This story comes from KCUR's daily news podcast Kansas City Today. Listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
This month, seven journalists at The Kansas City Star lost their jobs. Among their ranks were an opinion editor and reporters covering the police department, Wyandotte County and more.
“Three of these reporters are exposing corruption, secrecy and missteps inside the county surrounding KC, and one re-established our coverage in Eastern Jackson County. Another has created a newsletter for an underserved community, drawing more readers every day,” said The NewsGuild-CWA, the union representing many Star employees, in a statement.
“One keeps residents in a thriving county on the Kansas side informed about municipal decisions that impact their daily lives. And yet another is covering an area north of KC that has been neglected for years.”
It was part of a larger round of layoffs at newspaper chain McClatchy, the Star’s parent company. The NewsGuild-CWA said McClatchy cut 30% of its union members at 17 papers across the country.
The Star chapter of the union said it lost 15% of its members, and is now organizing a fundraiser to help support the laid-off workers. As of Monday, the fundraiser has raised just over $6,100 out of its goal of $7,000.
(Disclosure: Many KCUR employees voted to be unionized through CWA.)
Layoffs are nothing new in the news business, as consumer spending and the advertising ecosystem have changed. A recent Northwestern University study found that newspaper employment has decreased by more than 70% in the past 20 years.
But this decline in jobs affects more than just the local media business. It’s also a serious detriment to the communities these newspapers cover.
When journalists disappear, so do important mechanisms for holding the powerful accountable and exposing wrongdoing, said Joy Jenkins, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism who studies local media.
“Research has shown that without local newspapers doing this type of reporting, spending has gone up in some of those communities — essentially, politicians recognizing that they don't have those eyes and ears on them,” Jenkins told KCUR's Kansas City Today podcast. “There can be actual, tangible shifts in the way government runs as a result.”
One 2020 study found that a decline in local newspapers led to higher borrowing costs for local governments and, eventually, higher taxes for residents. A 2025 Columbia Journalism Review analysis found that the closure of daily newspapers was correlated with a rise in corruption charges, indictments and cases.
“When these local newspapers scale back or go away,” Jenkins said, “we lose those journalists that are holding folks accountable, that are showing up to city council meetings, that are showing up to press conferences, that are talking not only to people in power, politicians, others, but also talking to the people that their decisions affect.”
The following interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
On why so many journalism jobs have disappeared
Advertising had been the substantial revenue source for newspapers for years and years and years. And of course, with the shift to online and digital media, that started to decline. People's attention and money shifted elsewhere.
So those changes in consumption habits and the changes in willingness to buy advertising from newspapers, versus a platform, has had an impact, where newspapers just aren't the solid financial investments that they used to be. We're also seeing corporate investment in newspapers. A lot of papers that were family-owned for generations, (now) owned by companies and increasing shifts and conglomerations.
And the other side is the willingness of the public to invest in news, particularly local news. According to the Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, only about 16% of people in the U.S. pay for (online) news, and that's not something that's projected to change substantially anytime soon.
How this has affected the communities that local journalists cover
We know from peer-reviewed research that when local news goes away, civic engagement can decline, civic knowledge can decline. There's also been qualitative work showing that a sense of connection among communities declines: people not having access to information about events in their communities, things going on around them, how national trends are affecting them. So, it's a substantial loss.
(Recent research says) that not all people in news deserts really recognize what they're missing. Some folks think that, “Oh, local news is doing fine, or I still have places I can go for local information.” And that's absolutely true. There's Nextdoor, there's Facebook groups, there's TV news, there's other sources. But we know at a broad level that there are democratic impacts or social impacts.
On new revenue models to ensure the continued survival of local journalism
There's been a lot of movement among local news organizations to think differently about how to become financially sustainable. A lot of them still rely on advertising to an extent, but we're also seeing some local news organizations move to subscriptions. Some have donation drives, some are doing more events to engage people, and then we have some nonprofit news organizations that have completely different models.
But I think a lot of news organizations are finding success with trying out some diversified revenue streams and trying to figure out different ways for people to support the journalism in the best ways they can.
How social media has affected news consumption habits and the revenue model for local news
As soon as Facebook, in particular, started to become this really popular site drawing a lot of people, news organizations were looking toward that to determine, “Could this be a way for us to reach audiences we haven't reached before? Could this be a way for us to share our journalism and engage with people at a broader scale?” And for a while, that was effective. But at the same time, very little revenue is coming to news organizations from that.
Facebook has been a competitor for advertising dollars. They offer it in a very targeted and more affordable way for a lot of advertisers. And so that's been a challenge. And then, the Facebook algorithm can shift and have a huge impact on news organizations who, at one time, had really depended on it for good proportions of their traffic. And so that relationship has, for a long time, been very love-hate between news organizations and social media.
Audiences’ use of traditional news media is declining. Even visits to news organizations’ websites or apps, that's been declining. In the Digital News Report, this is the first year that social media and video networks are the single most widely used way of accessing online news across their global survey.
Within that, (there are) questions about trust in those sources, questions about the credibility of those sources, questions about mis- and disinformation, and those remain really important to consider. And local news organizations are working to keep up with, “What do we put on social media, how do we use it, and where could it be harmful to us?”
On how many years of layoffs have impacted journalists
I'm a former local journalist myself. We are committed to what we do, even amid really challenging conditions. We love the communities we cover. We love doing stories. But with these rounds and rounds of layoffs, these financial challenges, this takes an emotional toll. It takes a toll on well-being, it takes a toll on mental health.
