CRAWFORDSVILLE — If you do a Google search for the phrase “two newspaper towns” you’ll find a lot of articles mourning the loss of such places.
The story always seems to play out the same way; after decades a local newspaper is forced to close either from lack of readership, lack of funds, an inability to keep pace with the digital age of news media or, likely, all three. Citizens worry what the loss of the publication will mean for their town and morning routines. News outlets reporting on the closures fret about what it spells for the future of print media and the fate of democracy.
And yet, somehow, print media and democracy persist despite the dire predictions that surface each time a newspaper closes its doors.
In Crawfordsville, a town just 30 minutes south of Lafayette, print media and civic life aren’t just surviving, they are thriving.
Here the narrative of two newspaper towns is playing out in reverse. Since 2004 Crawfordsville has boasted two daily print newspapers, the Journal Review and The Paper of Montgomery County. The Journal Review prints Tuesday through Saturday and The Paper prints Monday through Saturday with a Sunday digital edition.
Gerry Lanosga, a journalism professor at the Indiana University Media School, said today two newspaper towns are exceedingly rare.
“It’s kind of remarkable to have it in a small town like Crawfordsville. … It’s very rare. Sadly, it’s very rare,” he said.
The Journal Review was founded in 1929 when The Crawfordsville Review (founded 1841) and The Journal (founded 1848) merged. In 1974 the Journal Review was sold to Freedom Newspapers Inc., and in 1999 it was acquired by PTS, a media company located in Alabama, which still owns the Journal Review today. Between 1929 and the inception of The Paper in 2004, the Journal Review was Crawfordsville’s only daily newspaper.