The challenge to creating viable and vibrant local news reporting, writes Karry, is creating "the political will to craft new policies to subsidize local, independent and noncommercial news and information. More presidential candidates must address the shifting economics of the media marketplace that threaten the future of journalism. They should offer their own bold ideas to save journalism and debate the issue before a national audience." (Photo: iStock / Getty Images Plus)
A Pivot to Digital Shouldn't Spell the End of Local News
By vowing to increase support for public media and dedicate funds to newsgathering, a proposal put forth by Bernie Sanders is raising a question that's rarely come up in political debates: How can policymakers intervene to help revitalize local news and put journalists back to work?
Last Saturday, the final printed edition of the Vindicator rolled off the presses in Youngstown, Ohio. After 150 years, the city's last remaining daily closed its doors, handing its subscription list and masthead to the Tribune Chronicle, based in nearby Warren, which has begun to produce a dramatically pared-down online version of the "Old Vindy."
The editors of the new digital Vindicator assured readers that they will "consistently strive to produce this newspaper with good journalism."
But gone are almost all of the 144 employees who once collected paychecks at the printed daily.
"Before it's too late we must find ways to support journalism that actually meet our societal and democratic needs."
The Vindicator is following in the footsteps of other U.S.-based papers that have ceased production of daily print editions and live on in online versions that are phantoms of their former selves.
The pivot to digital journalism may be a response to the news-consumption habits of more and more people in the United States. But it's a shift that hasn't saved tens of thousands of reporters from the unemployment line.
Between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2016, the number of U.S.-newspaper employees dropped by more than half--from 375,000 to about 173,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some, like Politico's Jack Shafer, argue that the job losses are just a byproduct of the creative destruction of the free market. In his words, "the [newspaper] industry is dying for good reasons:" it couldn't keep pace with the digital economy.
But Shafer fails to acknowledge that news production and distribution in the United States (and other Western democracies) have never been entirely dependent on the whims of the marketplace.
Public subsidies for a public good
From our nation's founding, we've created public policies to subsidize the sharing of news and information. The Postal Act of 1792 subsidized postage rates for newspapers, pamphlets and other print media considered socially beneficial.
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and, eventually, PBS and NPR.
In the 50 years since, the media landscape has undergone seismic shifts and audiences have become more diverse. It's time we rethought public media's mission and create policies that could save local reporters' jobs and keep communities engaged and informed.
Along these lines, Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders last week outlined policy proposals designed to support local journalism and combat the forces of its demise.
Among other ideas, Sanders is considering a tax on targeted ads sold by highly profitable companies like Facebook and Google. He cited a proposal Free Press Action put forth that would generate up to $2 billion each year to support local-news startups, sustain investigative projects, and seed civic-engagement initiatives connecting reporters with the people they serve.
A pivot to public media
By vowing to increase support for public media and dedicate funds to newsgathering, Sanders is raising a question that's rarely come up in political debates: How can policymakers intervene to help revitalize local news and put journalists back to work?
Our proposal offers a course correction for an online economy that's decimated the ranks of local reporters. It also recognizes that the journalism crisis isn't just a commercial issue driven by the marketplace, but one that will have a profound impact on our democracy.
Even across the news industry, there's growing acceptance that subsidies may be necessary to bolster news production. A 2019 survey of news and media professionals conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 58 percent expected to see significant support this year from foundations and other kinds of nonprofits, tech platforms or governments.
Survey respondents realize that the pivot to digital has marked a massive transfer of wealth away from enterprises like theirs that produce news to those, like Facebook and Google, that don't. Without a rebalancing in the form of a solution like the ad-revenue tax, we're likely to see waves of newsroom layoffs continue through this decade and beyond--further weakening journalists' ability to protect the vulnerable and hold the powerful to account.
We can't withstand the loss of many more newspapers like the Vindicator. Before it's too late we must find ways to support journalism that actually meet our societal and democratic needs.
The challenge is to create the political will to craft new policies to subsidize local, independent and noncommercial news and information.
More presidential candidates must address the shifting economics of the media marketplace that threaten the future of journalism. They should offer their own bold ideas to save journalism and debate the issue before a national audience.
If we act now to implement new public policies, we have a real chance to create a healthier information system, one that keeps pace with the digital world while revitalizing the civic-minded journalism that's disappearing from our communities.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just two days to go in our Spring Campaign, we're falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Last Saturday, the final printed edition of the Vindicator rolled off the presses in Youngstown, Ohio. After 150 years, the city's last remaining daily closed its doors, handing its subscription list and masthead to the Tribune Chronicle, based in nearby Warren, which has begun to produce a dramatically pared-down online version of the "Old Vindy."
The editors of the new digital Vindicator assured readers that they will "consistently strive to produce this newspaper with good journalism."
But gone are almost all of the 144 employees who once collected paychecks at the printed daily.
"Before it's too late we must find ways to support journalism that actually meet our societal and democratic needs."
The Vindicator is following in the footsteps of other U.S.-based papers that have ceased production of daily print editions and live on in online versions that are phantoms of their former selves.
The pivot to digital journalism may be a response to the news-consumption habits of more and more people in the United States. But it's a shift that hasn't saved tens of thousands of reporters from the unemployment line.
Between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2016, the number of U.S.-newspaper employees dropped by more than half--from 375,000 to about 173,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some, like Politico's Jack Shafer, argue that the job losses are just a byproduct of the creative destruction of the free market. In his words, "the [newspaper] industry is dying for good reasons:" it couldn't keep pace with the digital economy.
But Shafer fails to acknowledge that news production and distribution in the United States (and other Western democracies) have never been entirely dependent on the whims of the marketplace.
Public subsidies for a public good
From our nation's founding, we've created public policies to subsidize the sharing of news and information. The Postal Act of 1792 subsidized postage rates for newspapers, pamphlets and other print media considered socially beneficial.
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and, eventually, PBS and NPR.
In the 50 years since, the media landscape has undergone seismic shifts and audiences have become more diverse. It's time we rethought public media's mission and create policies that could save local reporters' jobs and keep communities engaged and informed.
Along these lines, Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders last week outlined policy proposals designed to support local journalism and combat the forces of its demise.
Among other ideas, Sanders is considering a tax on targeted ads sold by highly profitable companies like Facebook and Google. He cited a proposal Free Press Action put forth that would generate up to $2 billion each year to support local-news startups, sustain investigative projects, and seed civic-engagement initiatives connecting reporters with the people they serve.
A pivot to public media
By vowing to increase support for public media and dedicate funds to newsgathering, Sanders is raising a question that's rarely come up in political debates: How can policymakers intervene to help revitalize local news and put journalists back to work?
Our proposal offers a course correction for an online economy that's decimated the ranks of local reporters. It also recognizes that the journalism crisis isn't just a commercial issue driven by the marketplace, but one that will have a profound impact on our democracy.
Even across the news industry, there's growing acceptance that subsidies may be necessary to bolster news production. A 2019 survey of news and media professionals conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 58 percent expected to see significant support this year from foundations and other kinds of nonprofits, tech platforms or governments.
Survey respondents realize that the pivot to digital has marked a massive transfer of wealth away from enterprises like theirs that produce news to those, like Facebook and Google, that don't. Without a rebalancing in the form of a solution like the ad-revenue tax, we're likely to see waves of newsroom layoffs continue through this decade and beyond--further weakening journalists' ability to protect the vulnerable and hold the powerful to account.
We can't withstand the loss of many more newspapers like the Vindicator. Before it's too late we must find ways to support journalism that actually meet our societal and democratic needs.
The challenge is to create the political will to craft new policies to subsidize local, independent and noncommercial news and information.
More presidential candidates must address the shifting economics of the media marketplace that threaten the future of journalism. They should offer their own bold ideas to save journalism and debate the issue before a national audience.
If we act now to implement new public policies, we have a real chance to create a healthier information system, one that keeps pace with the digital world while revitalizing the civic-minded journalism that's disappearing from our communities.
Last Saturday, the final printed edition of the Vindicator rolled off the presses in Youngstown, Ohio. After 150 years, the city's last remaining daily closed its doors, handing its subscription list and masthead to the Tribune Chronicle, based in nearby Warren, which has begun to produce a dramatically pared-down online version of the "Old Vindy."
The editors of the new digital Vindicator assured readers that they will "consistently strive to produce this newspaper with good journalism."
But gone are almost all of the 144 employees who once collected paychecks at the printed daily.
"Before it's too late we must find ways to support journalism that actually meet our societal and democratic needs."
The Vindicator is following in the footsteps of other U.S.-based papers that have ceased production of daily print editions and live on in online versions that are phantoms of their former selves.
The pivot to digital journalism may be a response to the news-consumption habits of more and more people in the United States. But it's a shift that hasn't saved tens of thousands of reporters from the unemployment line.
Between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2016, the number of U.S.-newspaper employees dropped by more than half--from 375,000 to about 173,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some, like Politico's Jack Shafer, argue that the job losses are just a byproduct of the creative destruction of the free market. In his words, "the [newspaper] industry is dying for good reasons:" it couldn't keep pace with the digital economy.
But Shafer fails to acknowledge that news production and distribution in the United States (and other Western democracies) have never been entirely dependent on the whims of the marketplace.
Public subsidies for a public good
From our nation's founding, we've created public policies to subsidize the sharing of news and information. The Postal Act of 1792 subsidized postage rates for newspapers, pamphlets and other print media considered socially beneficial.
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and, eventually, PBS and NPR.
In the 50 years since, the media landscape has undergone seismic shifts and audiences have become more diverse. It's time we rethought public media's mission and create policies that could save local reporters' jobs and keep communities engaged and informed.
Along these lines, Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders last week outlined policy proposals designed to support local journalism and combat the forces of its demise.
Among other ideas, Sanders is considering a tax on targeted ads sold by highly profitable companies like Facebook and Google. He cited a proposal Free Press Action put forth that would generate up to $2 billion each year to support local-news startups, sustain investigative projects, and seed civic-engagement initiatives connecting reporters with the people they serve.
A pivot to public media
By vowing to increase support for public media and dedicate funds to newsgathering, Sanders is raising a question that's rarely come up in political debates: How can policymakers intervene to help revitalize local news and put journalists back to work?
Our proposal offers a course correction for an online economy that's decimated the ranks of local reporters. It also recognizes that the journalism crisis isn't just a commercial issue driven by the marketplace, but one that will have a profound impact on our democracy.
Even across the news industry, there's growing acceptance that subsidies may be necessary to bolster news production. A 2019 survey of news and media professionals conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 58 percent expected to see significant support this year from foundations and other kinds of nonprofits, tech platforms or governments.
Survey respondents realize that the pivot to digital has marked a massive transfer of wealth away from enterprises like theirs that produce news to those, like Facebook and Google, that don't. Without a rebalancing in the form of a solution like the ad-revenue tax, we're likely to see waves of newsroom layoffs continue through this decade and beyond--further weakening journalists' ability to protect the vulnerable and hold the powerful to account.
We can't withstand the loss of many more newspapers like the Vindicator. Before it's too late we must find ways to support journalism that actually meet our societal and democratic needs.
The challenge is to create the political will to craft new policies to subsidize local, independent and noncommercial news and information.
More presidential candidates must address the shifting economics of the media marketplace that threaten the future of journalism. They should offer their own bold ideas to save journalism and debate the issue before a national audience.
If we act now to implement new public policies, we have a real chance to create a healthier information system, one that keeps pace with the digital world while revitalizing the civic-minded journalism that's disappearing from our communities.