The future of journalism is reader-supported. How will that work in rural Texas?

The nonprofit, reader-supported digital-only news room seems to be the flavor of the month for saving local journalism.

And, it’s true: excellent examples of the model’s success abound. The Texas Tribune, right here in Texas, seems to be healthy, growing and vital. Frankly, I’m more than a little jealous of the work they do and the space in which they work. It must be an absolute blast to work for Evan and Emily — and, judging by staff Tweets, it is.

The model holds such promise, a fellow in Fort Worth has launched a similar org. Richard Conner,  publisher of the Fort Worth Business Press, announced last month that he and a group of venture capitalists will soon re-animate the venerable Fort Worth Press as a nonprofit digital-only operation.

In addition to reader support (and, full disclosure here, I am a supporting member of the Texas Trib krewe), these ventures have drawn attention — and funding — from dozens of wealthy foundations. As only one example, the Knight Foundation recently announced it has pledged $300 million over five years to help revitalize local journalism.

These initiatives, along with similar efforts to invest in local news, offer hope that people will continue to commit journalism far into the future. In fact, it’s an exciting time to be a young journalist — especially if you can land a spot in one of these innovative newsrooms.

So, maybe it will save local journalism

But, here’s the thing. Local news is loosely defined as “not-national.” The Austin American-Statesman is considered to be a local newspaper. So are the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle. The Texas Tribune, which actually covers the whole state, produces “local” journalism.

What these initiatives haven’t addressed is how to save hyper-local journalism. That would be news orgs that focus on smaller, often more rural communities, little Texas towns that once boasted decent economies with downtown squares lined by mom-and-pop retail businesses but are now in decline.

This piece in the Texas Observer about deepening news deserts in Texas is only the most recent warning of how precarious things have become. More than 146 weekly Texas newspapers have folded or merged since 2004. That number swells to just more than 1,700 nationwide. Good or bad, those local papers were vital to civic life and, often, the only way locals could get any news out of their local city council, county commissioners or school board.

Local newspapers depend largely upon two things for financial survival: a lot of subscribers and advertising from mom-and-pop retail stores. Absent those two elements, especially the advertising component, small town newspapers can’t survive.

The business model is breaking, if not already broken, and there seems to be nothing on the horizon capable of fixing it.

One particularly vexing problem is that folks in rural communities are, on average, much older than those who inhabit urban and suburban regions. Older audiences prefer to consume news on the printed page, not on a computer screen or tablet, never mind a cell phone.

This is important because these new digital newsrooms have found the way to shed one of journalism’s most expensive legacy costs. From my own experience, I can tell you that printing and distributing a weekly newspaper will cost 20 percent or more of the paper’s monthly revenue.

This older population is not particularly computer literate, by and large, nor does it care to be. And, what if it were more literate? Access to broadband is notoriously difficult in rural parts of Texas and the nation. Indeed, nearly 15 million Texans lack access to a broadband internet connection in their home.

For that matter, so is cell phone coverage. People with AT&T cell service get lousy reception in Rockdale — and Verizon phones often have trouble in Elgin. There are towns in West Texas that have no cell phone coverage at all. The rural cell carrier network in Texas is as spotty as broadband coverage.

Another problem has to do with the business model of these upstart digital operations. They do a marvelous job of scaling up — again, look at the Texas Tribune — but I don’t see how that model will scale down.

By the way, I don’t have an answer to this. It’s just that the future of journalism has been much on my mind lately. These innovations ae exciting to watch but they don’t answer the questions troubling me.

We need to find an answer or these little towns will dry up and blow away. Or, they will be poorly served by their local governments. Oh, you can read all about what happens to communities when the watchdog goes out of business here.

I know that a lot of people are high on hyper-local print journalism. I believe in it, too. There are otherwise rural towns with booming economies — but I’ve also seen many of my favorite small towns begin to fade. When there are no more mom-and-pop businesses buying ads, these papers will go away. There isn’t enough money in circulation to support the traditional model and I haven’t seen the Knight Foundation cut many $100,000 checks to 1,500 circ. weeklies.

No, I don’t have the answer but, if this piece has a call to action, it’s to bring some attention to this so that people smarter than I will begin to address it.

Please leave a comment so we can continue this conversation.