Somewhere in the Bible it says, "the love of money is the root of all evil."
A lot of people think it money itself that is the root of all evil, but it's not. Money, after all, is just a thing. The love of money is what is in people's hearts. Or what passes for their hearts. When people put the accumulation of wealth above all else, things get very bad very fast.
We can sure see that these days.
"Media companies" used to be individuals and families who cared about their hometowns. Oh sure, there were robber barons in the newspaper biz. There was yellow journalism and were newspaper wars. William Randolph Hearst was hardly a benevolent dictator and the repercussions of that linger in today's difficulty in getting marijuana legalized. But they fought their battles in the big cities, New York, San Francsico, Philadelphia. The average town or small city had a family-owed newspaper. It maybe was good, maybe just ok. It might have won awards. It might have made money. H. Alan Painter's Hackettstown Gazette in New Jersey did both, which was a tribute to both Alan and the people of Hackettstown.
But the purpose was to inform the people who lived in the town and its surrounds.
Now we have hedge funds and slicing and dicing the staffs of newspapers for the good only of the bottom line. Add to that the development of for-profit internet entities that steal advertising and you have a perfect storm (I really hate that phrase, but it fits) of disaster for news.
Especially local news.
Dan Kennedy of Northeastern University and Ellen Clegg, formerly of the Boston Globe, are working on a book tentatively titled What Works: Case Studies from the Front Lines of Local News. They presented a Facebook chat, one in a series sponsored by the New England Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
Kennedy and Clegg are looking at start ups in the world of local news to determine what model might work to bring the most comprehensive coverage to people no longer properly served by traditional media. Which is to say most of us.
They worked on two case studies before being effectively shut down by the pandemic.
MinnPost, a non-profit news site covering the area surrounding Minneapolis, and Mendocino Voice in California,which is converting to cooperative ownership, are both doing well. The point of Kennedy and Clegg's research is to see what models can be duplicated and where each model works best.
Kennedy pointed out even in the greater Boston area where The Globe made changes to serve the suburbs and other products opened there has been a "cratering of local news."
People live in communities, he noted. Even though there has been a nationalization of culture, they need to know what's happening closer to home. The public is not helped when local news sources act too much like national news outlets.
"If local news organizations could capture eyeballs there would be a decrease in partisanship," Kennedy said. "It would be good for journalism and for society as a whole."
Clegg pointed out the definition of local can vary. Some news is town-focused, some more regional or state-oriented. "The hollowing out of statehouse bureaus and city hall bureaus" has left many levels of government without coverage, she said.
No matter how dedicated the editors and reporters are, something must be in place to fund the publications.
"How many ads is a gourmet cheese shop going to buy?" Kennedy asked rhetorically.
Paywalls are one answer, Report for America is helping, he noted.
The book is not planned to "drown in detail," he said. Once they are up and running again, the authors plan to profile 10 or 12 local outlets, for-profit, non-profit, cooperative and whatever model works allowing an organization to "keep its head above water if it can avoid corporate greed stomping on its neck," in Kennedy's words.
If there is a model that works, it's bound to be better than the alternative now on social media.
Erica Noonan, in the audience of the Zoom chat, pointed out Facebook and Slack seemed to have filled the void with "most of the reporting done by the loudest and least busy community members." She noted these "reporters" tend to write about specific narrow issues and their readers may not see their biases.
The journalists in the Zoom audience of course are concerned for their jobs, but they are primarily concerned about their neighbors. Any democracy requires an informed electorate and people who get their "news" from social media are not informed. They often don't even perform simple checks on where the information came from. They often repost even when there is no evidence of primary sources.
Kennedy suggested a paywall focused on bundling might be the best idea to bring news back to communities. In the past, most families subscribed to a regional and a local newspaper and true news junkies also got the New York Times. Today's families may be willing to subscribe to a similar online bundle.
He hopes that providing adequate local news could re-educate the community about the importance of honest news sources. People have more trust in their local news sources because they are familiar with the reporters and photographers. Kennedy and Clegg would like to see the trust return to all professional news outlets.
They don't have all the answers, but they have faith there are answers.
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