4 ms·

There have been studies showing that without local papers acting as watchdogs, local government costs go up. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i

There have been studies showing that without local papers acting as watchdogs, local government costs go up. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280712 https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/public-finance-local-news.php https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/public-finance-loc... https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/study-when-local-newspaper-close-city-bond-finances-suffer/561422/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/study-when-local-news...

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
When nobody guards the guards the guards screw off and waste resources.
Shivetya 8y ago
this must only really work in small communities as most larger cities are pretty much immune to monitoring except corruption. anecdotal, in Atlanta we tend to see the local TV news doing a lot of investigation with one partnered with the local paper (AJC). They tend to focus on corruption more than costs of city programs. However the one expense they never ever will touch is how cities are getting buried by pension costs to where even the pension systems are threatened. (Chicago's system will be out of money by 2021) too rich of benefits and more retirees than active is to much of a burden
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  > this must only really work in small communities as most larger cities are pretty much immune to monitoring except corruption You are wrong, didn't read the link, don't make any arguments about its findings, and don't offer any evidence for your claims. "To further account for within-state cross county variation, we control for county-level differences in population, population growth, per capita income, and employment growth." Was it really so important that you say "this study is wrong" and share your personal anecdote that you couldn't have spent a few minutes reading it first? Commenting on HackerNews isn't a race and the level of discourse usually goes up when people aren't in a rush to comment. Is sharing a personal anecdote on HackerNews with strangers more valuable than learning something new?

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

When nobody guards the guards the guards screw off and waste resources.

Shivetya 8y ago

this must only really work in small communities as most larger cities are pretty much immune to monitoring except corruption. anecdotal, in Atlanta we tend to see the local TV news doing a lot of investigation with one partnered with the local paper (AJC). They tend to focus on corruption more than costs of city programs. However the one expense they never ever will touch is how cities are getting buried by pension costs to where even the pension systems are threatened. (Chicago's system will be out of money by 2021) too rich of benefits and more retirees than active is to much of a burden

freddie_mercury 8y ago
> this must only really work in small communities as most larger cities are pretty much immune to monitoring except corruption You are wrong, didn't read the link, don't make any arguments about its findings, and don't offer any evidence for your claims. "To further account for within-state cross county variation, we control for county-level differences in population, population growth, per capita income, and employment growth." Was it really so important that you say "this study is wrong" and share your personal anecdote that you couldn't have spent a few minutes reading it first? Commenting on HackerNews isn't a race and the level of discourse usually goes up when people aren't in a rush to comment. Is sharing a personal anecdote on HackerNews with strangers more valuable than learning something new?