Senate committee tells HHS to advertise in community weeklies to promote rural public health messaging

Jul 28, 2023

The Senate Appropriations Committee is directing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that local media, including non-daily newspapers, are part of their federal advertising campaigns, according to the National Newspaper Association.

The Committee is focused on improving rural public health. In an appropriations report for Fiscal Year 2024, which begins October 1, 2023, the Committee directs the HHS Secretary to prioritize local news media in its advertising programs. Led by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Mississippi, two advocates for improving rural health, the report said:

“The Committee recognizes the critical role local media plays in delivering public health messages to small or rural communities. Therefore, the Committee directs the Secretary to ensure that local media in small or rural markets are part of the Federal public health advertising campaigns. To further this goal, the Committee directs the Secretary, in coordination with the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and their media buyer contractors, to prioritize local news media in rural areas for HHS Federal advertising campaigns to reach citizens in these communities with key health messages. Local media should include newspapers, including non-daily newspapers, television, and radio.”

The Committee requires a report on HHS’s efforts within 90 days of enactment on the advertising work and a breakdown of the money allocated to local media in rural areas for public affairs campaigns from the prior fiscal year, 2023.

NNA Chair John Galer, publisher of The Journal-News in Hillsboro, Illinois, said NNA was gratified by the strong language in the report. Urging the federal government to do a better job of investing in local newsrooms through advertising has recently been a top priority of NNA, which represents nearly 2,000 community newspapers across America.

“This is just a first step in our ongoing campaign to persuade the federal government that it can do a better job of getting messages out and supporting endangered local newsrooms at the same time,” Galer said.

Ever since the news broke a couple weeks ago that the former owners of my community’s newspaper closed their publishing company, I have answered and fielded questions about the future of the Clay County Courier from concerned residents. I more than appreciate the concern. I’ve written many times about news deserts and the devastation to communities when they lose their newspaper over the past five years. If anything this concern that the paper could ever close should serve as a flag that newspapers need support.

It’s important to realize that business and industry owners are looking for towns that have a strong advertising base. They are looking in communities’ newspapers to determine the strength of a city’s school system, if the area businesses advertise robustly, the churches available, and to get a feel for the community. Industries and businesses are looking in newspapers for a town with potential for growth and hope.

There may be some who may feel that their newspaper wouldn’t be missed if it were to fold. These people would be wrong. It’s like anything else that people take for granted in their towns, until they are gone. Then begins the cries of what happened? How could this happen?