newspapers die? Ralph Nader gives birth to one

NEW YORK (AP) — At age 88, Ralph Nader believes his neighbors in northwest Connecticut are sick of electronics and miss the feeling of holding a newspaper to read about their town.

At a time when local newspapers are dying at an alarming rate, the longtime activist helps deliver one.

Copies of the first issue of the Winsted Citizen circulate in this old New England mill town, with stories about a newly opened food co-op, a Methodist church closing after worshipers lag behind and the repair of a centuries-old bridge.

“If it works, it will be a good model for the rest of the country,” said Nader, who delivered a long-gone Winsted newspaper in his hometown as a youth. He now splits time between Winsted and Washington, DC

The last local weekly newspaper, the Winsted Journal, started in 1996 before closing in 2017 as it could not make enough money to support itself.

Winsted, a town of about 8,000 people, has seen better days. Locals still talk about the 1955 hurricane that devastated much of Main Street and killed a major employer, the Gilbert Clock Co. Winsted is surrounded by several better-off smaller communities, with Litchfield County being a popular second home destination for city dwellers, and The Winsted Citizen will have those covered too.

Since the journal shut down, people have lost touch with what’s going on in local government and the news that binds a community together — who’s getting engaged, who’s giving birth — Nader said.

“After a while everything freezes and you start to lose the story,” he said. “Every year if you don’t have a newspaper, you lose that connection.”

Nader invested $15,000 and hired a veteran Connecticut journalist, Andy Thibault, to get the Citizen up and running. The imprint lists 17 reporters. They get paid, Thibault said, “when they write a story.”

The motto: “It’s your paper. We work for you.”

The Citizen plans to be monthly until next January, when it will become a weekly, Thibault said. He plans to sustain the newspaper through advertising, donations and subscriptions — $25 for the remainder of 2023 and $95 a year after.

Nader is full of suggestions but not pushy, Thibault said. The consumer activist and four-time presidential candidate does not represent a political stance, he said.

Thibault has used his connections to build a solid group of contributors, including longtime Hartford Courant editorial cartoonist Bob Englehart. The first issue features a detailed profile of a successful local basketball coach and a story about a project to paint a five-story mural in two abandoned mill buildings.

The depiction of Winsted as a news desert annoyed some. Bruno Matarazzo Jr., a reporter for the nearby Republican-American in Waterbury, taunts Nader with tweeted reminders that the newspaper regularly reports on Winsted. Waterbury is approximately 45 km from Winsted.

“It’s a different kind of reporting when a city has its own newspaper than it is when a daily newspaper reports on it,” said Janet Manko, publisher and editor-in-chief of another weekly in Connecticut, the Lakeville Journal, which also previously published the Winsted Journal. The failure wasn’t because Winsted didn’t earn a newspaper, she said.

According to a report released last year by the Northwestern/Medill Local News Initiative, The Journal is among an estimated 2,500 newspapers to have closed in the United States since 2005, all but about 100 non-daily newspapers.

So Nader is clearly bucking a trend and to be commended, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, who authored The State of Local News report.

“It’s going to turn heads because it’s Ralph Nader,” she said.

But maybe he won’t be as lonely as it seems. Abernathy said she’s been getting more calls for advice lately from people who want to open newspapers. The Citizen’s cautious approach — spending monthly before rotating weekly — has been used by others, she said. There is greater recognition of the need for a smart business plan rather than just a passion project.

Given Nader’s romance with Print, it’s a bit odd that the cover story in Citizen’s inaugural issue talks to young Winsted residents about how they get much of their news from social media. Thibault said he plans to establish an online presence.

“I like print,” said Terry Cowgill, a columnist for CTNewsJunkie.com. “I still like holding a printed newspaper in my hand. I am 65 years old. Most people under 50, certainly under 40, have hardly ever picked up a newspaper.”

However, he cheers for the Citizen. Cowgill said he suspects a citizen’s best shot at long-term success is if Nader can trade his celebrity for foundation grants.

On a cold day last week, volunteers flocked to deliver copies of the first 12-page issue. A woman, Ruthie Ursone Napoleone, stopped a van to ask for more specimens. Her father’s obituary was in the first issue, her nephew was quoted in another story, and a third featured her workplace.

She hugged the person who gave her the extra papers.

“I wish my father could read this,” Napoleone said.

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Photojournalist Jessica Hill from Winsted, Connecticut contributed to this report.

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