Beth Macy, the acclaimed journalist behind Dopesick and Raising Lazarus, has returned to her roots with a new memoir that’s part personal reckoning, part urgent call to action. In Paper Girl, Macy reflects on her early years as a small-town journalist and the unraveling of local news — not as a passive observer, but as someone who lived it.
In a wide-ranging interview for E&P Reports, Macy sat down to talk about the disintegration of American community journalism, the working-class lives left out of the national narrative, and why telling hard stories still matters. At a time when journalism is fighting for both survival and relevance, Macy’s voice reminds us what’s at stake.
“This is the first book where I’ve really written about myself,” she said. “I’m trying to explain to people what happens when we no longer have a free and fair press at the local level. And I tell it through the eyes of a paper girl who kind of made good.”
Covering the middle class that vanished
For Macy, growing up in working-class Urbana, Ohio, gave her a firsthand view of America’s hollowing out — long before economists gave it a name. She described a community where “the middle class is hollowed out, and neither [side] knows what the other one is doing.” That loss of mutual understanding, she argues, is more than economic — it’s informational.
“There is no press there to tell them that,” Macy emphasized. “Mental health calls have multiplied by nine since I left four years ago. Emergency 911 calls go up 3%-5% every year. Food stamps have doubled. Foster care has tripled just since 2015. Graduation rates have gone down 12% in the last decade. And none of this is shown in full in the local newspaper.”
The consequences, she said, are devastating. In a town once covered with depth and nuance, basic civic facts now go unreported. No watchdog. No empathy. No connective tissue. Macy’s book brings those missing narratives back to life — not through nostalgia, but through exposure.
A broken industry that failed to explain itself
As the conversation turned to the media business itself, Macy was candid in her assessment of how the newspaper industry mishandled its own decline. She didn’t point fingers so much as illuminate a cultural blindness among legacy media companies, who failed to articulate their core value to the public until it was too late.
“We didn’t cover our own demise,” she said. “We never said to the community, ‘We’re not just a business. We’re your final check on power. We’re your voice.’”
It’s a sentiment she connects with on a personal level. “Do you think reporters are doing it just to make their salary? I was making $55,000 a year when I quit. It’s a calling.” The emotional payoff, she said, was never about income but impact. “James Baldwin said, ‘If you change the way people think by even a millimeter, you’ve changed the world.’”
What we’ve lost — and why it matters
Macy’s journalistic passion was forged in the newsroom of The Roanoke Times, where she worked for decades. “I love nothing more than digging into a juicy feature where I can tell you about this neighbor that you don’t know and why it’s important in the context of what’s happening in the community,” she said.
But today, she noted, even papers in cities the size of Roanoke have lost that depth. “Those stories were such empathy builders. And they simply don’t exist anymore. Roanoke used to have 125,000 subscribers when I came. It’s under 10,000 now.”
She believes the absence of storytelling is driving deeper fractures in society — and that rebuilding trust begins with getting back to that foundational work. “I did a series on immigration. I did a series on caregiving for older adults. These are things I worked on for months at a time — really showed you what was happening in a broader context.”
That capacity, she said, is mostly gone. “I don't know how we get it back. Somebody smarter than me is gonna have to figure it out.”
Returning to the work — on her own terms
Macy hasn’t given up on local journalism — far from it. Since finishing her book, she’s started reporting again, independently, on Substack. “I’ve started being a local reporter again. I’m writing about how what’s happening in Washington is filtering down to Roanoke here in my local community — because we don’t have enough reporters to write that story.”
Even as she shines a light on painful truths, Macy insists that her work centers on hope — often embodied by the people who refuse to give up. “I always tell the stories through the heroes, you know? You learn about the opioid crisis through the first doctor in the nation that’s got the balls to pick up a phone and call Purdue Pharma and say, ‘I’ve got kids I immunized as babies who are overdosing in the high school library.’”
Her storytelling, she insists, is less about despair and more about naming the proper villains — and honoring the people fighting them. “They help you understand. And ultimately, they show you who the real bad guys are. It’s not your addicted nephew who’s in jail. It’s the guys that started all this at Purdue.”
Sounding the alarm on democracy and press freedom
Macy didn’t mince words about the state of democracy or the threats facing journalists. “I don’t wanna be cynical, but I’m very worried about the future of society. I think we’re living in authoritarianism right now.” She pointed to the recent arrest of a Chicago TV journalist during an ICE arrest as proof. “We’re arresting journalists.”
With her voice rising, Macy made clear that silence isn’t an option. “We have got to exercise our First Amendment rights. I don’t have to follow the newspaper rules anymore. I attend rallies every Monday outside of our congressman’s office — who won’t show up and explain his votes.”
And those actions aren’t just symbolic. “We’re bringing food to food pantries that were cut with the USDA cuts. We’re taking diapers to diaper banks. We’re organizing, we’re educating, we are holding teach-ins.”
She believes journalists — and newsrooms — should be part of that civic engagement. “We’ve got to begin to be that glue again — whether it’s an online journalism site, a grassroots group or the old-fashioned newspaper. We’ve got to cover this and say what's happening.”
Celebrating those who keep going
Macy ended the interview by telling a story about her former editor at The Roanoke Times, Brian Kelly. Now editing four papers with a skeleton staff, Kelly could retire, but doesn’t. “I said, ‘Brian, can you afford to retire?’ He said, ‘Of course. I’m the cheapest person you know. I’ve been saving for years.’ I said, ‘Why do you keep doing it?’”
His answer was simple: “Because I love it. It’s my calling. What else would I do?”
That kind of dedication, Macy believes, still exists in local journalism — even if the business model has failed. “That’s the kind of people that we need and want — and that I want to celebrate in this book.”
The final call to action
Asked for her message to local news leaders, Macy didn't hesitate. “Step up to the plate. Cover these rallies.” The people she sees protesting in Roanoke each week aren't seasoned activists — they’re retirees and first-time demonstrators. “They are people who have never participated in a rally in their lives — until this. I mean, where are the stories of this?”
For Macy, the answer isn’t to retreat or wring hands. It’s to dig back in. “There’s nothing more important,” she said, her voice steady. “America needs journalists.”
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