From Residential Neighbor to Lifestyle Colony: How the New York Times Reports on its Metropolitan Hinterland

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Small Towns and Rural Regions

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the nature of and editorial emphases in hinterland coverage by a national newspaper that has successfully executed strategies of digital adaptation and expanding international readership in the internet era. Our evidence comes from the New York Times’ coverage of the Hudson Valley, an exurban-rural region at the adjacent hinterland of the New York metropolitan area that has seen 21st-century growth in amenity economies and residential relocations from metro New York residents. Using content analysis of n=694 articles about Hudson Valley places, individuals, and events published in 2002-2022 on the newspaper’s website, we find modest declines in overall volume; significant placement in so-called ‘soft news’ and lifestyle journalism sections; and widespread references (one of every three articles) to second homes in the New York Times’ Hudson Valley coverage over the period. We interpret this pattern as a shift in the Times’ reporting of this hinterland from a regional neighbor, one region ‘among equals’ in editorial treatment alongside cities and suburbs in a shared metropolitan system, to a lifestyle colony whose editorial treatment highlights lifestyles, activities, and concerns of outsiders from the metro center.

Authors

• Leonard Nevarez, Vassar College

• Neil Kotru Gode, Vassar College