Video: Small Town Papers Staying Afloat

By: Salena Schaffer

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)-

A sad truth many newspaper companies are facing, print is a dying art form. As everything is moving into the digital world, newspapers are struggling to stay afloat.

The Winston County Journal, the Choctaw Plaindealer, and the Webster Progress-Times are all local papers and all only distribute once a week.

A single reporter covers each town and produces the content weekly. What separates these newspapers from other daily papers is the content they choose to cover.

“We try to focus on our community and how our people interact.Our news is more focused on like a daughter and mother who graduate from college together, you know they’re from Winston county, that’s a big news story for us.” said Joseph McCain, the newspapers’ publisher.

McCain says the connection they make is what is most important.

“People who have moved away, come here, they wanna look at our archives because they’re grandfather, their father were covered by the newspaper and its the only place they can find any information about their family is from our archives, the Winston County Journal, the Webster dealer the Choctaw plaindealer.” said McCain.

Mccain says, what separates their paper from other daily distributors, are the stories they choose to lead with… a story about a local artist that has traveled the world is much more likely to make headlines than any crime story.

Daniel Brunty is a reporter who has worked at all three papers. He grew up in Eupora and says it was his childhood dream to work for this paper.

“Basically I just started from there loving the paper all my life, decided to pursue that once I went to school and from there Joseph gave me the opportunity to work here and I’ve been here ever since, I’ve been here 5yrs.” said Brunty.

He says his small town upbringing has helped him realize what the paper needs.

“Being in a small town all my life I’ve seen what a small town paper consists of and what it needs and the importance of the newspaper.” said Brunty.

“At the end of the day, we’re telling the peoples story here so that they can feel recognized and understand that they are important to the community, that every single person in our counties are important to the county and the community doing better.”said McCain.