After America elected a president who called journalists enemies of the people, I lost hope that the federal government would help save the ailing local news industry anytime soon.

Then I spoke with Leonard Woolsey, a Texas publisher recently named president of the America’s Newspapers trade group.

The group is seeking tax credits to save newsroom jobs and stabilize the industry as it works through economic and technological disruption. The credits have bipartisan support and have come close to being funded by Congress.

Woolsey said there’s still a chance in 2025.

“I think there’s enough common understanding of the role of local, community journalism and its importance in our country to be able to find common ground,” he said, “and we’ll make some sort of progress regardless of who’s sitting in office or who’s sitting in the chambers.”

He’s not alone. The country’s other major press group is also hopeful that the new leadership will be supportive and help publishers get fairly compensated by tech giants profiting from their work.

“I also think we have a lot of opportunities with the incoming administration and Congress,” said Danielle Coffey, CEO of the News/Media Alliance. “Our business interests are what is at stake here. They’re equally interested in economic and job growth.”

The industry can’t wait much longer. More than two papers a week are failing, on average.

Pundits are clucking about how “the media” affected the election. To me the issue is the lack of news media, since more than half of U.S. counties are now news deserts. National outlets and “influencers” emphasizing partisan conflict, and manipulative garbage online, fill the void.

Yet there are still around 5,600 newspapers providing trusted, local coverage that engages and informs voters and employing nearly 100,000 people.

The survivors face many challenges, Woolsey acknowledged. But many are finding ways to continue serving communities, build online businesses and grow readership.

“I believe we are plateauing, to the point where folks are finding a way forward,” he said, speaking from his truck as he drove across Galveston to get his vehicle tabs renewed.

Woolsey is publisher of The Galveston County Daily News, the oldest newspaper in Texas, and president of Southern Newspapers, a family-owned group of 11 papers in Texas and Oklahoma.

On Oct. 22 Woolsey was elected president of America’s Newspapers, which represents mostly independent, smaller publishers. He succeeds Heidi Wright, former chief operating officer of Oregon’s EO Media.

Southern Newspapers employs several hundred people is profitable, “but we’re not ’80s and ’90s profitable,” Woolsey said.

“We’re doing fine,” he said. “Like a lot of people we’re in a transition but it’s a planned transition. We believe that our future is still in our control. We have some good months, we have some not so good months, but the rate of change of things that we’re doing in our business are on schedule with where we would like to be.”

The group’s Galveston paper prints five days a week and seven days digitally, while its other papers print two and three days a week after reducing print frequency at the start of the pandemic.

“That gave us breathing room to get through Covid and be healthy, instead of having to be struggling and trying to just figure out how to make the day,” he said.

The transition includes moving more business online but “in a thoughtful manner, as not to abandon our legacy product of print, because it, too, is still a very valuable, profitable product,” he said. “You’re not going to abandon it.”

Then there’s customer feedback.

“I get stopped in the grocery store all the time,” Woolsey said. “People say, ‘please don’t take my print newspaper out of my hands.’ And I can honestly say, as long as I’m here, I’m not taking the newspaper out of your hands. They may not come out every day eventually but you know what? I believe at the end of the day newspapers will have to have a print newspaper because it’s their legacy, it’s who they are.”

How would Woolsey respond to someone who says saving newspapers is a lost cause, like buggy whips?

“I’d say I don’t want you to save me,” he said. “I want you to help level the playing field so that we can compete with Big Tech and other organizations that have arguably monopolistic or unfair market strategy and presence against us … I just want you to give me a chance to show you that we can be successful.”

Perhaps that will resonate with the new Congress, especially now that Google has been found to have illegally monopolized the search business. That affects how news sites are discovered and monetized.

Another court will decide if Google also monopolized advertising technology and, as federal prosecutors allege, shorted publishers.

“I believe that we’re probably going to see more change in the next four years on this subject than we’ve seen in the last 10 years,” Woolsey said.

Woolsey said that members of Congress and their staff members understand the plight of local newspapers and how their material has been used by tech companies.

Similarly, Woolsey believes elected leaders “who are in touch with their communities” will support tax credits designed specifically for local newspapers.

“I do believe that this will be successful going forward because there’s a genuine need,” he said, “and I think there’s very little more American than apple pie and somebody’s hometown newspaper.”

Well that won me over. Let’s hope this silver-tongued Texan can do the same in the other Washington.

This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.