is pretty easy to do the math on this. A subscriber is paying only 92 cents to have the paper delivered to their mail box at our current rate of $48 a year. Yes, we had to increase the price to be able to bring our readers local news.
So, if you are a subscriber, you are investing 18 cents a day to support your local news.
A Snickers and a bottle of pop will cost you over $4.50 at a local convenience store that I recently purchased from. I just refilled my coffee Friday and it was over $2. If you do that every weekday, you will pay $520 a year to refill a cup of coffee. Our newspaper takes many hours every week to gather information and print the paper for only $1.25.
If other businesses only charge 15 cents a day for their services, they probably would not be in business long. Our paper is still very reasonable for local news with a small marginal increase over the past 50 years.
Here is why we have had to increase our subscription rates in 2026. In the last 20 years, over 3,200 U.S. newspapers have closed, leaving 206 counties as news deserts, according to research by Northwestern’s State of Local News project. What does it mean to lose a newspaper? Researchers know from the communities without one. It means significant impacts on taxpayers when no one monitors local governments and their spending. It means more potential corruption. Reduced voter turnout. Loss of knowledge of civic matters. It means increased polarization – think this country is in this mess by coincidence?
Beside becoming a news desert, without a local newspaper a community will feel the lack of community. I told a fellow newspaper person 15 years ago that our newspaper won’t go away if a town still has a great sense of community. Our newspapers present trustworthy stories that are accurate and trusted. Social media is not a go to for local news, especially to be trusted. People will begin to lose interest in their community without that reputable source of local information.
According to the book Reviving Rural News, our current model started when the penny press model determined news should be dirt cheap in the 1800s. Throughout the 1800s and ever since, newspapers increasingly relied on advertising to stay afloat. Now, too many advertisers turn to Facebook and line the pockets of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg – while their posts are mostly hidden by a computer bot algorithm that decides the small amount of posts you get to see – rather than support the newspaper.
The Seward County Independent still has great value for $1.25 a week for subscribers ($2 per issue over the counter), considering a Scooters drink is more than $6. Thank you to our subscribers and those who purchase our paper; please keep supporting local news.
