Outside, the latest news was coursing through the stifling air that heralded a sweltering Washington summer, pinging countless phones with updates. Thousands were praying on the National Mall. The Taiwanese president was asking for more weapons. President Trump was threatening Iran.
But none of that had yet made it inside the newspapers and magazines overflowing from mismatched bookshelves at the Newsroom, a narrow newsstand tucked into a strip of restaurants and retailers in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. Instead, first timers browsed, looking for obscure magazines or just trying to escape the May sun. A regular grabbed a Sunday paper on the way to the farmers market.
In a capital governed by the thrum of viral sound bites and staccato bursts of Truth Social posts, the Newsroom has emerged as an enduring relic of a Washington that was slower, quieter, more measured.
It may also be the last newsstand of its kind in the city, one that retains news as its primary product and not just a name.
“We’re not letting the industry die,” said Stephen Bota, the newsstand’s proprietor.
On most Sundays, Mr. Bota, 60, still stands behind the till. Originally from Kenya, Mr. Bota has been in the newsstand business in Washington since 2000. He used to own a couple of stores, but slow foot traffic during the Covid-19 pandemic forced him to consolidate.
To make ends meet, Mr. Bota has side hustles: selling back issues on eBay, delivering papers to hotels and embassies and even running a luggage storage service.
“Somehow, between all that, we’re able to pay the rent,” Mr. Bota said.
But uncertainty still looms as the print industry continues to contract.
When Mr. Bota bought his first newsstand in 2000, he said there were about a half-dozen competitors. Today, the handful of stores around Washington with news in their name have mostly become convenience stores, with perhaps a smattering of print titles.
Since Mr. Bota sold the News Express in nearby Bethesda, Md., more than a decade ago, magazine sales have dropped, and the store has replaced periodicals with six-packs.
“They started taking the magazines away little by little,” said Ana Maria Bota, Mr. Bota’s wife, who stayed on to help manage the Bethesda store. Now, she said, it’s more of a “beer and wine store.”
The Newsstand has headed, if anything, in the opposite direction. Wooden magazine racks line the two long walls of its narrow room, stuffed with hundreds of titles, including foreign periodicals in German, French and Spanish and prominent back issues covering the death of Queen Elizabeth II and Mr. Trump’s first inauguration.
The dearth of newsstands in the city has helped the operation, regularly drawing new customers who cannot find the print media they are looking for elsewhere.
“It’s a hidden gem, some place where magazines can actually live,” said Glinda Cooper, a first-time customer, after Mr. Bota helped her find what she was looking for, and more — two copies of Rolling Stone’s May cover issue on the K-pop group BTS, one copy of the magazine’s 2021 BTS cover issue and an extra BTS magazine thrown in as a first-timer freebie.
Later in the day, Kristina Chao and Ethan Kuan, both 21 and on summer break from New York University, wandered into the store looking for a cool escape from the unseasonably hot day. Neither is a particularly big news reader, but they appreciated that the Newsroom was keeping the past alive.
It’s a “snapshot in time,” Ms. Chao said. “You go to any modern-day bookshop, and it’s the up-and-coming, viral books. This is more of a thrift shop.”
Mr. Bota encouraged them to take a free book, a courtesy he regularly offers new customers. “If they’re not being read, they’re decoration,” he said.
While the students were perusing the used books, which support an annual charity drive by the Botas for communities in Ms. Bota’s native Guatemala, a regular walked in to get his Sunday paper. “As a kid, I delivered newspapers, so print is in my blood,” said Tom Sommers, 63.
These days, he walks over a mile every week to get his paper from Mr. Bota. “He’s the only one who has all this,” Mr. Sommers said, gesturing toward the newspapers, magazines and books filling every nook of the store. Leo, the store dog, was climbing over a pile of newspapers nearby.
Being in the business for so long, Mr. Bota has had a front-row seat to the gradual decline in print media. He said he was bullish that print was making a comeback, especially as more people craved the physical after the pandemic.
But with customers expecting him to be well versed about the latest developments, even he has changed how he consumes news in the morning.
“I read mine online,” he said, “and I push everyone else to read in print.”
