At age 60, I left medicine to become a local news reporter. And here’s why.

Before becoming a writer, I worked for 25 years as a palliative care physician. But I never thought I’d become a local reporter. I paid little attention to my hometown newspaper. I envisioned publishing articles on health topics in other publications, using my experience caring for patients to tell stories about real people. But then, at the urging of an upset friend, I wrote a short piece for the local newspaper about the fight to stop the clearing of nearby forests to build a hospital parking lot.

A year later, I had written about 30 articles on everything from a quirky local boat-building competition to the murky affairs of municipal finance. I got to know my neighbors and their problems. I receive news from villagers, and local officials want to explain their position to me. Along the way, I came to understand the power of local reporting to make national issues more accessible. For example, I knew I could use the story of how my local firefighters cleaned up wastewater and manure at their station after a hurricane to highlight the broader issue of recurring flooding and its impact on communities.

Local reporting has long been the off-Broadway of journalism, a springboard for young talent to find the rhythm and experience that will be the first step to a career in the field. Talk to boomer journalists about their early days, and they’ll likely recall times spent in small newsrooms, reminiscing about long hours and stale coffee—a romantic reworking of a period that was really about planning an escape to greener, more prestigious pastures. .

But hiring young people on the pretext of giving them a better future in journalism in other countries is outdated. I’m now on my third editor this year; everyone before him/her was on the sunny side of 25 – burned out and underpaid. My favorite, truly gifted, left journalism for a living wage and health insurance. It bothers me that his path is more the norm these days than not.

The family newspaper for which I write is approaching its 50th anniversary. It has won numerous awards, but now relies on the support of one intrepid new graduate student and a small, dedicated group of seniors, mostly veterans of the publishing world. Our reporters are independent contractors whose long-term commitments can be as thin as their paychecks. According to its owner, the newspaper works on the principle of thread. The word “profit” is pronounced like a mantra of aspiration.

We are not alone. According to the most recent State of Local News Projectresearch initiative from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, newspapers are closing at a rate of more than two per week in 2023, and half of U.S. counties no longer have a local daily newspaper. The latest development has led to the emergence desert news and increased political polarization. Two-thirds of U.S. newspaper journalists have left the profession since 2004, according to a Medill study.

Efforts to stabilize local newspapers have been made through local and national non-profit organizationsgrant funding and subscription-based business models. Some states, including New York, are even experimenting with subsidizing editorial salaries. The state recently adopted Local Journalism Sustainability Act offers local news outlets tax breaks to support journalists’ salaries.

Communities, in turn, can advocate for their local newspapers as an important factor in the health and well-being of their communities. Municipal development planning may include space for a local newspaper along with public infrastructure such as libraries, hospitals and parks.

And local newspapers can do a lot to better attract readers. They may rarely get worse heard voices that will help reimagine community reporting as an act of civic engagement. Newspapers can create writing partnerships with local schools to better stimulate interest in journalism among young people who may have never held a newspaper in their hands. Newspapers can develop relationships with larger and better-resourced news organizations, collaborating on complex but important investigations.

And the perception of local reporting needs to change. A local reporter is more than just an apprentice to a profession. Local reporting requires the development of specialized skills and knowledge. Even small communities take time to get to know each other. My village’s government is a microcosm of broader political dynamics, shaped by rival factions, political dynasties, and the consequences of chaotic urban planning. We have a Superfund site and a power plant. Fair and accurate coverage of these aspects of local life requires more than just comprehensible prose. This means attending late-night board meetings and seeking alternative viewpoints. This means learning the history of the place by talking to its old residents. This also means that the review should be presented with grace, even if it comes from a chance encounter with the reader while walking the dog.

That morning after the storm, I was surrounded by firefighters, tired from responding to alarms and rescuing their own flooded station. Once I call myself a local reporter, their stories pour out—they yearn to be heard.

Lynn Hallarman is the former director of palliative care at Stony Brook University in New York. She works as a local beat for TBR News Media in Setauket, New York.