My Two Cents: Going small: Journalism students visit rural towns

While newspapers around the country were struggling, there was one group that kept on pretty much as it always had. They were the weekly papers that cover the local news―papers like the Whitman County Gazette. These papers cover the rural news that, often, no one else does. While rural reporting is not glitzy or high-profile, it is essential to democracy and community, especially in rural areas.

Introducing student journalist to the stories that can be found in rural communities is the basis for a recent grant-funded project at Washington State University. Students from the Murrow College were...