6 ms·

I started my career as a journalist at a small daily paper before moving into tech in the 1990s. As a young reporter - still in college - I got horrible assignm

I started my career as a journalist at a small daily paper before moving into tech in the 1990s. As a young reporter - still in college - I got horrible assignments like having to attend local budget meetings, going down to the police station to copy the blotter, sitting in on school board meetings, updating the local calendar and reporting on the high school sports teams, among other tasks. This stuff was boring, tedious and rarely ever generated "news" of anything beyond an informational synopses of the goings on around town. It didn't matter - the paper was picked up and read daily by thousands of readers. Many read it cover to cover. It's truly an important service to any community. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. Newspapers traditionally bring people together and provide a sense of belonging and regional awareness and even pride. This stuff isn't sexy, nor particularly profitable, but it has to be done! Someone needs to keep track of these events, summarize and disseminate this information. Even the most boring, mundane happenings need to be recorded and publicized for well-functioning society. Without that effort, the things happening around us become opaque, and being informed relies literally on word of mouth. Sadly, pretty much every effort to digitally replicate the services provided by local papers has failed to my knowledge. As a result, I know more about what's happening in London than I do about my home city. No idea what the solution is, and a lot of people much smarter than myself have tried for years. But what I do know is the long term consequences of small newspapers closing is a lot more dire than I think most people realize.

sjg007 8y ago
The future is probably an AI aggregator that takes meeting minutes and summarizes them. Then every public event / happening gets posted to Facebook. The one journalist turns into the content creators themselves themselves. Maybe someone like Facebook could geofence sites and aggregate them into something like My Town.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I'm actually working on a project similar to this, using an AI to generate local news articles. The problem with this is every town does it differently, and some do it so awfully that getting anything of value from the minutes takes a lot of work for a human who was actually at the meeting itself. For example, my town doesn't publish its meeting minutes online for three months. I can get the minutes in person the week after, but by then the once-weekly newspaper has "scooped" my AI because they had a human there. And even after I get the minutes, oftentimes the note will say "approved PUD conversion from C-2 for [Business X]. Motion from [Councilmember Y] seconded by [Councilmember Z]". Without knowing the discussion surrounding that decision, the minutes are dry and would produce an even drier news article. I've tried to work with other area towns as well, and many of them don't put their meeting minutes online at all. The most reliable council meeting notes come from bigger cities, which don't need an AI to write their news for them.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    Maybe do voice transcription in towns that record video of their meetings.
- a3n 8y ago
  I think the future is just as likely civic disengagement.
  - trentlott 8y ago
    Yes. I think the last US Presidential election is a small taste of the future rather than an aberration.
grahamburger 8y ago
I know I'm kind of dreaming here, but I think this would be a cool application for ActivityPub / Fediverse. Every town gets an instance with some official accounts (govt, school board, etc) and a dedicated reporting staff to gather tidbits to publish. Because of federation I could follow the news of other places I care about but my identity would be on my own city's instance.
- Anon1096 8y ago
  One of the most important parts of any newspaper is that it is independent from the government though. I know in my town officials have openly accused the local paper of slander, and everyone is the better for seeing both sides. Having official accounts is just asking for coverups.
  - grahamburger 8y ago
    I wasn't imagining that the 'official accounts' would be exclusive accounts or have privileges over other accounts, just that they would be centralized places for those groups to release information. I agree that it shouldn't be run by or have behind-the-scenes influence from the government (or other powerful orgs.)
dragonwriter 8y ago
> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. And that’d be silly. Communities existed long before newspapers, and they exist for nnplaces too small to support their own newspapers now. And even communities that would have had a newspaper a couple decades ago make do with, e.g., one or mor Facebook groups today, with the boring bits you refer to informally crowdsourced.
kuschku 8y ago
This is also one of the largest issues with EU politics and elections right now – there’s few EU-wide media, as result, there’s little EU-wide debates, and no real community.
- philwelch 8y ago
  Is it even possible to have all of that without a shared language?
  - kuschku 8y ago
    That’s the other major part of a community, and a major problem, yes.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    If only the French hadn't opposed the use of Esperanto as the common language...
    - fwn 8y ago
      It would be great to have a common language in the EU that close to nobody ever heard of. Fun aside, language is not only shaped by culture, but also shapes culture. It couldn't get any harder for people to affiliate with the EU if the EU institutions would embrace a foreign, sterile and planned language. In fact I think it would only strengthen the resentment against the EU.
      - adrianN 8y ago
        Introducing a foreign language as lingua franca worked pretty well for India and I'm reasonably sure that there was a lot more resentment for the British in India than for the EU in Europe. I don't think the Indian democracy would be possible without English. Esperanto is easy enough to learn that most people could by now speak it as a second language if it had been introduced in schools back when it had the possibility to become the language of politics (that's a hundred years ago now!).
willio58 8y ago
> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. As a young (21yr) person in my community, I have to say I have never read through a full local newspaper and don't know a single friend my age or younger who has. The local news channels have websites these days and I would say those, in combination with local public radio, television channels, and even social media are the main source for local news in my town (for my demographic at least). I personally don't feel a lack of community due to the fact that this news comes from my computer monitor instead of ink on some rolled up paper, but then again I never really lived in an era when I got to experience that.
- zasz 8y ago
  It's not that the information comes digitally versus in deadtree format. The problem is the destruction of local news, period, which means that you're going to get less of it even in digital formats.
- ethbro 8y ago
  As someone from the last generation born without ubiquitous web, the biggest difference for me is the definition of community. Now, a community is whoever you want it to be. Folks who play the same game you do. People who hate rocks. People who think purple hair is awesome. People who think purple hair is stupid and red hair is awesome. The people may live next to you, or they may live in another country. Previously, all these people who made up your community were in your town, by necessity. Because of that, you pretty much rolled the random dice and that's who you interacted with. Gain (present vs past) -- being able to find a community that's similar to you. Especially if you don't identify with the norm (imagine being the only person you knew who thought computers were cool). Much more rapid dissemination of ideas and social mores. Loss -- forced mixing of and interaction with different groups. Exposure to new ideas and different perspectives. Identification with people who aren't like you (but are still "one of us", i.e. from the same town)
  - adrianN 8y ago
    I think encouraging local communities is pretty important for the functioning of a town. You can circumvent the tragedy of the commons a bit if the person keeping the parks clean isn't some rando, but it's Bob from down the street who bakes those great cakes for the local potlucks and the police officer isn't just someone waiting for an opportunity to shoot your dog, but the mother of your kids classmate.
2038AD 8y ago
>I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all I would say the opposite. If members of a community aren't aware of the goings on, they don't have that 'regional awareness', it's not much of a community. A daily newspaper is only needed if people aren't informed. Daily is too often for the news to simply be a supplement for word-of-mouth that is the medium of a genuine community.
protomyth 8y ago
> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. In the US, it was the churches that made an area a community not the newspapers. As the churches have faded nothing has replaced them. Newspapers supplemented what was discussed informally in gatherings. Frankly, local newspapers that didn’t remember that they served locals and either tried to preach or kept republishing national news outlets when it became obvious national news was available elsewhere doomed themselves.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  My small town had a Catholic church for like every 4,000 people (and many other churches too). I think other poster is talking about communities of tens of thousands. I don't think you are talking about the same meaning of community.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    I’m talking about the overall coverage provided by groups of churches. Larger towns had interlinked churches. Even small towns had multiple churches that cooperated.
snarf21 8y ago
I think what you describe used to be true. I think that as the boomers die off, local papers will have almost 0 readers. It is a time and era that is dying off at least in the US. Most of this local journalism now is barely more than a tweet even though it is an "article" online. No facts, no research, little more than a headline. In the US, the papers won't totally go away because certain things must (by law) be reported in a public data source. I think the thing that the journalism totally missed the boat on was being the source for local entertainment. People always want to know what fun things they can do this week/end with their kids and friends. Having local knowledge is something the Yelps of the world will never be able to do right.

sjg007 8y ago

The future is probably an AI aggregator that takes meeting minutes and summarizes them. Then every public event / happening gets posted to Facebook. The one journalist turns into the content creators themselves themselves. Maybe someone like Facebook could geofence sites and aggregate them into something like My Town.

freehunter 8y ago
I'm actually working on a project similar to this, using an AI to generate local news articles. The problem with this is every town does it differently, and some do it so awfully that getting anything of value from the minutes takes a lot of work for a human who was actually at the meeting itself. For example, my town doesn't publish its meeting minutes online for three months. I can get the minutes in person the week after, but by then the once-weekly newspaper has "scooped" my AI because they had a human there. And even after I get the minutes, oftentimes the note will say "approved PUD conversion from C-2 for [Business X]. Motion from [Councilmember Y] seconded by [Councilmember Z]". Without knowing the discussion surrounding that decision, the minutes are dry and would produce an even drier news article. I've tried to work with other area towns as well, and many of them don't put their meeting minutes online at all. The most reliable council meeting notes come from bigger cities, which don't need an AI to write their news for them.
- sjg007 8y ago
  Maybe do voice transcription in towns that record video of their meetings.
a3n 8y ago
I think the future is just as likely civic disengagement.
- trentlott 8y ago
  Yes. I think the last US Presidential election is a small taste of the future rather than an aberration.

grahamburger 8y ago

I know I'm kind of dreaming here, but I think this would be a cool application for ActivityPub / Fediverse. Every town gets an instance with some official accounts (govt, school board, etc) and a dedicated reporting staff to gather tidbits to publish. Because of federation I could follow the news of other places I care about but my identity would be on my own city's instance.

Anon1096 8y ago
One of the most important parts of any newspaper is that it is independent from the government though. I know in my town officials have openly accused the local paper of slander, and everyone is the better for seeing both sides. Having official accounts is just asking for coverups.
- grahamburger 8y ago
  I wasn't imagining that the 'official accounts' would be exclusive accounts or have privileges over other accounts, just that they would be centralized places for those groups to release information. I agree that it shouldn't be run by or have behind-the-scenes influence from the government (or other powerful orgs.)

dragonwriter 8y ago

> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. And that’d be silly. Communities existed long before newspapers, and they exist for nnplaces too small to support their own newspapers now. And even communities that would have had a newspaper a couple decades ago make do with, e.g., one or mor Facebook groups today, with the boring bits you refer to informally crowdsourced.

kuschku 8y ago

This is also one of the largest issues with EU politics and elections right now – there’s few EU-wide media, as result, there’s little EU-wide debates, and no real community.

philwelch 8y ago
Is it even possible to have all of that without a shared language?
- kuschku 8y ago
  That’s the other major part of a community, and a major problem, yes.
- adrianN 8y ago
  If only the French hadn't opposed the use of Esperanto as the common language...
  - fwn 8y ago
    It would be great to have a common language in the EU that close to nobody ever heard of. Fun aside, language is not only shaped by culture, but also shapes culture. It couldn't get any harder for people to affiliate with the EU if the EU institutions would embrace a foreign, sterile and planned language. In fact I think it would only strengthen the resentment against the EU.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      Introducing a foreign language as lingua franca worked pretty well for India and I'm reasonably sure that there was a lot more resentment for the British in India than for the EU in Europe. I don't think the Indian democracy would be possible without English. Esperanto is easy enough to learn that most people could by now speak it as a second language if it had been introduced in schools back when it had the possibility to become the language of politics (that's a hundred years ago now!).

willio58 8y ago

> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. As a young (21yr) person in my community, I have to say I have never read through a full local newspaper and don't know a single friend my age or younger who has. The local news channels have websites these days and I would say those, in combination with local public radio, television channels, and even social media are the main source for local news in my town (for my demographic at least). I personally don't feel a lack of community due to the fact that this news comes from my computer monitor instead of ink on some rolled up paper, but then again I never really lived in an era when I got to experience that.

zasz 8y ago
It's not that the information comes digitally versus in deadtree format. The problem is the destruction of local news, period, which means that you're going to get less of it even in digital formats.
ethbro 8y ago
As someone from the last generation born without ubiquitous web, the biggest difference for me is the definition of community. Now, a community is whoever you want it to be. Folks who play the same game you do. People who hate rocks. People who think purple hair is awesome. People who think purple hair is stupid and red hair is awesome. The people may live next to you, or they may live in another country. Previously, all these people who made up your community were in your town, by necessity. Because of that, you pretty much rolled the random dice and that's who you interacted with. Gain (present vs past) -- being able to find a community that's similar to you. Especially if you don't identify with the norm (imagine being the only person you knew who thought computers were cool). Much more rapid dissemination of ideas and social mores. Loss -- forced mixing of and interaction with different groups. Exposure to new ideas and different perspectives. Identification with people who aren't like you (but are still "one of us", i.e. from the same town)
- adrianN 8y ago
  I think encouraging local communities is pretty important for the functioning of a town. You can circumvent the tragedy of the commons a bit if the person keeping the parks clean isn't some rando, but it's Bob from down the street who bakes those great cakes for the local potlucks and the police officer isn't just someone waiting for an opportunity to shoot your dog, but the mother of your kids classmate.

2038AD 8y ago

>I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all I would say the opposite. If members of a community aren't aware of the goings on, they don't have that 'regional awareness', it's not much of a community. A daily newspaper is only needed if people aren't informed. Daily is too often for the news to simply be a supplement for word-of-mouth that is the medium of a genuine community.

protomyth 8y ago

> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area isn't a community at all. In the US, it was the churches that made an area a community not the newspapers. As the churches have faded nothing has replaced them. Newspapers supplemented what was discussed informally in gatherings. Frankly, local newspapers that didn’t remember that they served locals and either tried to preach or kept republishing national news outlets when it became obvious national news was available elsewhere doomed themselves.

maxerickson 8y ago
My small town had a Catholic church for like every 4,000 people (and many other churches too). I think other poster is talking about communities of tens of thousands. I don't think you are talking about the same meaning of community.
- protomyth 8y ago
  I’m talking about the overall coverage provided by groups of churches. Larger towns had interlinked churches. Even small towns had multiple churches that cooperated.

snarf21 8y ago

I think what you describe used to be true. I think that as the boomers die off, local papers will have almost 0 readers. It is a time and era that is dying off at least in the US. Most of this local journalism now is barely more than a tweet even though it is an "article" online. No facts, no research, little more than a headline. In the US, the papers won't totally go away because certain things must (by law) be reported in a public data source. I think the thing that the journalism totally missed the boat on was being the source for local entertainment. People always want to know what fun things they can do this week/end with their kids and friends. Having local knowledge is something the Yelps of the world will never be able to do right.