Photographer Captures America's Disappearing Newsrooms

Ann Hermes noticed something most of us overlook: the messy, unglamorous spaces where local news gets made are quietly disappearing.

The Brooklyn-based photographer has visited 50 newsrooms across America, from small towns to mid-sized cities, capturing a world most people never see. Her photos show the reality behind local journalism: shabby carpets, cluttered desks piled with notebooks, computer monitors covered in Post-it notes, and half-empty bottles of antacid sitting on microwaves.

One photo shows Tom Haley at Vermont's Rutland Herald, scribbling in a notebook while his feet rest on the only clear spot on his chaotic desk. The blue carpet looks worn. A calendar hangs crooked on the wall. It's not glamorous, but it's real.

Hermes, who once worked as a photographer for the Christian Science Monitor, started this project to document spaces that evoke times gone by. She's photographed the last Morse code station in North America and old department store photo booths. But the newsroom project became something deeper.

"I love these spaces," she says. "I love spending time with these people."

Her photos reveal what she calls "true believers" who stick with journalism despite angry civic leaders, shrinking staffs, and friends leaving for better-paying jobs. These aren't elitists in prestigious offices. They're working people providing a fundamental civic service.

The images also capture newspapers themselves, now endangered objects. Stacks topple in corners. Yellowed copies fill cubbies. Piles sit in the backs of delivery vans. In newspaper "morgues," cut-out articles stuffed into cardboard files hold the history of entire communities.

Already, one newspaper Hermes photographed in Alameda, California, has shut down permanently.

The Ripple Effect

Hermes isn't stopping at documentation. She's becoming an advocate, planning exhibitions in the communities she's visited to remind people why local journalism matters. When a local newspaper closes, a town loses more than headlines. It loses accountability, shared stories, and institutional memory.

Her goal is to photograph 100 newsrooms total. The project has grown beyond art into a love letter to local news and the people who keep it alive. "I feel like I learn something new in every newsroom I visit," she says.

Her work is available on her website, and she hopes to publish a book someday. Each photo preserves not just a space, but the spirit of people who believe their communities deserve someone asking questions, attending meetings, and telling stories that matter.

These cluttered offices and dedicated journalists are worth remembering while we still can.