Appalachia Funders Network Releases State of the News Business in Central Appalachia Report
With great uncertainty over the future of government involvement in rural economic development support, the Appalachia Funders Network (AFN) has released The State of the News Business in Central Appalachia - Models for Reinvestment, the latest in a series of action reports commissioned to strategically coordinate local and national investment in rural markets. This research informs the grant and investment programs of the Rural News Fund for Central Appalachia, led by the Appalachia Funders Network, with a new open call for applications from fund manager Invest Appalachia coming Fall 2025.
The report reflects feedback from hundreds of journalists, news decision-makers, community information providers, and regional philanthropic funders in all six states of Central Appalachia. Lead author Eli Flournoy of Media Growth Partners finds great opportunity in these rural communities, but only with investible news business models. “Businesses, public service providers and residents alike must be able to communicate accurate, timely and hyperlocally-specific information about what’s going on in their community,” says Flournoy. “When natural disasters hit, it’s a matter of life and death, with huge costs for gaps in information. Yet, the new Local Journalism Index finds fewer than one local journalist per county across nearly 40% of our region. We must restore locally-based journalists and information publishers to achieve our goals of narrative change plus economic and civic impact.”
In a call-to-action for regional and national funding partnerships, the report profiles examples of local news organizations working in collaborative community networks, and local philanthropic funding initiatives strengthening for-profit, nonprofit and public news business models in the region. Combined with findings in the recently released State of Funding in Appalachia report, AFN Executive Director Ryan Eller says, “despite the reality that more than a quarter of our counties in Central Appalachia have less than $1 per person in philanthropic assets, our small business support expertise, nonprofit infrastructure and models for collaborative and networked community economic development have never been stronger.”
Co-author Benjy Hamm, Director of the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky, highlights data showing for-profit, print newspapers still provide the vast majority of rural community news coverage in Central Appalachia. “Any meaningful effort to improve news coverage in rural America and prevent an increase in news deserts has to include collaborative funding and coverage partnerships, and business model diversification, in conjunction with existing traditional newspapers,” says Hamm. “In many rural counties, for-profits have the only publishing infrastructure and journalists covering community news — government meetings, schools, local events and businesses, and hyperlocal public and emergency services."
Data economist and co-author Luke Boutwell, PhD, of James Research & Analytics pulled rural Central Appalachia data from several ongoing national news research studies, showing significantly lower numbers of journalists and civic health scores across the region compared to national. Boutwell’s analysis concludes, “there’s no question of a direct relationship between the amount of journalism in a community and their civic health scores.”
This report and the Rural News Fund are initiatives of the Appalachia Funders Network’s Central Appalachia Chapter of Press Forward. To contribute to or become involved with the Rural News Fund, please contact Jess Mullins Fullen at jess@appalachiafunders.org. For questions on AFN’s research reports please contact Melody Lutz at melody@appalachiafunders.org.