Newspaper closing side effect - higher bonding costs.

[iceaura]

https://psmag.com/economics/economic-damage-from-losing-local-news

- - - three years after a newspaper closes, that city or county's municipal bond offering yields increased on average by 5.5 basis points, while bond yields in the secondary market increased by 6.4 basis points—statistically significant effects.

Rate hikes are even more pronounced for revenue bonds, and they run higher all around in states with low Internet usage and poor governance.

The internet apparently doesn't pick up the slack.

 

[Seattle]

It's a little dubious. If there are other markets, TV, other community papers it doesn't apply so we are talking about really small markets and I have a hard time picturing much economic investigative reports from papers in such small markets.

I would question the data/causality.

 

[iceaura]

I would question the data/causality.

They described their methods - hundreds of pairs of small towns, matched by geography and demography, each test subject with a control.
Of course the causality is speculative - that's explicit in the discussion. "Coincidence", however, has a steep statistical hill to climb in that data set.

If there are other markets, TV, other community papers it doesn't apply

There were not other "community" papers, by design - that was the tested circumstance.
Other markets, TV, etc, were tested by the study. The internet apparently correlated with revenue bond rates among the controls and the test subjects alike at the State level.

I have a hard time picturing much economic investigative reports from papers in such small markets.

Instead of picturing, observe. Have you never lived in a small to midsized bonding region with a local paper? Economic investigative reports - how much the town council is talking about spending on adding a turn lane to that intersection (and its effect on parking), with quotes from the council reps at Tuesday's public hearing - is kind of their thing.