Newspaper closure adversely affects political engagement, study finds

Fewer the stories to read about your town, less the interest you would take in its politics.

That's a conclusion of a paper authored by Princeton economists Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido.

Their study finds that in the short run, the 27000-circulation Cincinnati Post's closure has adversely affected political engagement and electoral competition in northern Kentucky. The study does not cover Ohio, which hasn't had municipal elections since the paper folded.

Excerpts:

The Post's closing "made elections less competitive" with a "greater increase in incumbent advantage after the Post closed" (p. 15) .

"[R]elatively few people went to the polls after the Post closed in places where the Post was more important" (p. 17) .

[R]elatively few people ran for office after the Post closed in places where the Post was more important" (p. 17).

Read the study here (pdf, 266 kb) .

How a shuttered newspaper may live online

Even if the Seattle Post-Intelligencer halts its printing presses in the next few weeks, it might still stay alive online -- like the shuttered Cincinnati Post (Ohio) and Capital Times (Madison, WI).

Eric Pryne of the Seattle Times on how those newspapers fared upon going online, and what the Seattle P-I might learn from their experience:

The Cincinnati and Madison online newspapers emphasize what's local. Both contain familiar newspaper content, such as obituaries and high-school sports results. The Wisconsin site even has comics.

Full article here.