OCTOBER 2021

No News is Not Good News: The Local News Crisis and the Natick Nest’s Response

Ella Stern, EIC

The closing of local newspapers has spread like a pandemic in recent years. According to a November 2019 article from the New York Times, “Since 2004, more than 1,800 local print outlets have shuttered in the United States, and at least 200 counties have no newspaper at all.” This worrying trend is called the local news crisis. It is a serious problem requiring an immediate solution because when local news disappears, so do the things that hold together a democracy. According to the motto of the Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”. When citizens are left in the dark because of a lack of local news, there is a decline in transparency, accountability, compromise, reputable information, and political participation. 

Causes

The local news crisis was in large part instigated by the internet, which has led to a lack of money and audience for local news. Before the internet, the majority of newspapers’ revenue came from advertising. Now local newspapers scrounge for the scraps left over by Google and Facebook. 

How were Google and Facebook able to dominate so quickly, and why couldn’t local newspapers stand up to these Goliaths?

First, by definition, local newspapers are confined to a small area. Because they are so localized, a newspaper in Ohio can’t advertise free pizza night in Montana. This limit on their advertising capabilities prevents local newspapers from making profits anywhere close to those of universal Google and Facebook. Loss of advertising, among other factors, has caused newspapers to lose more than $35 billion in revenue between 2004 and 2018. 

Local newspapers are forced to shrink along with their advertising opportunities. Many have resorted to layoffs in order to avoid closing. According to an August 2019 article from the New York Times, “the number of newspaper newsroom employees dropped by 47 percent between 2008 and 2018, to about 38,000 from about 71,000”. This need for layoffs is partially due to the fact that local newspapers often lack the money for proper pensions, which are money for retired employees. With a smaller staff, local newspapers are not able to provide the high-quality journalism they had produced previously. They have to make the impossible decision of choosing what not to cover, what to leave citizens completely in the dark about. 

However, according to the November 2019 article from the New York Times, 71% of Americans think their local news outlets are doing well financially, so they don’t support them financially: only 14% of Americans have paid for or donated money to a local news source in the past year. Part of this apathy stems from the general public not feeling highly connected to their community. When people aren’t connected to their community, they don’t read local news, which makes them less connected to the community and less aware of the struggles the local news industry is going through. This perpetuates the crisis and its harmful effects. 

Effects

Quite simply, less local news equals less democracy. 

Democracy relies on an informed electorate; in order to participate in democracy, constituents need to know what is going on in their community. Even following national news does not give people enough information about state and local politics for them to make informed political decisions. Thus, state and local representatives cannot be fully representative of their constituency, which has dangerous and undemocratic consequences.  

When local news doesn’t force people to pay attention, there is no accountability nor any repercussions when the people sworn to represent us don’t do their job. Here’s a piece of local news you might not have heard: the 2013 Open Legislative Data Report Card gave the Massachusetts State House a grade of F for its transparency. Only three other states received this grade. Receiving an F means that the State House is failing at making information available to the public, communicating with constituents, and accurately representing the people. According to Act on Mass, an organization fighting for transparency in the Massachusetts State House, not all committee votes are made public (so constituents can’t always see if their representative’s vote reflects their own opinions) and bills are only made public 24 hours before a vote (so constituents don’t have much time to review them and make their opinions heard). With more local news, more people would know that our state house is corrupt. They would lobby or protest for the end of non-transparent policies, or even run against their representative to take on the problem head-on. 

In addition to forcing state governments to be transparent, it has been proven that the accountability that local news provides results in lower carbon emissions. According to a November 2018 article from Pacific Standard Magazine, a Massachusetts daily newspaper called the Herald News reported in 2002 that the Somerset Power Plant in Somerset, Massachusetts was the third-highest emitter in the state. Later that year, the plant’s toxic emissions dropped from almost a million pounds to 400,000 pounds: a 60% reduction. And if they had pledged to cut emissions and hadn’t followed through, you can bet that the local newspaper would have picked up on such a good exposé opportunity. With local newspapers around, corporations and people have to live up to their word or face the consequences. 

Local news also lessens polarization. A November 2018 article from the Journalist’s Resource measured polarization in terms of the numbers of split-ticket votes. Its research found a “1.9% decrease in split-ticket voting in counties where newspapers closed before the 2012 election”. This decrease was not observed in those counties before the newspaper closed. A decrease in split-ticket voting (voting for candidates of different parties for different positions) reflects an increase in polarization because it shows that people are less likely to vote for members of both parties. When local newspapers close, they are replaced by national news, which fosters generalizations because it focuses on national issues instead of local nuances and because, in order to get people to listen, it has to present news in a fiery way that vilifies the other party rather than trying to compromise with them. Compromise is essential in our system of government; especially with the filibuster, the parties need to work together for anything to get done. But right now, they are in partisan deadlock over even the smallest issues. 

Especially because of our current polarization and the way we vilify people with opposing views, misinformation has been spreading rampantly. We recently saw how dangerous this could get: when elected leaders spread misinformation about a stolen election, millions of people believed them, and hundreds brought their misinformation and hatred with them as they stormed the capitol to try to overturn the election. As the Columbia Journalism Review reported in December 2019, when local newspapers close, they may be replaced by “pink slime” news outlets: outlets that pretend to be reputable while, in reality, they spread “algorithmically generated articles and conservative propaganda”, which are usually not even written by real people. Another reason why there is so much misinformation is that some people don’t trust their newspapers, so they turn to social media and conspiracy theories as their source of “information”. They may feel left behind by national news, which focuses on big cities more than rural towns. However, people are more likely to trust local news than national news; local news is written by people they know, and focuses on people and places they know. An increase in trusted local news would lead to people getting information from reputable local newspapers instead of absorbing misinformation.        

There is one more crucial piece to the democracy puzzle: voting. A 2016 report from the Pew Research Center shows that following local news, thinking local news sources are in touch with their communities, trusting local news, and approving of local news sources corresponds to higher rates of voting. Voting is one of the easiest and most effective actions we can take to participate in democracy and make our opinions heard. However, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation, barely half of eligible voters actually vote in a typical election year, and at least a third of people that vote don’t fill out the whole ballot, meaning that they don’t vote for down-ballot candidates. When voters aren’t exposed to local news, they can’t make informed decisions about down-ballot candidates and they can’t see that their vote makes a difference in their community. Voting for a local politician makes a big difference: it is easier to get things done at the less-partisan local level, where issues like good schools and safe streets unite voters, and state and local governments play a more involved role in Americans’ everyday lives than the federal government does. Finally, a vote for a state politician is a vote for the future of national politics, as politicians usually work their way up. Because following local news correlates so strongly with voting and making a difference, the local news crisis lessens people’s ability to affect change in their everyday lives and the future of the country. 

Solutions

The freedom of the press was so important to our Founding Fathers that it was protected in the First Amendment. So how can we go back to our roots and rebuild our democracy?

First, we need a shift in how we as a society view local journalism and keeping up with the news. As previously mentioned, democracies rely on an electorate that is informed about current events. Therefore, as the organization Report for America advocates, local journalism needs to be seen as a service necessary to our society. One thing this will do is help local journalism get more money. After all, libraries and public schools get donations all the time because they play an integral role in society—they educate people and create community, just like local news. This new mindset will also inspire society to keep up with local news more consistently. This needs to happen in all ages: news consumption and political participation cannot die in my generation. 

To work towards local journalism being viewed as a public service, individuals can research local news in their town, read and donate to their local newspaper if they have one, and advocate for—or even start—a local newspaper if it does not currently exist in their community. Spreading the word about the importance of local journalism is also crucial. 

However, local news will never grow enough without tangible policy change. For a uniform and effective solution to the local news crisis, policy change needs to happen on the federal level. 

First, a national commission to investigate the causes, effects, and solutions of the local news crisis must be created, just like the one created to investigate the January 6 insurrection and prevent it from happening again. 

Additionally, legislation giving financial help to local newspapers must be passed. This legislation must do two things. First, it needs to divert some internet advertising back to local newspapers. Even a portion of this advertising would revitalize local news all over the country because it used to be their main source of revenue. Second, it must give local newspapers enough financial support that they do not have to charge people for their newspapers. In a democracy, we should not be charged for information. Furthermore, free newspapers make it easier for low-income and minority citizens to access the news. These groups are already targeted by voter suppression; we cannot suppress the information that allows them to cast an informed vote. 

Solving the local news crisis is a Democratic-leaning but bipartisan issue, so it has a better chance than most to pass our current Democratic-controlled but deadlocked Congress. However, we must advocate for these changes in order for them to reach Congress. Another easy action step people can take to support local news is contacting their representatives at the local, state, and national level to express their support for local newspapers, the creation of a national commission to solve the local news crisis, and giving money and advertising to local newspapers.  

The Natick Nest’s Response 

I first found out about the local news crisis when I attended a journalism conference this past summer. I was deeply concerned about what is happening to our democracy, but I was also excited because I knew I could do something about it. 

This year, the Natick Nest has pledged to do its part to fight the local news crisis in both its reporting and its actions. 

The Nest now has a local news category on our website and our print edition. This category will include local politics, events, sports, and more. We may do local business spotlights, highlight achievements of various school clubs, and advertise local events and groups. We also now have a contact form on our website so that our writing can represent what the public wants to hear. 

Additionally, we have been working on expanding our audience so that more people in the community can be educated about local news. Our first big accomplishment was getting a print edition in time for our first issue! This is important to us because community members are more likely to read the news and feel connected to what is happening when they can hold the newspaper in their hands. Additionally, we will be able to distribute our print edition around town to make it easily accessible to more people. 

We are looking forward to growing our local news focus and our print edition even more as the year goes on, and we hope you will join us on our journey to strengthen our democracy.