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Nose for News, By Sarah Stultz

One thing I hope comes out of this year is that people are reminded of the value of local news sources, and particularly local newspapers.

While the pandemic has been hurtful in some ways on the newspaper industry, in other ways it has reemphasized to people where they can go for credible information that matters to them. 

Multiple 2020 market surveys conducted by international consumer research company The Media Audit found that the time adults spent with newspapers daily increased at high rates during the pandemic compared to 2019.

The survey found that newspapers saw an 18% year-over-year increase in the time adults spent with the newspaper in April, while radio had a 5% increase and TV saw no change, according to the results.

A Pew Research Center study at the same time found that 61% of respondents were accessing national and local news equally about the pandemic, but 23% were more focused on local news.

Respondents were particularly interested in state and local government actions, goods in local stores, status of nearby schools and businesses, availability of testing, status of nearby hospitals and availability of unemployment  and aid, with the most interest being about actions of state and local governments.

The increase in readership reported through these surveys has been mirrored here at the Albert Lea Tribune this year.

We had an almost 30% increase in pageviews on albertleatribune.com during the month of April, compared to the previous year, followed by a 13% increase in May. The website has seen more views in every month since the start of the pandemic except one, and half of the months have seen more than double digit percent increases.

In other words, more people are looking at the Tribune than they were last year.

Though these readers may have initially visited our website for stories surrounding the pandemic, we hope they found that once they got to the site, they came across other information they were interested in about the community, whether it was stories about their friends and neighbors, changes in businesses, births and deaths, available jobs, shopping opportunities or other stories of inspiration.

Thanks for trusting us, and we look forward to being a vital source of news for you for many years to come.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.