As the decade comes to an end, one disturbing trend has been the accelerating loss of local newspapers and other media outlets.\u00a0 Over the last 15 years, local newspapers across the U.S. have lost more than $35 billion in advertising revenue and shed half of their staff, and at least 2,000 news outlets have closed during that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And many of those who have survived barely cling to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2019\nalone was an extremely tough year for older news sources, like newspapers,\nmagazines, television and radio. Revenue\nfor television was down nearly 4% this year, and for print it was down nearly\n20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nhuman toll has been staggering: Some have\nestimated that nearly 8,000 people were laid off or lost their jobs in U.S. media\nin 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem has become so bad that areas without local\nmedia outlets are now considered \u201cnews deserts.\u201d What is a \u201cnews desert\u201d? It is a term without a universally\nagreed-upon definition. Generally speaking,\na news desert is a place with no local news outlets at all. Some define it a bit more loosely, stating\nthat news deserts are \u201cplaces where it is difficult to access daily, local news\nand information\u201d or even \u201ca community overlooked, if not entirely ignored, by\nthe media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the definition is vague, the impact is clear: Inadequate local media coverage can result in communities\nthat are more willing to rely on ideological messengers and a community where\ngovernment is less accountable to the public it is supposed to serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our representative democracy, an informed electorate\nis fundamentally important to ensuring that the system works. Many Americans have unprecedented access to\ninformation, but with lives busier than ever, it\u2019s very hard for citizens to\nfill the reporting and analysis void provided by local reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the \u201cwatchdogging\u201d that has historically been done by\nlocal media evaporates and there isn’t anybody watching the local town or city\ncouncil meetings and reporting on them, there’s potential for abuse or fraud. There’s a growing body of compelling research\nthat has found that as local news coverage declines, government corruption and\ngovernment costs increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, less local coverage can dampen public interest in\nlocal elections. Local news drives civic engagement. And when it comes time to pick our\nrepresentatives, voters living in \u201cnews deserts\u201d are less likely to know who is\nrunning and how they stand on issues. \nThus, they are less likely to participate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, the situation is not uniformly bad. Excellent investigative journalism continues,\nbut for those in the \u201cnews deserts\u201d \u2013 and for those soon to be in them \u2013 the\nsituation is very bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what should be done? \nOne idea is to consider whether local media should reorganize itself as\ncharitable non-profit corporations \u2013 such as the one you are listening to now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It isn\u2019t a far-fetched idea. \nAs taxpayers we currently support commercial<\/em> media through postal\nsubsidies, through tax breaks and through government ads. Why not encourage them to become nonprofits?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would help insulate them from the whims of owners and\nreduce exposure to taxes. And, after\nall, the \u201cmission\u201d of local media is actually public service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like\neverything else, it\u2019s easier said than done. \nIn order to become a nonprofit, a local\nmedia outlet would have to reorganize its governance structure and reclassify\nhow it\u2019s registered with the state. It\nwould also need to meet the IRS\u2019s strict requirements for tax-exempt nonprofit\nstatus. In order to maintain nonprofit\nstatus, an organization must be primarily supported by the public, through\nmechanisms such as foundation grants or individual donations. Typically, newspapers rely on selling ads and\nsubscriptions, which would have to change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also strict\nlimitations against nonprofits engaging in political activity. As a result, these nonprofit news\norganizations are forbidden from endorsing or opposing candidates for office\nand there are limitations on how they can support or oppose legislation. That means the newspapers\u2019 editorial pages\nwouldn\u2019t be able to endorse candidates, and they would likely face a problem in\nendorsing ballot measures or legislation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re well into a\nreordering of how some of our basic institutions have operated for the past\ncentury. The decimation of news\ngathering and reporting outlets in communities across the nation imperils\ndemocracy be reducing local government accountability and the amount of\ninformation voters receive about candidates. \nThat\u2019s something that should concern us all and is worthy of putting\nnear the top of the issues we collectively need to address in the decade to\ncome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the decade comes to an end, one disturbing trend has been the accelerating loss of local newspapers and other media outlets.\u00a0 Over the last 15 years, local newspapers across the U.S. have lost more than $35 billion in advertising revenue and shed half of their staff, and at least 2,000 news outlets have closed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2347,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346\/revisions\/2347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}