Why print is holding local news back
Jarvis does not hedge when it comes to print. He sees it not as a sacred tradition but as a structural burden that drains resources and limits experimentation. “I think the first opportunity is to get rid of print,” he said. “It’s a cost, it’s an albatross around the neck. I think that we’ve got to move past that.”
He argues that clinging to print prevents local publishers from redirecting attention toward collaboration and community infrastructure. “I don’t think we’re competitive anymore,” Jarvis said. “I think there are a lot of opportunities to change.” For him, the challenge is not whether journalism matters, but whether its institutions are willing to change the way they operate to remain relevant.
Jarvis points to models that have already moved beyond legacy constraints. He highlighted Village Media in Canada as an example of a digital‑only, advertising‑supported operation that is “very much community oriented, more than even news oriented.” He added, “It’s a model that I think can work in small papers across the country.”
Content is no longer journalism’s advantage
One of Jarvis’ sharpest critiques is aimed at the industry’s longstanding belief that content itself is the primary source of value. “When we thought all of our value was resident in this thing we call content, we put ourselves in a position of being commodified,” he said. “Now comes AI, which is the literate machine, which can spew out content to no end, and it doesn’t make us so special anymore.”
He warns that reflexively treating artificial intelligence as an enemy is shortsighted. “I think right now our industry is being foolish because we are out there saying, ‘No, no, no, AI is bad. Cut off, cut them off at the gates,’” Jarvis said. At the same time, he noted, “Marketers are dying to be a part of AI. Propagandists are dying to be part of AI, and we’ve got to figure out what’s going on.”
Instead of isolation, Jarvis advocates for engagement — even cooperation. “I think there’s an opportunity for the little guys — the local papers — to band together and to make themselves available to AI with a discussion about that,” he said. Cutting journalism off from emerging platforms, he warned, risks invisibility. “If we cut ourselves off from it, it won’t know how to send people to us. And that’s foolish.”
Sustainability means multiple revenue paths
Jarvis rejects the idea that any single revenue model will save local journalism. “It’s not one revenue stream, and that means it’s multiple skills,” he said. While subscription fatigue is real, he believes advertising still has a role to play. “I do think that advertising, local advertising still works,” he said, again pointing to Village Media and similar operations.
He is far more skeptical of subscriptions. “I think subscription is a dead model,” Jarvis said. “But membership has a lot of potential, but you must mean it.” He emphasized that membership is not simply a paywall with a new name. “It’s not just another way to give access to content,” he said. “It’s a way to have a true relationship with your community and mutually support something together.”
Jarvis also sees value in events and ancillary products, even as he cautions that they require new skills. “Ancillary revenue like events is good,” he said, while acknowledging that “it’s a whole other skill set that makes it hard.” Still, he believes local publishers should remain open to experimentation — especially when it aligns with community needs.
Build lean, collaborate early
When asked how he would structure a local news operation today, Jarvis emphasized simplicity and restraint. “I think I’d have no offices,” he said. “I think I probably would try to have a few full‑time people.” He also encouraged newsrooms to rethink staffing models altogether. “There are ways to work with people without just staff,” he said, citing citizen journalism and documenter programs as viable approaches.
On technology, Jarvis was unequivocal. “I’d make it as simple as possible,” he said. “Absolutely don’t spend any effort on making technology. There’s no need to.” He warned against custom platforms and unnecessary complexity, urging publishers instead to “keep it as simple and as cheap as possible.”
He recalled a lesson from teaching entrepreneurial journalism: “I’d finally give somebody $1, and I’d say, okay, what are you going to do with that first dollar?” The exercise, he said, forced students to focus on survival rather than scale. “Don’t think about all your grand expenses,” Jarvis said. “Think that you’re barely keeping your nose above water, and what do you do next?”
Listening is journalism’s most underused tool
For Jarvis, the most profound change local journalism must make has nothing to do with technology. It is cultural. “My proudest accomplishment in my too‑long career is not starting a magazine, not starting websites,” he said. “It was starting a program called Engagement Journalism.”
At the core of that approach is a simple discipline journalists often overlook. “The first thing we taught students to do was to listen,” Jarvis said. He described watching young reporters arrive in communities with notebooks ready, only to realize they needed to put them away. “They would finally learn to put the notebook down, put the camera away, just listen first.”
That listening, he argued, allows local journalism to counter the abstraction and polarization dominating national media. “I don’t believe that most Americans who are on the right really care first and foremost every day when they wake up about abortion and guns and trans kids in bathrooms,” Jarvis said. “They care about their families. They care about their jobs. They care about their kids.”
Local journalism, he believes, is uniquely positioned to refocus coverage on real lives rather than manufactured narratives. “If you could get people into conversation about their actual lives, not these tropes,” Jarvis said, “then I think local journalism can lead better than where national journalism is today.”
Why enterprise journalism still matters
Despite his emphasis on engagement and collaboration, Jarvis does not dismiss traditional enterprise reporting. In fact, he sees it as essential — if used strategically. “Yes, because I agree with you,” he said when asked whether long‑form investigative work still has value. “It does help your brand. It does help your visibility. People can talk about it.”
At the same time, he cautioned against unrealistic expectations. “I don’t think you can afford to imagine that you’re doing that all the time,” Jarvis said. “We can’t afford that in a small town.” Instead, he encouraged collaboration and community input to help decide where resources should be focused.
He described experiments where journalists worked with residents to identify priorities. “People would say, ‘Well, no, actually this is what I care about,’” Jarvis recalled. “‘This is what we need you to look into.’” That shift, he said, helps journalism move from authority to partnership.
Cautious optimism for what comes next
Jarvis is not blind to the risks facing journalism — or democracy itself. “I greatly fear where we stand,” he said. “I fear for any speech and the press as a whole.” Yet he remains convinced that demand for local journalism will persist. “I absolutely think there will be a demand for it,” he said. “I know there’ll be a need for it.”
The question, in his view, is whether news organizations are willing to let go of structures that no longer serve that need. “Mass media are dead,” Jarvis said bluntly. What replaces them, he believes, must be smaller, more collaborative and deeply rooted in the communities they serve.
For local publishers, Jarvis’ message is clear: Stop defending the past. Start inventing the future.
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