July 31, 2023 on The Story: For more than a century, Medford's Mail Tribune served as the flagship newspaper for much of southern Oregon's Rogue Valley — that was, until its abrupt closure in January. The loss of the newspaper threatened to create a "news desert" right in the region's biggest metropolitan area. But a number of people passionate about local news stepped in to fill the gap. That's how the fledgling Rogue Valley Times came to be. Recently, The Story's Ashley Koch went down to Medford and spent some time in the paper's newsroom to find how those efforts to keep the desert at bay have gone thus far. Watch more The Story videos: http://bit.ly/watchTheStory Follow The Story on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheStoryKGW Follow The Story on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thestorykgw