Abstract
To date, scholarly works in the media ecology tradition have largely focused on the functioning of news production in urban America. While these studies have greatly expanded our knowledge base on metropolitan newswork, journalistic practices in our country’s small towns have been, on the whole, under-examined through an ecological lens. At the same, debate has surfaced surrounding whether national news organizations dedicate sufficient resources to covering rural communities. As outlined in Michael Clay Carey’s book, The News Untold: Community Journalism and the Failure to Confront Poverty in Appalachia, national news practitioners often parachute into rural America for stories which, in the eyes of residents, fall short in holistically illustrating day-to-day life. For citizens who call the majestic mountains of Appalachia home, these narratives carry the potential to reinforce demeaning, derogatory, and damaging stereotypes, suggesting that their lived experiences somehow negatively diverge from counterparts in city centers. It is against this backdrop that Carey’s book seeks to broaden our understandings of rural news ecosystems in America, both from the vantage point of practitioners and the public.
The author concentrates his efforts on how news production and consumption operate in a trio of Appalachian small towns. Similar to prior works in the canon of media ecology, Carey extols the role of community newspapers as the primary public forum through which citizens learn about local life. Delving into the lineage of community journalism research, Carey advances a solid argument for why newsprint still matters to Appalachian residents, even in the digital age. Employing a wide range of methods acquired through 6 months of immersion—including content analysis, in-depth interviews (with both journalists and citizens), and ethnographic observation—Carey’s central consideration rests in how rural news organizations in Appalachia tell stories about poverty. Carey equates poverty coverage in the region to “an elephant in the room”—a topic that deeply touches the daily existence of rural residents, yet often is underrepresented in institutional media coverage (p. 191).
Through the case study locations profiled, Carey uncovered that local media outlets (primarily print and digital products, as local television and radio were excluded from the analysis) produced few stories that profiled poverty in depth. Further investigating this “media silence” that emerged in his content analysis, the author evidences that the small number of stories were generally published in response to the release of datasets or reports by state and local authorities (p. 175). Traced to long-standing socialized routines within newsrooms, such event-based coverage of poverty had a higher probability of finding its way into the newspaper. When asked about the low volume of content on the topic, journalists in the case study locations said that they often avoided integrating first-person narratives about poverty for fear of shaming neighbors enduring personal economic hardship.
To more effectively cover poverty in rural America, journalists should partner more closely with the local community, Carey contends. Drawing upon his own experiences as a rural reporter, the author proposes a set of “Action Steps for Journalists,” which outline how news practitioners can better institutionalize poverty coverage that better serves rural readers. Some suggestions could be easily integrated into daily practice, such as encouraging reporters to more transparently explicate why they need community sources in their stories about poverty. Other ideas, such as building partnerships with civic and educational collaborators, would require significant investments in infrastructure.
In all proposals detailed in the book, Carey emphasizes that dedicated audience engagement efforts can help provide a more comprehensive portrait of poverty. In particular, leveraging citizen content creation—such as online comments to stories or hyperlocal platforms for user-generated content—can facilitate closer ties with readers in rural communities. For Appalachian residents, however, constructing a web-based relationship with institutional media may be difficult because of digital divides—a concern that Carey rightfully highlights. However, this work does not explore with sufficient depth how economic imperatives at play may influence this coverage. This gap in the literature leaves room for future research, which can further probe the degree to which business-side considerations influence editorial judgment calls for rural publishers, such as allocating limited resources toward digital audience engagement.
The best practices in fostering community dialogue delineated in this work can extend beyond Appalachia. The book’s “how-to-guide” for community relationship building could be employed as an easily digested reference for practitioners on how to better cultivate relationships with readers, for instance. Journalism educators may also find this material relevant, providing students concrete advice on how to better integrate diverse sourcing into their narratives. Furthermore, instructors of graduate-level method courses (particularly those using qualitative approaches) could easily use chapters from this book, modeling Carey’s masterful research design and eloquent presentation of the resultant data. For academic researchers, this book contains a clarion call for more scholarship on urban and rural divides in newswork. Across all audiences, Carey’s work spotlights why journalistic storytelling (still) matters in shaping our collective belonging to geographic space and place—particularly down Appalachia’s country roads.