There was a time when nearly every newspaper in Michigan was locally owned. The publisher lived in town. The owner attended Rotary meetings, served on charity boards, sponsored Little League teams, and understood firsthand what mattered to the community.
Today, many Michigan newspapers are owned by companies headquartered hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Some are controlled by hedge funds based in New York. Others are owned by corporations with investors spread across the globe. In many cases, the profits generated in Michigan communities leave the state entirely.
How did we get here?
The answer is simple: economics.
The newspaper business has been under assault for more than two decades. Classified advertising disappeared when sites like Craigslist emerged. Local retailers shifted advertising dollars to Google and Facebook. National chains consolidated their marketing efforts. Circulation declined as readers migrated online.
Many family-owned newspapers simply could not survive these changes. Owners who had spent decades building successful businesses suddenly found themselves facing shrinking revenues and uncertain futures. When retirement arrived, there often wasn’t a family member willing or able to take over.
Enter the large newspaper chains and investment groups.
They promised economies of scale, centralized operations, and digital expertise. In some cases, they kept newspapers alive that otherwise might have closed. But there was a price.
The first thing many corporate owners discovered was that local journalism is labor intensive. Reporters, editors, photographers, and salespeople cost money. To increase profits, staff reductions became commonplace. Local newsrooms that once employed a dozen journalists were reduced to a handful. Some communities lost their local editor altogether.
The result has been a hollowing out of local news coverage.
One example is Gannett newspapers, or might we now refer to them as USA Today Newspaper Network. They own many dailies in Michigan and If you’ve picked up one of their products lately you would notice a lot of national news, and scant local news. They no longer have local offices manned with in-town reporters. Much of their news comes from a national news service.
This same Gannett, which is still the largest newspaper corporation in America, with headquarters in Virginia, is or was owned by Fortress Investment Group, who sold it the largest bank in Japan, Soft Group in 2017. Soft Group then turned around and sold it to Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi conglomerate in 2024.
When ownership is distant, decisions are often driven by spreadsheets rather than community needs. A corporate executive in another state—or another country—may have little understanding of a school bond proposal in Clare County, a manufacturing expansion in Allegan County, or a zoning dispute in St. Joseph County.
That’s not necessarily because they don’t care. It’s because they can’t possibly know every community they own.
The irony is that local newspapers remain incredibly important. Study after study shows communities with strong local newspapers experience higher voter participation, more accountable government, and greater civic engagement. When local newspapers disappear, fewer people attend public meetings, government spending receives less scrutiny, and citizens become less informed about issues affecting their daily lives.
Michigan is hardly alone in facing this challenge. Across America, thousands of newspapers have either closed or been absorbed into larger chains. The trend has accelerated as financial investors view newspapers as assets rather than community institutions.
But there is a bright spot.
Wilcox Newspapers. We are twelve weekly newspapers that only cover local news and are actually growing in size and revenue. We attend the governmental meetings, sporting events and festivals that take place in our communities. We hire local people who know their communities from front to back. We have local offices in most of our communities, not because they are essential, but because we see them as an important connection to our local communities. We recently invested in a printing press that will help insure that our newspapers will remain in print for many years to come.
I believe the future is bright for local newspapers. Unlike many dailies that have sold out to hedge funds, keeping it local will work. I give a huge shout out to our thousands of readers and advertisers who have helped us along in our journey. Without you we obviously wouldn’t be able to exist. But with you we are successful. Here’s to many successful years to come.
