They say all politics is local. So where’s the local news coverage this election year?
Researchers have labeled 204 counties in America as “news deserts” — places that lack access to credible, reliable news sources. This week, “Marketplace Morning Report” is covering news deserts in Super Tuesday states to hear about the business models that are failing or informing voters as they make their choices. We begin this week in Val Verde County, Texas, where Mexico is just across the river.
At Skillets, a diner in the county seat of Del Rio, there are biscuits smothered in chili and — in a surprise for a local news desert — one customer is reading what turns out to be a daily local newspaper.
But the thing is, it’s a local newspaper from another country. The paper is the Zócalo Acuña from Acuña — a city nearby but just south of the border. Zócalo will cover big stories from South Texas for Spanish-speaking readers, but it’s not big on covering the local races on the ballot on the Texas side next week.
There is an online news site that puts a paper edition on the stands one day a week.
“My son hooked me up to the internet New York Times, but, nah, it’s not the same. I want to have something to hold,” said, Bob Marshall, a retired hospital administrator.
He said he’s a big fan of Texas Public Radio out of San Antonio. Still, how do does he find out about the local people running for office?
“Oh, the woman that cuts my hair,” Marshall said. “Yeah. She knows everybody and all the gossip, and I know exactly who to vote for by talking to Bebe, the woman who cuts my hair.”
As for fact-checking? “I don’t know. But it’s been pretty reliable though,” Marshall said.
Val Verde County once had a seven-days-a week newspaper, the Del Rio News-Herald. It folded for good in late 2020. You’d need a time machine to understand what’s missing now.
“Twenty-five people,” said Diana Fuentes, former editor and publisher of the Del Rio News-Herald. “We had people covering business. I had people covering what’s going on in the economy, who’s covering the economic development issues, who’s keeping an eye on just what kind of deals is the City Council cutting.”
Fuentes left the the Del Rio News-Herald a dozen years ago, at a time when its business model was still in fair shape — supported by ads, the paid publication of legal notices and subscriptions that could pay for extensive local coverage. Fuentes is currently executive director of IRE, the nonprofit Investigative Reporters and Editors.
“There were always issues with the coaches, and are you paying the coach more than the you’re paying the math teacher?” Fuentes said of the News-Herald. “Nowadays they’re not covering that sort of thing anymore. Because, who’s going to cover the school district in Del Rio?”
Barbara Galvan is the reference librarian at the Val Verde County Library.
“We’ve just moved our periodical section to the front of the library,” she said. “We try to keep as many papers as possible. But it’s harder and harder to find news locally so far off the beaten path.”
“It is a small town, so we do have a lot of personal interaction with people who are running for local offices,” she added. “We do get the League of Women Voters handouts for the elections, which is really nice. But they don’t cover local politicians, it’s only state and federal.”
The head of county board of commissioners, Judge Lewis Owens, did try to find investors to save the News-Herald.
“We were trying to buy the paper itself and everything that that went along with it. They had a magazine, they had the newspaper, the building — everything,” he said.
His goal was to preserve a way to print all the required legal notices. “I just couldn’t put it together,” he said. “I think the building itself would have been well worth it.”
Candidates running in next week’s primary have their names on big campaign posters placed at intersections around town. And the library does have a decent internet connection, if people want to come in to do their voting research ahead of time.
Galvan, the librarian, takes no political sides, but she is on the side of context and fact-checking.
“You just need to verify, verify, verify — and through multiple sources because, you know, like I said, it’s very important to get the pro-con on any subject,” she said.
There is a weekly local newspaper here called the 830 Times, which is also a nonpartisan online news site updated throughout the day. It rose up when the old newspaper closed.
“This is not a news desert,” said publisher Joel Langton. “That’s a crock of crap.”
Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism defines news deserts as places with “very limited access to credible and comprehensive news that connects them with grassroots democracy and also gives them a sense of belonging to a greater community.”
We’ll dig into who is covering the news in Val Verde County on Tuesday.
