I would argue that local channels matter even more now than they used to. Most of my day-to-day news sources are national or international. Most of the media a

I would argue that local channels matter even more now than they used to. Most of my day-to-day news sources are national or international. Most of the media and pop culture I consume too. I'm lucky enough to still have a local newspaper that does some actual reporting, but it's probably not long for this world. Even social media and the water cooler at work are more interested in the widely distributed professional communities I'm a member of then the actual physical community I live in. My city's nightly news broadcast is close to the only reliable source of information about my municipal and state government in my media diet. In all but the most sensational of cases, it's likely to be the one place I hear about huge classes of events which will have far more of an impact on my life than whatever is on CNN today. For all but the federal level, it's as likely as not to be my sole passive source of information about political candidates. I like to think I'm an unusually well-informed citizen (by which I mean I'm a politics junkie) and without a half hour of TV news every night I would have absolutely no clue what most of my government is doing in my name with my tax dollars.