In this Feb. 19, 2019 photo, the old Daily Guide office stands for sale in St. Robert, Mo. With the shutdown of the newspaper in September 2018, this area in central Missouri's Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities across the United States to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University North Carolina. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

In this Feb. 19, 2019 photo, the old Daily Guide office stands for sale in St. Robert, Mo. With the shutdown of the newspaper in September 2018, this area in central Missouri's Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities across the United States to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysisto repair a road inundated during a 2013 flood.

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Last September, Waynesville became a statistic. With the shutdown of its newspaper, the Daily Guide, this town of 5,200 people in central Missouri’s Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities and towns across the U.S. to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University of North Carolina.

Blame revenue siphoned by online competition, cost-cutting ownership, a death spiral in quality, sheer disinterest among readers or reasons peculiar to given locales for that development. While national outlets worry about a president who calls the press an enemy of the people, many Americans no longer have someone watching the city council for them, chronicling the soccer exploits of their children