Wyoming grapples with future of local news

SHERIDAN — In the United States, two print newspapers close per week, according to a 2025 local news report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Medill estimates that as these newspapers shutter, news deserts— areas where people do not have access to local news — have expanded to include 55 million Americans. 

Last August’s abrupt closure of eight Wyoming newspapers by corporate ownership put this national crisis at the forefront, spotlighting local journalism’s viability — and future — in the state.

The newspapers were ultimately saved, but this chain of events brings to light the significant challenges newspapers and local news face in an increasingly digital world.

Newspaper landscape  

An article from the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Media describes the dichotomy between mass media and local news. 

While mass media — communication channels designed to reach large widespread audiences simultaneously —  provides national and international news in broad strokes, local journalism is key in delivering specialized information directly to communities served, according to the report.

“In the 21st century, even though national outlets, such as cable networks and digital sites, offer an abundance of news and opinion, local newspapers are still the prime, if not sole, source of credible news and information about what is happening in one’s own community,” according to the article.

UNC’s article outlines the history of newsmaking, dating back before the preindustrial period. The industrial revolution brought the reshaping of the information circulation market, namely marked by a shift to penny presses. With this new technology, newspapers could drop the cost of production and make up the difference in revenue by charging businesses to advertise goods and services to their audience. 

This model, wherein advertisers, not readers, provide newspapers with the majority of their profits has held for nearly a century. 

But — with the exception of the nation’s most prominent newspapers, which are actually seeing upticks in digital subscribers according to Pew Research Center — legacy publications, known generally as news organizations that pre-date the internet, are struggling to keep their doors open. 

The news industry has seen one of the most significant declines across any sector in the past two decades, as tracked by a 2023 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey. Medill’s report found the newspaper industry has lost more than three-quarters of its jobs since 2005. 

Medill’s report found a 70% decline in U.S. newspaper circulation since 2005. 

To cut costs due to declining circulation, many newspapers have been forced to eliminate print days. 

“In 2025, a fifth of U.S. dailies are still being printed and delivered seven days a week,” the report states.

In the region, Lee Enterprises announced in 2023 that five of its daily Montana newspapers would drop to three print days per week, the Daily Montanan reported. 

Wyoming’s official newspaper of record and Casper’s legacy daily newspaper, the Casper Star Tribune, dropped to three days of print per week in 2023. 

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne dropped its Monday print in 2018 due to “increasing production costs” and its Tuesday print in 2020, citing “industry challenges” during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Many newspapers like ours are prioritizing relevant coverage over the method of delivery in an effort to retain a quality newsroom,” the Tribune Eagle wrote in 2020.

Earlier in 2025, The Sheridan Press dropped one day of print — Fridays — but maintained publishing an online-only print replica, known in the industry as an e-edition, Monday through Saturday.

News in Wyoming

The Medill report shows that Wyoming has many news outlets per capita and is at a low risk of news deserts, compared to other states. 

There are 40 official members of the Wyoming Press Association, a trade association formed in 1877 with the goal of “advocating for the common interests of Wyoming newspapers.” 

Membership requires publications to have a circulation of at least 500 paid subscribers and to be published once a week for a minimum of 52 consecutive weeks. 

Associate members within media include University of Wyoming Student Media, Newz Group, Oil City Weekly, Prosper Public Relations, WRE/Linden Press, WyoFile and Wyoming PBS. 

Ownership of Wyoming newspapers varies from local to corporate, according to a 2024 Wyoming News Ecosystem report. 

Adams MultiMedia owns and operates hundreds of daily and non-daily newspapers around the country, including seven Wyoming publications: Laramie Boomerang, Rawlins Daily Times, Rock Springs Rocket Miner, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Southeast Wyoming Extra, Laramie Marketplace and Wyoming Business Report. 

Corporate newspaper ownership is not uncommon. 

However, when distant parent companies make internal changes — downsize staff, reduce budgets or close publications’ doors unexpectedly, as evidenced this summer — the quality of news that small communities rely on is at risk. 

This happened the morning of Aug. 6, when News Media Corporation announced the immediate closure of eight newspapers around Wyoming, in Torrington, Wheatland, Guernsey, Lusk, Pinedale, Kemmerer, Evanston and Lyman.

Without their local newspaper, which the Medill report calls “the backbone of the American media ecosystem, and more numerous than all other media types combined,” thousands of Wyomingites could have been left without a trusted source of local news. 

Robb and Jen Hicks have owned and operated the Buffalo Bulletin, a Wyoming weekly founded in 1890, since 1996. 

Six days after NMC announced the immediate closure of eight newspapers around Wyoming, the Hickses joined forces with Rob Mortimore, longtime Wyoming newspaper executive. The trio of veteran news executives purchased all eight newspapers, rescuing the communities that would have become news deserts. 

Robb Hicks said in-house ownership has been an asset for the Bulletin. 

“We don’t have an ownership that says, ‘You have to have this much profit margin.’ We don’t have an ownership that says, ‘We want this paper to be liberal, middle of the road or conservative.’ We’re those owners,” he said. 

Robb Hicks said a downside of local ownership is being without “the resources of a parent company.” Despite this, he said a newspaper should preserve the heart of a community.

“If you’re not in that community, you don’t know what the character is,” he said. “We try to extend that philosophy [to papers] that we have elsewhere.” 

A broken model 

When corporate ownership takes over small local newspapers, it often downsizes staff, removes resources and fails to reinvest revenue back into its community, said Robb Hicks.

He also spoke to newspapers’ antiquated funding model, which relies on advertisers to contribute 80% of revenue, supplemented by subscribers (10%) and public notices (10%). 

“It’s how it’s worked forever. Keep the cost down, and the ads will pay the bills,” he said. 

Those economics just don’t work anymore. 

Mortimore and the Hickses traveled to towns with the newspapers they bought to host town halls. In these forums, Robb Hicks said he presented an opportunity to local business owners to restore the community newspapers to their former glory. He said if there is an uptick in advertising, they would add staff. If not, the papers are “rightly sized for the gross dollars that they take in.” 

“We told people at the town meeting that it’s our goal to be able to build these newspapers back up,” he said. “However, we’ve already made our investment in this community. It’s now up to the communities to make an investment back in the newspaper.”

Jay Seaton, publisher of The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado, is a stockholder in The Sheridan Press and several other newspapers across the country as part of the Seaton Publishing Co.

He said the increase in available advertising over the last several decades has put community newspapers in a difficult position. 

“Thirty years ago, there were about 22 segments of available advertising. Things like newspapers, magazines, radio, billboards, Yellow Pages, etc…That number is now in excess of 5,000, so the advertising spend has gotten really diffused,” Seaton said. 

Today, e-commerce platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist offer alternatives to newspapers’ classified advertisements.

“Community newspapers have lost 90% of advertising revenue,” Seaton said. “When you lose that much revenue, you don’t have the bandwidth to deliver the quality product that you had been delivering.” 

The Sentinel dropped down to five days of print in 2018 and then to two days of print in 2024 to save costs. Seaton said unless there is a “significant change in the competitive market,” he does not see print days being added back.

Meeting people where they are 

Throughout the process of reducing print days, Seaton’s staff have made efforts to highlight the digital product they still produce seven days a week. He said it’s been important for Seaton news organizations to “meet people where they are.” 

“We’ve really tried to promote that digital product and get people feeling comfortable consuming their local news on their phone or computer,” he said. 

To adapt to market changes, many newspapers and other news organizations have expanded websites, promoted content through social media and started producing e-editions to supplement the printed product.  

It’s easy for folks to get headlines free through social media and free internet news organizations — and many — 86% of Americans — say they sometimes get their news from a smartphone, computer or tablet, Pew Research Center reports. 

But Seaton said people often misunderstand the value of news you have to pay for — whether in print or digitally. 

“If you pay for news, you are a consumer and the news organization owes you a valuable product that you can rely on,” he said.“If you’re not paying for news, you are the product. Your eyes are getting sold. And if you’re the product, they have no obligation to provide you with reliable, truthful or real information at all. They’re just using you.”

A changing market 

The circulation of newspapers is declining, but people are still consuming news, albeit differently than they have in the past. 

New preferences in Wyoming largely hinge on age, a January 2025 report commissioned by Wyoming Community Foundation says, meaning younger Wyomingites are not consuming news in the same ways as their parents and grandparents. 

Nearly half of Wyoming respondents aged 18-44 prefer to get their news through social media, while only 12% of those polled 45 and older prefer this method, the report found. 

The survey found nearly all (95%) of Wyoming respondents say there are local sources of news (either a newsletter, radio station or newspaper) in their communities, but only a quarter prefer to get their news from a print newspaper. 

Three-quarters of those polled said they do not pay for news. Only 3.3% said they would if an option were available. 

Initiatives like Press Forward, Democracy Fund, Report for America and American Journalism Project are striving to financially support local journalism across the country. Alternative news organizations have also entered the market in Wyoming.

Cowboy State Daily is a free online news source that started as a nonprofit. Its status changed to a for-profit when Jackson Hole billionaire B. Wayne Hughes, Jr. purchased it in February of 2022.

Another free online news organization, independent nonprofit WyoFile, is expanding its newsroom to bolster support for local journalism, managing editor Josh Wolfson said. 

WyoFile recently added a collaborations editor to its team, whose role is to provide human support to “newspapers, broadcasters and digital news sites, ensuring that Wyoming’s stakeholders have more of the local reporting they need to effectively participate in civic life.” 

Wolfson has been at WyoFile since 2023. Before that he was the managing editor of the Casper Star Tribune, where he worked as an editor and reporter since 2007. 

Adding personnel at WyoFile has been a stark contrast from the Star, where Wolfson said he was constantly navigating cuts. 

“We very much think that it is a system worth investing in, but we also recognize that those newspapers are facing headwinds,” Wolfson said. 

Charging forward 

Even with the emergence of new statewide news sources, small local newspapers are still finding a niche within their communities.

David Peck has been the owner, publisher and managing editor of the legacy weekly Lovell Chronicle for 41 years. He is also the owner and publisher of two other Big Horn County weeklies: the Basin Republican Rustler and the Greybull Standard. 

Peck is keeping hope alive for Wyoming’s newspapers because they provide unique services to their communities. He said reporting hyperlocal news regarding local sports, schools, government and events directly impacts the people who live there.

“There are definitely challenges, businesswise, but I think community papers, especially family-owned, independent community newspapers are in a little better position to weather the storm of the challenges that are faced by the industry,” Peck said.  

Peck’s publications are available to view online through e-editions, but he said he has faith in “newspaper loyalists” who deeply believe in the value of the physical newspaper. 

“They like to have the paper. They read it cover to cover, and they’re going to keep with us,” he said. “Our bread and butter is the printed product.” 

Peck also loves his work. 

“You don’t do this job because you want to make a big bunch of money; you do it because you love it,” he said. “And I love what I do every day. I love putting out the newspaper, and I love covering my community.” 

Peck said local journalists and local newspapers can bind a community together, and in an increasingly polarized political landscape, this is invaluable. He doesn’t believe local news is dead yet.

“I think as long as there is that love of journalism, whatever form it takes, I think then we will continue to be the strength of our communities,” he said. “We’re charging forward.” 

This story was published on Dec. 3, 2025.