Since it is the day before Christmas and my posting schedule has been slight….I close out the week with a few thoughts on local journalism.
Most of the reading public knows that the state of local journalism is dying…..thanx in part to the internet and social media.
Personally I weep for journalism for quality work has been replaced with sensationalism….
My local paper has shuddered their offices and it is up for sale…..the operation was moved to a site some 60 miles away and the paper is a shadow of its former self.
If only there was a way to save local journalism…….there is an opinion on just how we could do this…..
Under our plan—the foundation of the new Local Journalism Initiative—policymakers in Washington would provide a lump sum to every county in the nation annually based on the county’s population to pay for nonprofit journalism within that county.
Readers of the Columbia Journalism Review are well aware of the importance of local news media; they have been the foundation of the American free press, and political democracy, since 1776. Daily newspapers have traditionally constituted the heart and soul of local news media, and they have provided the lion’s share of original reporting upon which all other news media depend. That remains the case in the digital era as much of newspapering has transitioned online.
CJR readers are also aware that local journalism as it has been known for 200 years has all but disappeared in most places in the United States over the past two decades. The business model for commercial journalism, based on advertising providing most of the income, is dead. Thanks to the internet, it will never return. All efforts to find a viable new business model for local journalism have failed, and investors have abandoned the field, except for private-equity funds on the lookout for distressed properties they can strip for parts.
I like the idea…..non-profit journalism could be the answer to the problem of ‘fair and balanced’ news.
Thanx to the Clinton admin of the 90s news became a profit making enterprise at the expense of accuracy and neutrality….
This country needs local journalism to survive…..sadly without some sort of plan it will slowly die and be replaced with lies and disinformation…today is the perfect example of the trouble journalism is in…..it needs our help.
Thoughts?
Have a great evening and be safe and smart…..
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
We still have a local regional paper that publishes daily, and online too. The local town paper is weekly, and we often buy that one. My wife subscribes to the regional paper online, so she tells me most of the local news. But I haven’t bought a national daily in print for more than 20 years. They are mainly all too right-wing here now.
Have a nice Christmas with Sue and Momo, old friend.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you be well and be safe Merry Christmas chuq
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and with passing of Joan Didion, an inspiration to so many fledgling young journalists, great reporting slips further back into the past. Without daily print media, their work struggles to see the light of day. Problem is that all the locals have been absorbed into chains of local papers. They allowed this to happen inorder to survive, but unfortunately the business model they have attached themselves to have no interested in journalism or real news. Just plentiful adveriser foot fall which is being stretched thiner and thiner all the time.
I am optimistic; there being an unquenshable thirst for the truth and good writing. We have to find a way of making the internet work for, instead of against us.
Ocourse, I am never right. So I’ll just wish you a happy Christmas and an interesting new year.
Thanx Bill and a very good one for you and yours…..chuq
dont lets-do-never-write….you always b bestest in my novelas!!