On election nights, there should be electricity in a newsroom — and pizza bought by the editor.
Yet on the evening of Aug. 5, the night of a busy primary in Skamania County, the lights were out at the county’s only local newspaper.
The Skamania County Pioneer’s storefront office, a few blocks from the courthouse in Stevenson, is now a bookstore.
There are old papers in back, and the store collects subscription payments. But the Pioneer hasn’t employed a journalist in the county since its former editor, Philip Watness, retired in May 2024.
I was there to see whether Skamania County is a news desert, joining the hundreds of U.S. counties that no longer have a local news organization.
Answering this question isn’t straightforward, even though I was able to buy the Pioneer’s Aug. 6 edition on Aug. 5 at the Skamania General Store on Highway 14.
I left with more questions about how the decline of local news is tracked, what to expect from surviving news outlets and how they can be improved.
Skamania County is in the Columbia Gorge, midway between Hood River, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash. It’s mostly forested and sparsely populated, with around 12,000 residents.
It’s still newsy. Skamania’s home to U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whose blue-collar persona, success in a swing district and independent streak raised her national profile. And there were three-way races for Stevenson mayor and two council seats.
Gluesenkamp Perez last year told me that local news organizations are vital, and she co-sponsored a Republican-led bill to provide federal tax credits to support local journalism.
Since then, Skamania County was listed as a news desert, with no remaining local outlet, in a July report by the nonprofit Rebuild Local News and public relations company Muck Rack.
That was also the conclusion of a state-funded report, published in April by researchers at Washington State University.
But another study, the ongoing analysis of America’s news deserts by Northwestern University’s Medill School, in late 2024 said Skamania County has one remaining local news source, the Pioneer.
It does indeed have a paper. It’s down to six pages, filled with announcements, a police blotter, legal notices and sometimes photos and stories provided by Watness on a freelance basis.
The Pioneer is edited and produced by the staff of DeVaul Publishing in Chehalis. Frank and Judy DeVaul bought it more than a decade ago and also publish papers in Morton, Tenino and Chehalis.
They have a small but growing business with a unique model, Frank DeVaul explained. The papers don’t have online versions, because DeVaul believes they would hurt the business more than help.
“Everybody wants to know when you’re going to have an online newspaper,” he said. “And we’ve always been of the nature that generally, people when they go online, they want stuff for free. Even if it’s only maybe paying a nominal monthly or annual fee, that revenue doesn’t support a newspaper.”
DeVaul said the approach works in their markets.
“I think that’s what you see with most metro papers or other dailies, why they struggle so much and have declining circulation, where we can hold our own,” he said. “Because all of our publications are in very isolated communities and so we’re the sole news source.”
Without online editions, they may also escape notice of researchers relying on websites to tally America’s remaining local news outlets.
DeVaul’s papers are supported with a combination of circulation and ad sales.
“Historically, display ad revenue is what helps keep newspapers going; that’s always been the case historically,” he said. “And I think when people started giving it away, or giving it away for free, you know, you just can’t compete against the Metas of the world or Googles. It’s difficult to try and ever get that kind of critical mass.”
I appreciate that perspective and that DeVaul is keeping the papers alive. The company is finding enough material to fill the Pioneer. But it needs to have local staff.
DeVaul said he was close to hiring an editor last year, but the candidate declined at the last minute.
“There’s been times where it’s just really difficult to find journalists that have a solid background,” he said. “And so I’ve had to put together, basically, community correspondents and all.”
DeVaul said they “still cover everything and it’s kind of the only news source that’s dedicated to that.”
Hundreds, if not thousands, of local newspapers are on a similar path across the country. A model for some large chains is to acquire community papers, consolidate production and publish them with little and sometimes no local news staff.
They are preventing their communities from becoming news deserts in a way.
People still read them to learn about events and announcements. The papers continue to build community. But don’t expect them to pull back many curtains and hold officials or institutions accountable.
Maybe we should also track the spread of journalism deserts, to clarify what’s being lost and what remains.
Skamania County actually had two newspapers for a while. A conservative politician co-founded the Skamania Observer in 2020. It ran in print and online until 2023.
A Portland-area news startup is also working to provide more news throughout the Gorge. Uplift Local primarily uses freelance “documenters” who take notes at public meetings and share them with local news outlets.
Still, there’s no substitute for having local, professional news staff.
“That would be my desire. It’s just been difficult,” DeVaul said.
“Recently I’ve had some potentials starting to surface, so I think people have seen that,” he said. “You know, it continues to survive and we have good community support as well.”
Several residents told me they appreciate the Pioneer and it helps keep people informed. But they also learn what’s happening from other residents.
“We’re a small county,” said Nathan Phillips, Skamania County’s election manager. “When there’s an election going on, people tend to know about it.”
Outside the courthouse, Mike Langslay was bringing his ballot to the drop box.
He said he subscribes to the Pioneer because it’s important, even though it’s pretty thin nowadays.
“I hope we can keep it,” Langslay said. “I know there’s not much, but it’s the only local news.”
Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative. This column was The Seattle Times on August 15th and is reprinted here with permission. Dudley’s work will appear regularly on the Medill Local News Initiative site.