Episode 17: Rashah McChesney; From Texas To Alaska: Building Trust Through Local Journalism

Send us Fan MailA local newspaper can feel quaint until you see the bill: thousands per month just to print, plus a supply chain that depends on flights, couriers, and weather. We sit down with Rashah McChesney, owner and publisher of the Chilkat Valley News, to talk about what it really takes to keep community journalism alive in Haines, Alaska when the old ad-driven model is collapsing and every “easy” fix comes with trade-offs.Rashah shares her winding path from East Texas to Alaska, from music school to photojournalism, from a draining metro newsroom to the kind of small town reporting where you can actually close the loop with people. We get candid about student loans and higher education costs, why “objective journalism” is more practice than promise, and how trust breaks when communities stop engaging and only one side will talk. The conversation also goes straight at the modern media ecosystem: social media outrage, national cable incentives, and why local news gets unfairly blamed for the worst behavior of national platforms.Then we zoom in on the business decisions that decide whether a paper lives or dies: newsletters, subscriptions, community events, print frequency, and what happens to accountability when the watchdog disappears. If you care about local government transparency, civic engagement, and the future of small town newspapers, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who says “the media,” and leave a review with your take: what would make you support local journalism?