Small is beautiful (and successful) for newspapers

The AP reports:

Newspapers are hurting all over the United States, but the pain is less severe at small publications like The Blackshear Times in Georgia.

The weekly newspaper fills an information vacuum in a county of 17,000 people who live about 75 miles from the closest metropolitan market, in Jacksonville, Fla. That has made it easier for The Times to hold on to its 3,500 subscribers and keep its revenue stable in a recession that's ravaging much of the newspaper industry.

"CNN is not coming to my town to cover the news and there aren't a whole lot of bloggers here either," said Robert M. Williams Jr., The Times' editor and publisher. "Community newspapers are still a great investment because we provide something you can't get anywhere else."

The scarcity of other media in small- and medium-sized cities has helped shield hundreds of newspapers from the upheaval that's causing dailies in big cities to shrink in size and scope as their print circulations and advertising sales decline.

Interesting.