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I think it's easy to have your view because of the dominance of nationalized news and the associated broad-brush political cheerleading those outlets like to en

I think it's easy to have your view because of the dominance of nationalized news and the associated broad-brush political cheerleading those outlets like to engage in. Where there's been real damage to value is at the local level. Who's keeping track of businesses opening and closing? Or what the county board is spending taxpayer money on? Or why the police department has such low incident clearance rates? Alternative sources and AI won't put a dent in covering those less polarizing but important practical topics.

slowmovintarget 3y ago
Damage at the local level seems to be deliberate. There are a tiny handful of large news organizations that have been busy buying up local newspapers, then gutting them. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046952430/the-consequences-of-when-a-hedge-fund-buys-newspapers https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046952430/the-consequences-o...
- ghaff 3y ago
  While technically they were "local"--like the vast majority of newspapers, people usually don't mean something like the Chicago Tribune when talking about local papers and local news.
specialist 3y ago
Yup. No truer words were said than the Washington Post's (unintentionally ironic) slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."
tqi 3y ago
I would actually push back a bit on the importance of local news. I grew up in a midwest college town that had a fairly robust local newspaper, and my recollection of it was that it was a) poorly written and b) mostly focused on local sports and crime. While its mere presence may helped keep local officials accountable for their actions, I can't recall times where they broke local scandals. I have seen a few studies that have linked the decline in local news to things like polarization or increased municipal waste[1][2], but imo their ability to isolate cause and effect is very limited. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555
- text0404 3y ago
  as a counterpoint, i also grew up in a midwest college town with a fairly robust local newspaper that had quality coverage and which broke several important investigative stories.

slowmovintarget 3y ago

Damage at the local level seems to be deliberate. There are a tiny handful of large news organizations that have been busy buying up local newspapers, then gutting them. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046952430/the-consequences-of-when-a-hedge-fund-buys-newspapers https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046952430/the-consequences-o...

ghaff 3y ago
While technically they were "local"--like the vast majority of newspapers, people usually don't mean something like the Chicago Tribune when talking about local papers and local news.

specialist 3y ago

Yup. No truer words were said than the Washington Post's (unintentionally ironic) slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."

tqi 3y ago

I would actually push back a bit on the importance of local news. I grew up in a midwest college town that had a fairly robust local newspaper, and my recollection of it was that it was a) poorly written and b) mostly focused on local sports and crime. While its mere presence may helped keep local officials accountable for their actions, I can't recall times where they broke local scandals. I have seen a few studies that have linked the decline in local news to things like polarization or increased municipal waste[1][2], but imo their ability to isolate cause and effect is very limited. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555

text0404 3y ago
as a counterpoint, i also grew up in a midwest college town with a fairly robust local newspaper that had quality coverage and which broke several important investigative stories.