Is Local News the Answer?
America is more polarized than ever – and one big reason why is that local newspapers have disappeared.
Over 2,000 local papers have gone out of business in the last 15 years – thirteen hundred communities in the US now have no local news source at all. Local papers tend(ed) to be much more straight-up-the-middle, as there aren’t that many ways to report on the bridge needing repair or how the local high school team is doing.
As you can imagine I’ve interacted with hundreds of journalists over the past number of years, and I can say with confidence that local journalists are much less interested in trying to stick it to you and much more invested in getting the word out about something that might matter to the people in town. As one reporter put it, “We report things responsibly because we are going to see the person the next day.” I sat with dozens of editorial boards of papers in New Hampshire and Iowa. Half of those papers are now closing or closed and over 30,000 local journalism jobs have disappeared over the past number of years.
Fewer people run for office after a local paper goes down and the cost of municipal financing goes up – apparently you don’t care as much about the kind of deal you get if no one is reporting on it. I spoke to a city councilman who saw a marked difference in the behavior at meetings when a reporter stopped coming; people started saying and doing things they never would have done with a reporter present. The quality of government goes down.
Also, it turns out that one’s media diet corresponds very strongly to, for example, one’s propensity to support Trump. Trump is underwater with newspaper readers by a whopping 49 points while he’s up among social media users by 4 points, cable news watchers by 8 points and among YouTubers by 16. Newspaper readers are more likely to have trust in institutions.
There is a scrappy organization – the Rebuild Local News Coalition – that is trying to reverse the tide. I spoke to its founder and President, Steve Waldman, on the podcast this week. Steve and I have known each other for a while – we both went to Brown University and he started Report for America a number of years ago. “There is growing momentum around supporting local papers from both sides of the aisle. It turns out it’s a source of civic pride for most towns, the same way a sports team might be in another community. And everyone loves small businesses.” Steve notes that legislators at both the state levels and federally are now rallying around tax credits for both local papers and the small businesses that advertise in them. “Fixing this problem at the local level might cost $1 billion a year.”
Steve notes that the big tech companies have a special responsibility as both beneficiaries of some of the content that these newspapers generate as well as the cause of their demise. “It’s fair and reasonable to ask the biggest tech companies – the ones that have benefited the most from this new reality – to spend a tiny portion of their revenue to solve the significant problem they helped create.” Steve sees more optimism around the Community News and Small Business Support Act than he’s seen in some time.
The decimation of local papers is an underrated cause of the decline in our politics. Could something as simple as having a reporter in your town show up to things and write them up in an objective way help restore our sense of trust? I personally am convinced that many towns could support a local publication if it didn’t need to enjoy double-digit profit margins and a boffo growth rate. Some things aren’t meant to be profit engines – but are still positives that lead to a better way of life. Communities telling stories about themselves falls in that category.
For my interview with Steve Waldman of the Rebuild Local News Coalition click here. To see what Forward is doing in your state click here. For more about the media landscape check out my book Forward which goes into its impact on polarization in some detail.
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