The other first responders: local journalists

It’s one of the paradoxes of the coronavirus crisis: Local papers are going under even as both readership and public need for solid information soar. With advertisers pulling out, can other financial models offer hope?

In the heady days of anti-Vietnam War protests, the burgeoning women’s movement, and Richard Nixon’s sweep of 49 states in his 1972 reelection, Jeff vonKaenel went home to sell Fuller brushes. His future wife, Deborah Redmond, lived in her car.

The idea was to save up enough so they could afford to work for the...