This is an eyewitness account to the demise of local newspapers... a crisis is a story that's playing out all over the nation.

Season 1 dives into the struggles of the Shelter Island Reporter, a local newspaper serving an island town of 2,800 people near the eastern tip of New York's Long Island.

Last year the paper I worked for from 2007-09 was on the verge of shutting down, but it received a lifeline through the end of 2025. There are no guarantees after that.

Will it still be in print come 2026? And if so, how?

Shelter Island - a small island at the East End of Long Island town publicly accessible only by ferry boat. There's no way to sum it up in just a few words. That's what makes its local paper, the Shelter Island Reporter, so important. It's the town square - to celebrate the town and community, fight over it, enjoy the high school sports triumphs and gloat and gossip over the police blotter.

Welcome to Shelter Island through the pages of the Reporter and to the people who, love it or hate it, count on reading the paper every Thursday.

Original music and scoring by Felicity G. Williams. Voiceovers by Dani Henion and Aaron Bernstein.

Please check out my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/c/outofprintnews and follow me on Instagram and TikTok at @outofprintnews

Also check out the Shelter Island Reporter at https://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/ and on Instagram at @shelterislandreporter

Think about what you would lose if your local newspaper closed – a public advocate for the community, a forum to celebrate it, fun gossip – and what that same community would do in order to keep its paper alive were it on the verge of shutting down.

Original music and scoring by Felicity G. Williams. Voiceovers by Dani Henion.

Please check out my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/c/outofprintnews and follow me on Instagram and Tiktok at @outofprintnews

Also, please read the Shelter Island Reporter at https://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/ and follow the paper on Instagram at @shelterislandreporter