I think it's ironic (and I mean that, nothing more) that you write this piece during NPR's public melt-down. NPR is probably the prime example of a partially government-funded news organization. What could go wrong?
This would quite predictably generate a mass of local, Buzzfeed listicle quality “local” newspapers (check out my original piece, “Top 10 Sidewalks in Springfield”), all priced at $taxcredit-1.
My biggest frustration with local news here in Chicago isn't that it doesn't exist or seems to be lacking coverage: but the quality. Very little understanding of statistics and confusing of type one and type two errors. Main example recently is coverage over the debate whether to keep shotspotter.
Drives me crazy that local news editors seem to universally have no understanding of formal logic or statistics when approving stories.
Sham 'newspapers' would use the tax credit for journalist employees to finance some kind of dodgy business that's not really a newspaper. In between that and the tax credit for readers, you'd be financing a huge number of scams. I doubt the government has the capability to really go in and examine whether each business claiming the tax credit is actually a 'newspaper', so maybe your local building supply company or restaurant publishes a couple articles on Facebook and pretends their employees are 'journalists'. Customers can redeem their 'tax credit' in exchange for reduced prices or something
I go back and forth over whether this really is much of a problem, let alone one that requires government subsidies.
The immediate ways I can see this going wrong is seeing to what extremes recipient can publish content. They could go full gossip/scare story and scan the local police blotters for arrests. They could go full shill and run PR work for businesses and nonprofits in the local community. (A lot of local TV news from my experience has plenty of these two types). And, as the NPR saga is teaching us, every publication is going to have its bias from who they hire and what they cover. So they could also go full ideologue and push an agenda within what they report on. And any sort of attempts to try to prevent publications from doing any of this is going to fall into First Amendment problems very quickly.
We're all in shock that the aberration of the mid-late 20th century of limited mass media with large audiences is gone, and we're reverting to the wilder times of the 19th century. But we're still relatively early in the transition, and I think we'll see some phoenix rebirths alongside just outright deaths. That's been my experience here in Boise, at the very least, which is by no means a major media market.
Maybe people in bigger cities thought local news was fine five years ago but rural America saw local news falling apart in the early 2000's. I remember talking about it with my dad back in 2004, the group that owned USA Today had bought out or local news and it got way worse.
Also, there is lots of "local news" but its all free on Facebook and other social media. My boomer parents and many others get all the local gossip and stories through social media now. It's dumbed down the discourse by getting rid of local policy stuff but it's given people what they really want from local news "Why is Becky such a heathen", "That preacher pulled his dick out at a Wendy's" and "Did you hear what so and so said at the church potluck".
I love my local paper, pay ~$400/year for it despite its myriad faults, and love to give new friends a short subscription when they move to town. But I don't accept this kind of justification for large-scale federal interventions:
> [Tim Franklin] cited studies linking the decline of local news to lower civic participation, lower turnout in local elections, and even more wasteful public spending.
The "linked to" rationale is, at its very best, a cause for further research. In most cases, it's just a paper-thin post-hoc rationalization of the researcher's preferences.
Our relationship to government is changing at every level; our methods of collecting and processing information is changing, at every level. Things are moving rapidly and it's hard to see where we're headed. I respect established institutions that have clear popular support, but don't support taking heroic steps to preserve a status quo that very few people seem to want.
Is it consensus that a local library is still essential to a community? I actually don't see local news as analogous to either your Vietnamese restaurant or the library because of the watchdog role that a local news source should play.
Tax incentives are the least onerous government subsidy.
But you also have to define who is eligible. This essay focuses on written news but what about TV, video, audio? This might just be a huge subsidy to Sinclair. Unfortunately, people are very good at gaming tax incentives, but I think this is worth exploring at the state level to see if it’s workable.
I don’t spend much time on it, but where I live, a lot of local “news” and info is found on Nextdoor. I wonder if a social media company that is locally focused like that might have the revenue to hire journalists.
Media outlets should stop requiring journalists to have journalism degrees (especially journalism degrees from Columbia and Northwestern). Journalists having specific subject-matter knowledge other than journalism will write better content.
Isn't this issue one where we all need to undertake the "slow boring of hard boards?" (if I correctly remember the quote.) Much of this discourse waves away the demand side problem. It also reflects a golden glow memory of the past. I guess I'm saying we still need a more complete understanding of why people don't seem to want the nice nutritious diet of local news that the journallists say we need.
As someone who worked in Kansas, California, New York and Indiana at relatively small papers that emphasized local news for more than three decades, these ideas seem unworkable and, well, dumb.
As an editor in rural Kansas, I should ignore national farm policy stories to boost my "local" news percentage? Lots and lots of federal and state news directly impacts local readers and the issues get no coverage in virtually any other media. Further, as community newspaper staffing basically disappears, you want them to have to audit and record on a daily basis what is local news? Who is going to do that? And as we already have seen at too many newspapers, editors and content generators (they really aren't reporters) are all too happy to load up on restaurant and retail news and other empty-calorie content to chase online traffic. Does it count as local news if you are choosing to cover restaurant openings instead of the local school board?
Who will bell the cat? I think you are creating a large agency to check on all the newspapers meeting your standards. That said, I do like your idea. I also read Mr. Will's opinion piece and it is consistent with his usual political stand. "The attention span of a fruit fly." This statement points to a problem that I don't think we can overcome - people don't read much anymore. The National Enquier newspaper has solved this problem with many large headlines and pictures. I would appreciate hearing more of your thoughts on this issue.
You've talked me into getting an online subscription to the San Jose Mercury News. I'm not sure if that's the best source of local news for the Bay Area, but it must be better than nothing.
I think it's ironic (and I mean that, nothing more) that you write this piece during NPR's public melt-down. NPR is probably the prime example of a partially government-funded news organization. What could go wrong?
This would quite predictably generate a mass of local, Buzzfeed listicle quality “local” newspapers (check out my original piece, “Top 10 Sidewalks in Springfield”), all priced at $taxcredit-1.
My biggest frustration with local news here in Chicago isn't that it doesn't exist or seems to be lacking coverage: but the quality. Very little understanding of statistics and confusing of type one and type two errors. Main example recently is coverage over the debate whether to keep shotspotter.
Drives me crazy that local news editors seem to universally have no understanding of formal logic or statistics when approving stories.
Sham 'newspapers' would use the tax credit for journalist employees to finance some kind of dodgy business that's not really a newspaper. In between that and the tax credit for readers, you'd be financing a huge number of scams. I doubt the government has the capability to really go in and examine whether each business claiming the tax credit is actually a 'newspaper', so maybe your local building supply company or restaurant publishes a couple articles on Facebook and pretends their employees are 'journalists'. Customers can redeem their 'tax credit' in exchange for reduced prices or something
I've always wondered why national newspapers haven't added a local news add-on
Like if the NYT gave me the ability to buy a local Cleveland beat to my homepage there I would do it in a heartbeat
Maybe even a "What this means for Ohio/Cleveland" addendum to some national stories
I go back and forth over whether this really is much of a problem, let alone one that requires government subsidies.
The immediate ways I can see this going wrong is seeing to what extremes recipient can publish content. They could go full gossip/scare story and scan the local police blotters for arrests. They could go full shill and run PR work for businesses and nonprofits in the local community. (A lot of local TV news from my experience has plenty of these two types). And, as the NPR saga is teaching us, every publication is going to have its bias from who they hire and what they cover. So they could also go full ideologue and push an agenda within what they report on. And any sort of attempts to try to prevent publications from doing any of this is going to fall into First Amendment problems very quickly.
We're all in shock that the aberration of the mid-late 20th century of limited mass media with large audiences is gone, and we're reverting to the wilder times of the 19th century. But we're still relatively early in the transition, and I think we'll see some phoenix rebirths alongside just outright deaths. That's been my experience here in Boise, at the very least, which is by no means a major media market.
Maybe people in bigger cities thought local news was fine five years ago but rural America saw local news falling apart in the early 2000's. I remember talking about it with my dad back in 2004, the group that owned USA Today had bought out or local news and it got way worse.
Also, there is lots of "local news" but its all free on Facebook and other social media. My boomer parents and many others get all the local gossip and stories through social media now. It's dumbed down the discourse by getting rid of local policy stuff but it's given people what they really want from local news "Why is Becky such a heathen", "That preacher pulled his dick out at a Wendy's" and "Did you hear what so and so said at the church potluck".
I love my local paper, pay ~$400/year for it despite its myriad faults, and love to give new friends a short subscription when they move to town. But I don't accept this kind of justification for large-scale federal interventions:
> [Tim Franklin] cited studies linking the decline of local news to lower civic participation, lower turnout in local elections, and even more wasteful public spending.
The "linked to" rationale is, at its very best, a cause for further research. In most cases, it's just a paper-thin post-hoc rationalization of the researcher's preferences.
Our relationship to government is changing at every level; our methods of collecting and processing information is changing, at every level. Things are moving rapidly and it's hard to see where we're headed. I respect established institutions that have clear popular support, but don't support taking heroic steps to preserve a status quo that very few people seem to want.
Is it consensus that a local library is still essential to a community? I actually don't see local news as analogous to either your Vietnamese restaurant or the library because of the watchdog role that a local news source should play.
Tax incentives are the least onerous government subsidy.
But you also have to define who is eligible. This essay focuses on written news but what about TV, video, audio? This might just be a huge subsidy to Sinclair. Unfortunately, people are very good at gaming tax incentives, but I think this is worth exploring at the state level to see if it’s workable.
I don’t spend much time on it, but where I live, a lot of local “news” and info is found on Nextdoor. I wonder if a social media company that is locally focused like that might have the revenue to hire journalists.
Media outlets should stop requiring journalists to have journalism degrees (especially journalism degrees from Columbia and Northwestern). Journalists having specific subject-matter knowledge other than journalism will write better content.
Isn't this issue one where we all need to undertake the "slow boring of hard boards?" (if I correctly remember the quote.) Much of this discourse waves away the demand side problem. It also reflects a golden glow memory of the past. I guess I'm saying we still need a more complete understanding of why people don't seem to want the nice nutritious diet of local news that the journallists say we need.
Not going to lie- I clicked on the monkey hugging a kitten video.
As someone who worked in Kansas, California, New York and Indiana at relatively small papers that emphasized local news for more than three decades, these ideas seem unworkable and, well, dumb.
As an editor in rural Kansas, I should ignore national farm policy stories to boost my "local" news percentage? Lots and lots of federal and state news directly impacts local readers and the issues get no coverage in virtually any other media. Further, as community newspaper staffing basically disappears, you want them to have to audit and record on a daily basis what is local news? Who is going to do that? And as we already have seen at too many newspapers, editors and content generators (they really aren't reporters) are all too happy to load up on restaurant and retail news and other empty-calorie content to chase online traffic. Does it count as local news if you are choosing to cover restaurant openings instead of the local school board?
Who will bell the cat? I think you are creating a large agency to check on all the newspapers meeting your standards. That said, I do like your idea. I also read Mr. Will's opinion piece and it is consistent with his usual political stand. "The attention span of a fruit fly." This statement points to a problem that I don't think we can overcome - people don't read much anymore. The National Enquier newspaper has solved this problem with many large headlines and pictures. I would appreciate hearing more of your thoughts on this issue.
You've talked me into getting an online subscription to the San Jose Mercury News. I'm not sure if that's the best source of local news for the Bay Area, but it must be better than nothing.