The death of local news has been greatly exaggerated. That’s the message that comes across loud and clear in a revealing Washington Post report by Leonard Downie Jr., The rebirth of local news depends on all of us. Downie reports:
You’ve heard local news is dying. In fact, it might just be evolving.
Look around: Online nonprofit local and state news sites are proliferating. Some family newspaper owners are purchasing and investing in endangered small-town papers. A few billionaires have bought large metropolitan dailies. Some public radio stations, local television stations and even universities are getting into the act. Much of this is being seeded and nourished by philanthropic foundations and nonprofits.
American local newspapers had long depended on an economic model primarily supported by advertising and print subscriptions, both largely destroyed by the digital revolution. By contrast, the nascent revival of local news media is dependent on a variety of still evolving models. Here is a sampling of what is working and where.
Downie then catalogs the numerous examples of how private funding is underpinning this evolution. This is good news. It’s exactly how the market works, and a refreshing counterpoint to previous calls for a dangerous government bailout of local news. But the list contains a poison pill for press freedom, which is the subject of my posted comment:
I POSTED THIS COMMENT:
Unfortunately, this otherwise hopeful accounting of the "evolving '' local news market in the digital age contains a dangerous element—the inclusion of government economic support as one element of the evolution. This is a dangerous equivocation, because government support is not market support, it is force. "[G]overnment support, so long as there are no strings attached" is a contradiction in terms. What about implicit strings? Once news outlets become hooked on political support, their independence and objectivity cannot be assumed. Government support is different in kind from the private methods of support highlighted throughout this article. It is the difference between force and voluntarism. And why should taxpayers be forced to support news outlets that they won't voluntarily patronize? The First Amendment reads "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom . . . of the press." I read that statement as establishing the complete separation of press and state, in the same way and for the same reasons as the opening line establishes the complete separation of religion and state. Keep the government at all levels out of the press. As this article makes clear, private market forces are fully suited to "saving" local news.
Related Reading:
The Pravda-ization of the American Press
New Jersey Civic Information Consortium’s Immoral Taxpayer Grab
Keep the press free from the academics and the politicians by Paul Mulshine
NJ Government Takes First Step to Becoming ‘the Sole Arbiter of Truth’
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