9 ms·

Local Journalism Is How Democracy Shows Up Close to Home

390 points by mooreds 10mo ago

b40d-48b2-979e 10mo ago
Local journalism has an incentive to serve its audience as they are easily held accountable as such. These media conglomerates do not. They can just shut something down without a care when they disagree with a population and publish unpopular slop (crime news, engagement bait, whatever), and it's suddenly unprofitable.
maztaim 10mo ago
Block Communications just closed two papers in Pittsburgh this year. The Post Gazette has been around since 1786. There are fewer and fewer[1] options available and I suspect this is a disturbing trend across many locations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Newspapers_published_in_Pittsburgh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Newspapers_published_...
pastor_williams 10mo ago
This is why I subscribe to my local city and regional newspapers. Similar to emailing my representatives about political issues that are of interest to me. It isn't much and I'm just a drop in the ocean but at least it is more than complaining into a void or just reading other's complaints online and getting depressed. For more local issues I can really feel like I am making a difference. We have sidewalks all the way to my kids' school and a crosswalk now a year after I made it my cause and messaged city planners and councilmen.
Popeyes 10mo ago
Rightmove, the property sales website, absolutely destroyed local journalism in the UK. It was written on the wall, but local newspapers had all the local listings for property and other services. A local newspaper was 60%+ of house sales, but that advertising revenue paid for local journalists to sit and read council papers and attend meetings and get people out in the community. Nowadays, local journalism, even from national broadcasters like the BBC is a shadow of its former glory.
- 1a527dd5 10mo ago
  Yeah I remember going through those pages as a kid; my local "chronicle" had loads in. I love Rightmove as a shopper, but it's 2nd-4th order effects have been disastrous. There have been attempts to unseat Rightmove (e.g. boomin) but it's such a behemoth in it's industry that is tantamount to wanting to unseat Google.
  - iso1631 10mo ago
    If you are selling a house you have to list on rightmove. You're not going to choose to list on fewer sites. The question then comes if you're selling, why list anywhere else. As a buyer it's terrible - I want to be able to see size of property (from the EPC, as I trust that more than the estate agent), the sale history, the EPC data, the council tax band, the map of the plot. I can find that all out manually by hunting for the real address and going from there, but it should be there directly (and filterable) As a seller you're forced to use rightmove as that's where all the buyers are As a buyer you're forced to use rightmove as that's where all the sellers are As a competitor how can you argue to an estate agent they should spend money with you as well as rightmove
- pbronez 10mo ago
  It’s interesting that property ads, and classifieds more broadly, benefit from a centralized platform but journalism itself does not. It’s an uneven impact of the technology shift from printing presses to digital. Why didn’t the drop in publishing costs make local journalism MORE accessible? Perhaps it did in minor ways. Facebook Groups, NextDoor, CraigsList, etc make it easy for anyone to share information with their neighbors. Turns out most people just want to sell something or complain about nothing. These activities benefit the author but nobody else. Local journalism has benefitted a little bit from this dynamic. Regional news organizations put together decent digital platforms and run articles. But they don’t seem to pay as well… again because the revenue spread out. Honestly, I’d love to treat local journalism as a public good. Could you fund a credible local newspaper through taxes? It’d be WAY cheaper than a school or police station. The problem is: how can you trust part of the government to keep an eye on the rest of the government? Perhaps you could impose a mandatory journalism fee based on the municipal budget. Whatever you spend, a sliver goes to the journalists for oversight. Local governments spend about $2700 per person. Population of 10,000 means a budget of $27M. Give 1% of that to a journalist and you have $270k… enough for a salary, website and some equipment. You could require that money be paid to a non-profit as a grant. Probably better to elect an Editor in Chief though… that way you can appeal directly to the citizens for validation of the oversight. If you just pay a non-profit, they’ll be incentivized to serve whoever writes the grant… which would be the people you’re trying to hold accountable.
squeedles 10mo ago
This article should be at the core of any discussion about media concentration. The vast consolidation of radio stations is well known, but the same thing has been happening to small local newspapers. In both cases, you end up with a voice speaking to the public from afar, not local people talking to your community about issues that are important to your neighbors. At that point, most people just go to the gossip corner of social media and spend the rest of their day being fed six hours of outrage.
- axus 10mo ago
  Social media groups should have a role to play in local journalism, or at least debate of local issues. Would love to see the passion and information sharing of a gaming Discord server, but focused on my county. Haven't used Nextdoor, maybe its similar?
  - nerdponx 10mo ago
    Facebook groups tend to have this, at least in the USA. Reddit too in bigger cities/towns.
allsotiresome 10mo ago
[flagged]
Scubabear68 10mo ago
In my experience, local reporting has stagnated so badly that they now survive by kissing up to whoever is in power. The majority of pieces are puff pieces commissioned by the subject or friend of the subject, be it a school superintendent or local town council or what have you. And yes, the bias is heavily to the left. I am very centrist in my views so a left or right leaning bias would be upsetting. We live across the river from Bucks County PA in NJ, Bucks County journalism and the NJ equivalent are just shills.
- alephnerd 10mo ago
  Local journalism has always been like this even before the "death" of local journalism. No local publisher would dare risk access to local politicans nor risk public ad revenue. This is also why I'm not convinced about public owned or funded journalism that isn't a cooperative, because that only gives additional power to the incumbent who holds the purse strings.
- thunderfork 10mo ago
  If the bias is towards power, why would it ever be towards the left?
  - bpt3 10mo ago
    Because they live in NJ, generally a Democratic stronghold and particularly in the area he described. There are many parts of the US where the local government is 100% controlled by Democrats, so they are in power in those areas.
    - appointment 10mo ago
      Thunderfork's question stands: if they are biased towards power (democrats), how can they also be biased towards the left?
      - bpt3 10mo ago
        I figured that was the semantic game he (and you apparently) are playing. 1. The Democratic Party represents the left in the US, so the left is in power when they are in power. 2. In other parts of the world, parties and individuals who are further left on the political spectrum than the US Democratic Party (either nationally or in any location under discussion here) obtain power. As those are generally repressive regimes, their media is generally highly biased in their direction, making them biased towards both the left and the people on power. If you want to have a meaningful discussion, feel free to stop being coy.
allsotiresome 10mo ago
[flagged]
- pjc50 10mo ago
  Guess the Iranians are heading in the wrong direction then.
- stetrain 10mo ago
  Of course. Democracy is always doing exactly what the government tells you to do, unquestioningly.
- marcosdumay 10mo ago
  Well, yes, rioting is something you do if you want to have democracy. It's not democracy.
- gorbachev 10mo ago
  "Your papers" is also not democracy.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  Democracy is quite literally "allowed to put up political posters" and "making your voice heard in public", if that's not a part of democracy, what exactly does "democracy" mean to you? Maybe that's easier to talk about, rather than what you think democracy is not.
- tclancy 10mo ago
  This would be news to the Founding Fathers. If it is allsotiresome, why open an account just to bitch about it?
- rsolva 10mo ago
  What is your definition of democracy?
- RobotToaster 10mo ago
  > democracy is not displaying insulting posters or shouting like mad in the streets The supreme court disagrees > The Court recognized that "uninhibited, robust, and wide open" political debate can at times be characterized by "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat
josefrichter 10mo ago
The murder of Twitter seems to be a part of a greater scheme of things.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  You make it sound like it was involuntary for some reason? Twitter was more of a suicide than anything.
- zo1 10mo ago
  Twitter was a dumpster fire of hateful leftist echo chamber activism. X is much better and way more balanced.
  - tclancy 10mo ago
    . . . toward what?
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 10mo ago
      CSAM and revenge porn, apparently
  - thinkcontext 10mo ago
    Elon Musk is a walking talking advertisement for the dangers of social media rotting your brain. But now I'd like to talk to you about white genocide in South Africa ...
- Levitz 10mo ago
  For all that it's worth, from the outside it looks to have undergone a real, notable improvement. The feeling is exacerbated by the dumpster fire at bluesky insisting that it was the worst thing ever and because after the fact, about every default subreddit (which already were in a bad state) are now terminal with politics brainrot.
showerst 10mo ago
The problem with local journalism is simple: the product is produces is not worth what it costs to produce it. This has _always_ been true, but for generations classified ad revenue neatly subsidized it. Once the internet came along and blew up that revenue stream, the industry was in trouble. I'm just not sure there's a good solution to this. Everyone will go on the internet and talk about how valuable people sitting in city council meetings is, but not enough people want to pay the monthly bill to enable that.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  For-profit businesses tend to get bloated and eventually succumb to their own growth, one way or another. Alternative: Start a newspaper who's goal is to be lean in operations, basically one person per role, and fund raise it from individuals, groups and government subsidies (if those exist in your country). Seemingly people are able to fund things like Indie Games via Patreon subscriptions, surely for towns/cities with at least 100,000 people there would be a 1% of the residents interested in local news, right? 1000 people donating 15 EUR a month is already 15,000 EUR, assuming it only gets funded by monthly donations of individuals.
  - DonnyV 10mo ago
    Its almost like we should just publicly fund it from the tax people already pay.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      That's a radical idea! Unfortunately, it gives a lot of ammo to the "anti-socialist" people who are vehemently against anything "public" funded by tax payers. Look at what's happening in the Nordics for example, where pretty much everyone supported public radio/TV at least when I was growing up, but nowadays a bunch of political parties are trying to have it removed/reduced.
      - carlosjobim 10mo ago
rsolva 10mo ago
Centralisation generally leads to efficiency, but when pushed to far it will corrode core human values. Democratic processes will always have to contend with the messiness of humans, and we have to find a balance. Currently I feel the consolidations in many aspect of modern society has been pushed to far. If we keep pushing, we end up in an authoritarian or fascistic state with no wiggle room for the squishy humannesses that is the pesky, but unavoidable ingredient in a vibrant and free democratic society.
retrocog 10mo ago
This is a topic close to my heart and I've been working with a small team on a solution for a few years and its finally launching into beta now. Hope it works out. If not, back to the drawing board!
- eufouria 10mo ago
  Link?
  - retrocog 10mo ago
    https://www.adtap.network https://www.adtap.network (platform description) https://www.upstateweeklynews.com https://www.upstateweeklynews.com (first beta implementation)
slfreference 10mo ago
I think we can safely the problem isn't lack of information at the local or national level. The problem is nobody is taking action on it when informed. It takes only 1 person to report a problem but the responsibility to take action is swallowed by the void, noise and we the people are helpless. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877301
hunglee2 10mo ago
a geofenced, location verified X-type product would be a good way to bring back local journalism. Users can read, but only have write access if they are within a specific geofence. This would diffuse 'reporting' across the local community - we would have actual citizen reporters which Musk pretends is the case on X - and increase trust that what is happening is actually happening. Tried to build this a decade ago but tech wasn't there. Maybe time has come now?
- retrocog 10mo ago
  100% and yes, now the time has come for sure.
  - hunglee2 10mo ago
    somebody go build it!
- olivia-banks 10mo ago
  How does this differ from services like NextDoor? I'm not familiar with it but it sounds similar.
  - hunglee2 10mo ago
    never been on Nextdoor but probably similar. Perhaps purpose would be the main difference - Nextdoor is residential and problem orientated, whilst our idea (we actually had it to MVP) was more like foursquare meets old twitter - basically verified local recommendations, news, updates from folks who were actually local to the area, rather than transients who know little. Our attempt then the limit the transients to read only translates really well today to online trolls / bots etc
    - olivia-banks 10mo ago
      Seems like an interesting idea. If only I had the time ;)
khelavastr 10mo ago
"Unless the journalism is too critical, then they're far-right/far-left agitators"
dfajgljsldkjag 10mo ago
Did anyone read the article? This is obvious AI Slop. A million em dashes and tons of other chatgpt-isms are all over. This isn't journalism - it's nonsense. This is a "reader" submitted article and not written by the staff at the paper. I'm surprised they didn't give it more due diligence though.
tyjen 10mo ago
It's rare to find local newspapers owned locally, and even rarer to find a local newspaper that's a fair representation of the local population instead of an insulated clique with heavy handed control over what's represented. Local online forums dedicated to a locality produce more representative content and everyone can participate as long as their isn't a similar controlling clique in charge of moderation. See /r/Seattle and /r/SeattleWA for how moderation manipulates outcomes. Both perspectives are important, but each clique tends to omit what others deem important; leading to topic over-representation/under-representation problems. There's clearly a loss on long forum informational pieces, but your community is misinformed or misrepresented if those pieces only support the motives of the clique.
- quasse 10mo ago
  Seattle actually happens to have some absolutely great examples of local journalism as well as some extremely bad examples of corporate owned "news" factories. https://westseattleblog.com/ https://westseattleblog.com/ is run by a single person (formerly a husband and wife team) and she attends huge numbers of local events and city meetings providing hyper-local coverage on things that are happening in the area.
Cockbrand 10mo ago
Further reading on this, very worthwhile IMHO: Paper Girl by Beth Macy, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Girl
daveaiello 10mo ago
As someone who lives in the Bucks County, Pennsylvania that Stu Faigen calls home, I say that half of the county, which is about 325,000 people, should agree but will disagree because of how strident his politics generally are in favor of politicians and causes from one side of the aisle. I say "his politics" but I mean his and those of the other contributors and staff of the Bucks County Beacon. It is a who's who of radical-left Bucks County politics. You can't look at the decline in journalism in our country without looking at how one-sided the coverage provided by the journalists has been for the last 40 or 50 years. If journalists had taken a neutral political position and called out wrong doing equally, they'd have at least 2x the paying subscriber base now. Who knows how that would have affected the secular decline to this point?
- sjsdaiuasgdia 10mo ago
  This breaks down when one half of a two party system goes all-in on lying. Reality has a left wing bias because reality is fact-based. To take a "neutral" political position in this environment is to accept blatant lies. Journalism should be a pursuit of truthful information, thus being "neutral' politically is untenable if you want to do actual journalism. It's true that might not always be the best for your subscriber numbers. But some folks do, actually, care about the truth.
  - its_ethan 10mo ago
    I don't think the OP is saying he has an issue with the reporting of facts. I think what he's getting at is that a lot of what passes for news today (especially online) are really just op-eds. Presenting just the facts is being politically neutral, but only when it's just the facts. Providing commentary on the facts is not. I don't think it's all that crazy to say there's been an obvious left-leaning bias in that regard for the last 10-20 years.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 10mo ago
      Congratulations, you've bought into the fascists' framing. Whenever the media doesn't present the fascists' narrative unchallenged, it's declared that they're being biased. Doesn't matter what the facts are, the accusations still come.
ecshafer 10mo ago
Local journalism is important but I am not really sure how to fix it. Lets say we make a big fund to pay for "independent journalism" at the local level. That only works for so long until people get inside with their own axe to grind and take control. The activist class will eventually get in, become managers and corrupt the organization if its a non-profit. If its a political organization it will have political pressures. If it is a for profit it will have financial incentives that probably cant survive in the modern day in small markets.
- thunderfork 10mo ago
  There's no such thing as an "activist class", just people with opinions. But people with opinions are enough to kill good journalism if they can't keep them in their pants.
- Okawari 10mo ago
  I think that supporting a wide spread of newspaper on the local level will alleviate all these issues in aggregate. This is what we do in Norway and I think it works quite well to be honest. My municipality of around 250k inhabitants has 4 newspapers that I am aware of, none of which feels very overtly influenced by activists nor political or financial pressures. There are quite a few newspapers who are political and receive subsidies, but overall I think our system works quite well at providing high quality local reporting at affordable prices.
999900000999 10mo ago
So the big issue with the entire business model of journalism is it's just too easy to buy influence. Jeff Bezos has already reaped many multiples of his investment in the Washington Post. For more or less a nominal amount of money to him He's able to shape much of our public discourse. I suspect a volunteer non profit news organization could emerge. But even then, how many skilled journalists are going to be able to work a "real" job too.
- slfnflctd 10mo ago
  > volunteer non profit news organization [...] skilled journalists This could maybe be done with retirees or those who are mostly financially independent, as well as those who want to help run the nonprofit. The problem is that in the current climate, it is harder both to retire and to become financially independent. If you want the labor of skilled journalists beyond a trickle of content from the ivory tower type, you either need to set up an intentional community or simply pay people enough to live on. I don't see any clear shortcuts. Quality output requires sufficient energy inputs.
- Aunche 10mo ago
  > Jeff Bezos has already reaped many multiples of his investment in the Washington Post. Has he though? The Washington Post has actually been a leader in primary reporting in Amazon's union busting activities [1]. He may have pressured them to not endorse Kamala Harris, but he likely would have better standing with Trump had he had never bought the Post in the first place. For all the shit that mainstream media gets, much of which is deserved, alternative media is order of magnitudes worse with regards to manipulating public discourse. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-union-bessemer-history/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-...
  - 999900000999 10mo ago
    Controlled opposition is great. I don't think the Washington Post really would of made a difference in terms of the election, but I have no faith in them having any editorial independence. My boss also lets me criticize parts of the business, but he's still my boss
Zaskoda 10mo ago
I once interviewed for a tech job at the Seattle times. I didn't land the job, but the interview was enlightening. I was told that the investigative reporters at the newspaper did all of the "work" of uncovering news. Subsequently, the TV broadcast station would just report on what the newspaper found. Meanwhile, the broadcast news was raking in tons more ad revenue than the newspaper. Ever since then, I've often brainstormed of ways to remove all of the layers between the actual investigative reporter and the general public looking for a way to get as much of the revenue directly from the public into the hands of those doing to investigations and reports. I've had ideas though nothing revolutionary enough to share here. Still, I think the overall goal would be good for literally everyone.
- veep_in_general 10mo ago
  Yeah thats interesting. I wonder what a solution would look like for this. Would legislating a 'finders fee' be the right approach for whoever news source was breaking the topic?
- whammybammybo 10mo ago
  I would love to read some of the ideas you have (even if they aren't fleshed out). Maybe a blog post or something?
tptacek 10mo ago
In my local, extremely progressive community, Facebook Groups are about 20x more important to democracy than local journalism, which residents genuflect to but provides less value than a replacement-level blog. I love journalism and stick up for it here all the time, but this platitude about local journalism has never rung true to me.
- godzillabrennus 10mo ago
  Meanwhile, Zuckerberg continues to embrace the current administration.
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    We're plausibly one of the 10 most progressive munis in the country (we are the most progressive in Chicagoland, which should put us easily in the running nationwide), and this argument has zero (0) suction here, which means it presumably has zero suction anywhere.
- phil21 10mo ago
  I’m guessing I know the local newspaper/newsletter you speak about being in Chicago. I was a very early supporter of them when they started up, but canceled a couple years back when it was clear they care far less about reporting and more about pushing personal beliefs and vendettas. To the point of outright destroying local businesses over petty ideological driven things. I still think they do good work here and there, but their editorial standard is such that when faced with evidence of a reporter ignoring facts their response was to double down much less post a retraction. A conversation with one reporter I had basically summarized to “we will report what we want to how we want to, it’s our organization and we don’t get paid enough to be objective”. Fair enough, I suppose. At that point random people with a blog is better since at least there is not an aura of neutral fact-based journalism behind it. Unfortunately I refuse to participate in the Facebook ecosystem so I can’t comment on if Facebook Groups is a suitable replacement for knowing the general happenings in my neighborhood and city. I’ve made an attempt to get more involved with local meetings and events the alderman holds, etc. but it seems far too little to keep up on anything in a major way.
cobber2005 10mo ago
In addition to local journalism, cooperatives are another way democracy can show up close to home. Combining the two, I believe 404Media.co is effectively a journalist-owned outlet (i.e. a worker coop).
spmartin823 10mo ago
The death of local journalism is fundamentally a revenue problem. My cofounder and I have been working for the last year to find new revenue streams for newspapers at https://seward.presspass.ai/ https://seward.presspass.ai/. Our current hypothesis is that local rewards programs could be a sustainable revenue stream and give the newspaper a way to prove their advertising works with locals. While trying this out, we've also helped a few papers get up and running - we're calling it "newspaper in a box". Check out a few of the papers we've helped launch: https://sewardfolly.com/ https://sewardfolly.com/ (9 months old) https://homerindependentpress.com/ https://homerindependentpress.com/ (2 weeks old).
- venndeezl 10mo ago
  I really don't understand this pathetic grovel and prostrate at the feet of the rich, thing. Why are the masses, the majority, obliged to kiss ass and suck up to what, a half million politicians, a million cops, and 1%ers? Why do you see others as court jesters that must dance for modern equivalent of barons and baronesses? What an antiquated and childish cult behavior.
- j45 10mo ago
  There are crowd and community funded models doing hyperlocal journalism sustainably.
  - spmartin823 10mo ago
    Can you give some examples?
    - nerdponx 10mo ago
      Small team does local journalism, motivated locals donate to keep it running. It's that simple. Some people are happy to donate $20 a month to their favorite Twitch streamer or open source project, and other people are happy to do the same for their local newspaper. The failed model is trying to run it like a journalism factory: producing articles at some marginal cost and selling them at a fixed price that exceeds marginal cost. Just look at NPR and member stations. The federal government ended their funding, but they kept right on going because of donations.
rendall 10mo ago
On the contrary, I think we are entering a new golden age of local journalism in the US, but it does not look like the old one, so we do not recognize it yet. What is collapsing is the legacy institutional model. What is emerging is a procedural one: individuals showing up locally, documenting power directly, publishing primary evidence, and forcing accountability through visibility rather than prestige. Projects like Honor Your Oath, Long Island Audit, Guerilla Media, and even single-person operations with a camera and FOIA literacy are doing real journalism. They attend meetings, record encounters, publish receipts, and focus on consequences that are immediate and specific. The cost of presence is now low. The cost of obscurity for local officials is higher. Credibility increasingly comes from raw evidence rather than narrative authority. These outlets are not trying to inform everyone. They are informing the people affected directly. It feels messy, personal, and sometimes abrasive because it is not professionalized in the old sense. Historically, that is what journalism looked like before it was institutionalized. For example, Jeff Gray quietly stands in public with a “God Bless Homeless Vets” sign. People often assume he is homeless and attempt to violate his rights, frequently including police officers. The resulting interactions, all on camera, expose how poorly basic constitutional rights are understood or respected at the local level. https://youtu.be/-um41lMH3c4 https://youtu.be/-um41lMH3c4 Ronald Durbin of Guerilla Media is a muckraker in the classic sense, repeatedly confronting local power structures in person. He recently had a gun drawn on him at a town council meeting. https://youtube.com/@guerrillapublishing https://youtube.com/@guerrillapublishing Sean Reyes from Long Island Audit has been arrested multiple times for filming inside police station lobbies despite clear New York law allowing it, and has been physically attacked and had firearms brandished at him while attempting interviews, all documented on video. https://youtube.com/@longislandaudit https://youtube.com/@longislandaudit There are so many others. This is what local journalism looks like now. https://youtube.com/@lacklustermedia https://youtube.com/@lacklustermedia https://youtube.com/@audittheaudit https://youtube.com/@audittheaudit https://youtube.com/@amagansettpress https://youtube.com/@amagansettpress https://youtube.com/@susanbassi https://youtube.com/@susanbassi Many, many others. Here are lawyers giving their perspectives on these interactions: https://youtube.com/@southerndrawllaw https://youtube.com/@southerndrawllaw https://youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer https://youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer https://youtube.com/@americasattorney https://youtube.com/@americasattorney https://youtube.com/@legalbytesmedia https://youtube.com/@legalbytesmedia
j45 10mo ago
If local journalism doesn’t exist in your town or city, start it.
markstos 10mo ago
They had a solid podcast interview with journalist Jordan Green on the raise of far-right extremism in the US. https://buckscountybeacon.com/2025/08/journalist-jordan-green-on-why-the-neo-nazi-movement-is-an-escalating-threat-to-us-democracy/ https://buckscountybeacon.com/2025/08/journalist-jordan-gree...
SubiculumCode 10mo ago
...and the more government is local, the more local journalism means a damn thing.
misterbishop 10mo ago
Liberal values can't be preserved in the midst of a Pharaonic distribution of wealth. The only way to defend liberal values is to fight for socialism.
0xbadcafebee 10mo ago
There's this idea that Democracy and Journalism are intrinsically linked (thanks John Milton), but they're not. Look at the history of Democracy (by that of course we mean representative democracy): it has existed long before, and independent from, Journalism. Then look at the history of Journalism: it has always been a partisan affair, funded, written, and published by people who want to get their own point across. The idea that truth emerges from freedom of speech ignores the fact that the speaker can lie, or that different people view different things as true. The romantic idea of Journalism as a bastion of Democracy conveniently ignores the facts. Democracy is a form of Government, and Government is power exerted on people. You don't get more power or influence because you heard about a thing happening. And most people will never do anything about what they hear. The real purpose of Journalism is to galvanize the public's feelings based on a selective viewpoint towards a specific aim. An article is written, using selective information, presented in a particular way, in order to effect a change the writer wants. If effective, the writer gets what they want, or something close to it. Journalism is just another form of power. But it's not power of the people. It's power using the people. You and the rest of the people have no power of your own. But as a group, the people are wielded by institutions (Journalism, Religion, Party, Industry, Culture, etc) to act on behalf of those institutions. The group can try to push back on power. But without organization, leadership, clear goals, and strong motivation, there's no effective opposition. So occasionally the group will take on these qualities, and becomes... another institution, wielding power to get its way. And as a group with power, the results are not always positive for everyone (see: Anti-Saloon League, National Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth, etc)
reop2whiskey 10mo ago
[dead]
testing22321 10mo ago
Except then all the local news stations are owned by mega corps and this happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI
hirpslop 10mo ago
As part of a research project, I combed through archives of my local paper from the 70s and 80s. As a practice exercise, I highly recommend you log in to your local library and try exploring yours. I was stunned at the quality papers used to produce. It left me with a profound sense of loss and regret, but also hope that we can do better. Even the most trivial seeming stories were treated with a care that seems lost to time. The power of observation beats most content I encounter now. For instance, the coverage of a Lieutenant Governor’s election victory celebration after being snubbed by Gov. Reagan’s inaugural party. The clever politician persevered because he knew the way to people’s hearts: free steins of beer and brats. Thousands attended on a chilly winter night in a parking garage. They even followed up to verify precisely how much beer and brats were consumed. They were also funnier and better written that most journalistic writing see today. Local restaurant reviews had a sense of responsibility and respectful conduct, but didn’t shy away from levity when the food stank. Far from a mere aggregate of gripes of the crankiest customers or sycophantic pablum, it was a the product of someone who’d honed their craft—taking pains to represent what was there according to a professional ethic. This amounts to a public record that’s a dependable source of historical truth in a way that a forum or social platform doesn’t approximate. They may not be as good today, but $200 a year is arguably worth the democracy protecting function alone.
silexia 10mo ago
Lots of local journalism now happens locally on social media, at least for me. I post about my county and city and have great discussions.

390 points by mooreds 10mo ago

Local journalism has an incentive to serve its audience as they are easily held accountable as such. These media conglomerates do not. They can just shut something down without a care when they disagree with a population and publish unpopular slop (crime news, engagement bait, whatever), and it's suddenly unprofitable.

maztaim 10mo ago

Block Communications just closed two papers in Pittsburgh this year. The Post Gazette has been around since 1786. There are fewer and fewer[1] options available and I suspect this is a disturbing trend across many locations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Newspapers_published_in_Pittsburgh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Newspapers_published_...

pastor_williams 10mo ago

This is why I subscribe to my local city and regional newspapers. Similar to emailing my representatives about political issues that are of interest to me. It isn't much and I'm just a drop in the ocean but at least it is more than complaining into a void or just reading other's complaints online and getting depressed. For more local issues I can really feel like I am making a difference. We have sidewalks all the way to my kids' school and a crosswalk now a year after I made it my cause and messaged city planners and councilmen.

Popeyes 10mo ago

Rightmove, the property sales website, absolutely destroyed local journalism in the UK. It was written on the wall, but local newspapers had all the local listings for property and other services. A local newspaper was 60%+ of house sales, but that advertising revenue paid for local journalists to sit and read council papers and attend meetings and get people out in the community. Nowadays, local journalism, even from national broadcasters like the BBC is a shadow of its former glory.

1a527dd5 10mo ago
Yeah I remember going through those pages as a kid; my local "chronicle" had loads in. I love Rightmove as a shopper, but it's 2nd-4th order effects have been disastrous. There have been attempts to unseat Rightmove (e.g. boomin) but it's such a behemoth in it's industry that is tantamount to wanting to unseat Google.
- iso1631 10mo ago
  If you are selling a house you have to list on rightmove. You're not going to choose to list on fewer sites. The question then comes if you're selling, why list anywhere else. As a buyer it's terrible - I want to be able to see size of property (from the EPC, as I trust that more than the estate agent), the sale history, the EPC data, the council tax band, the map of the plot. I can find that all out manually by hunting for the real address and going from there, but it should be there directly (and filterable) As a seller you're forced to use rightmove as that's where all the buyers are As a buyer you're forced to use rightmove as that's where all the sellers are As a competitor how can you argue to an estate agent they should spend money with you as well as rightmove
pbronez 10mo ago
It’s interesting that property ads, and classifieds more broadly, benefit from a centralized platform but journalism itself does not. It’s an uneven impact of the technology shift from printing presses to digital. Why didn’t the drop in publishing costs make local journalism MORE accessible? Perhaps it did in minor ways. Facebook Groups, NextDoor, CraigsList, etc make it easy for anyone to share information with their neighbors. Turns out most people just want to sell something or complain about nothing. These activities benefit the author but nobody else. Local journalism has benefitted a little bit from this dynamic. Regional news organizations put together decent digital platforms and run articles. But they don’t seem to pay as well… again because the revenue spread out. Honestly, I’d love to treat local journalism as a public good. Could you fund a credible local newspaper through taxes? It’d be WAY cheaper than a school or police station. The problem is: how can you trust part of the government to keep an eye on the rest of the government? Perhaps you could impose a mandatory journalism fee based on the municipal budget. Whatever you spend, a sliver goes to the journalists for oversight. Local governments spend about $2700 per person. Population of 10,000 means a budget of $27M. Give 1% of that to a journalist and you have $270k… enough for a salary, website and some equipment. You could require that money be paid to a non-profit as a grant. Probably better to elect an Editor in Chief though… that way you can appeal directly to the citizens for validation of the oversight. If you just pay a non-profit, they’ll be incentivized to serve whoever writes the grant… which would be the people you’re trying to hold accountable.

squeedles 10mo ago

This article should be at the core of any discussion about media concentration. The vast consolidation of radio stations is well known, but the same thing has been happening to small local newspapers. In both cases, you end up with a voice speaking to the public from afar, not local people talking to your community about issues that are important to your neighbors. At that point, most people just go to the gossip corner of social media and spend the rest of their day being fed six hours of outrage.

axus 10mo ago
Social media groups should have a role to play in local journalism, or at least debate of local issues. Would love to see the passion and information sharing of a gaming Discord server, but focused on my county. Haven't used Nextdoor, maybe its similar?
- nerdponx 10mo ago
  Facebook groups tend to have this, at least in the USA. Reddit too in bigger cities/towns.

allsotiresome 10mo ago

[flagged]

Scubabear68 10mo ago

In my experience, local reporting has stagnated so badly that they now survive by kissing up to whoever is in power. The majority of pieces are puff pieces commissioned by the subject or friend of the subject, be it a school superintendent or local town council or what have you. And yes, the bias is heavily to the left. I am very centrist in my views so a left or right leaning bias would be upsetting. We live across the river from Bucks County PA in NJ, Bucks County journalism and the NJ equivalent are just shills.

alephnerd 10mo ago
Local journalism has always been like this even before the "death" of local journalism. No local publisher would dare risk access to local politicans nor risk public ad revenue. This is also why I'm not convinced about public owned or funded journalism that isn't a cooperative, because that only gives additional power to the incumbent who holds the purse strings.
thunderfork 10mo ago
If the bias is towards power, why would it ever be towards the left?
- bpt3 10mo ago
  Because they live in NJ, generally a Democratic stronghold and particularly in the area he described. There are many parts of the US where the local government is 100% controlled by Democrats, so they are in power in those areas.
  - appointment 10mo ago
    Thunderfork's question stands: if they are biased towards power (democrats), how can they also be biased towards the left?
    - bpt3 10mo ago
      I figured that was the semantic game he (and you apparently) are playing. 1. The Democratic Party represents the left in the US, so the left is in power when they are in power. 2. In other parts of the world, parties and individuals who are further left on the political spectrum than the US Democratic Party (either nationally or in any location under discussion here) obtain power. As those are generally repressive regimes, their media is generally highly biased in their direction, making them biased towards both the left and the people on power. If you want to have a meaningful discussion, feel free to stop being coy.

allsotiresome 10mo ago

[flagged]

pjc50 10mo ago
Guess the Iranians are heading in the wrong direction then.
stetrain 10mo ago
Of course. Democracy is always doing exactly what the government tells you to do, unquestioningly.
marcosdumay 10mo ago
Well, yes, rioting is something you do if you want to have democracy. It's not democracy.
gorbachev 10mo ago
"Your papers" is also not democracy.
embedding-shape 10mo ago
Democracy is quite literally "allowed to put up political posters" and "making your voice heard in public", if that's not a part of democracy, what exactly does "democracy" mean to you? Maybe that's easier to talk about, rather than what you think democracy is not.
tclancy 10mo ago
This would be news to the Founding Fathers. If it is allsotiresome, why open an account just to bitch about it?
rsolva 10mo ago
What is your definition of democracy?
RobotToaster 10mo ago
> democracy is not displaying insulting posters or shouting like mad in the streets The supreme court disagrees > The Court recognized that "uninhibited, robust, and wide open" political debate can at times be characterized by "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat

josefrichter 10mo ago

The murder of Twitter seems to be a part of a greater scheme of things.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
You make it sound like it was involuntary for some reason? Twitter was more of a suicide than anything.
zo1 10mo ago
Twitter was a dumpster fire of hateful leftist echo chamber activism. X is much better and way more balanced.
- tclancy 10mo ago
  . . . toward what?
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 10mo ago
    CSAM and revenge porn, apparently
- thinkcontext 10mo ago
  Elon Musk is a walking talking advertisement for the dangers of social media rotting your brain. But now I'd like to talk to you about white genocide in South Africa ...
Levitz 10mo ago
For all that it's worth, from the outside it looks to have undergone a real, notable improvement. The feeling is exacerbated by the dumpster fire at bluesky insisting that it was the worst thing ever and because after the fact, about every default subreddit (which already were in a bad state) are now terminal with politics brainrot.

showerst 10mo ago

The problem with local journalism is simple: the product is produces is not worth what it costs to produce it. This has _always_ been true, but for generations classified ad revenue neatly subsidized it. Once the internet came along and blew up that revenue stream, the industry was in trouble. I'm just not sure there's a good solution to this. Everyone will go on the internet and talk about how valuable people sitting in city council meetings is, but not enough people want to pay the monthly bill to enable that.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
For-profit businesses tend to get bloated and eventually succumb to their own growth, one way or another. Alternative: Start a newspaper who's goal is to be lean in operations, basically one person per role, and fund raise it from individuals, groups and government subsidies (if those exist in your country). Seemingly people are able to fund things like Indie Games via Patreon subscriptions, surely for towns/cities with at least 100,000 people there would be a 1% of the residents interested in local news, right? 1000 people donating 15 EUR a month is already 15,000 EUR, assuming it only gets funded by monthly donations of individuals.
- DonnyV 10mo ago
  Its almost like we should just publicly fund it from the tax people already pay.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    That's a radical idea! Unfortunately, it gives a lot of ammo to the "anti-socialist" people who are vehemently against anything "public" funded by tax payers. Look at what's happening in the Nordics for example, where pretty much everyone supported public radio/TV at least when I was growing up, but nowadays a bunch of political parties are trying to have it removed/reduced.
    - carlosjobim 10mo ago

rsolva 10mo ago

Centralisation generally leads to efficiency, but when pushed to far it will corrode core human values. Democratic processes will always have to contend with the messiness of humans, and we have to find a balance. Currently I feel the consolidations in many aspect of modern society has been pushed to far. If we keep pushing, we end up in an authoritarian or fascistic state with no wiggle room for the squishy humannesses that is the pesky, but unavoidable ingredient in a vibrant and free democratic society.

retrocog 10mo ago

This is a topic close to my heart and I've been working with a small team on a solution for a few years and its finally launching into beta now. Hope it works out. If not, back to the drawing board!

eufouria 10mo ago
Link?
- retrocog 10mo ago
  https://www.adtap.network https://www.adtap.network (platform description) https://www.upstateweeklynews.com https://www.upstateweeklynews.com (first beta implementation)

slfreference 10mo ago

I think we can safely the problem isn't lack of information at the local or national level. The problem is nobody is taking action on it when informed. It takes only 1 person to report a problem but the responsibility to take action is swallowed by the void, noise and we the people are helpless. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877301

hunglee2 10mo ago

a geofenced, location verified X-type product would be a good way to bring back local journalism. Users can read, but only have write access if they are within a specific geofence. This would diffuse 'reporting' across the local community - we would have actual citizen reporters which Musk pretends is the case on X - and increase trust that what is happening is actually happening. Tried to build this a decade ago but tech wasn't there. Maybe time has come now?

retrocog 10mo ago
100% and yes, now the time has come for sure.
- hunglee2 10mo ago
  somebody go build it!
olivia-banks 10mo ago
How does this differ from services like NextDoor? I'm not familiar with it but it sounds similar.
- hunglee2 10mo ago
  never been on Nextdoor but probably similar. Perhaps purpose would be the main difference - Nextdoor is residential and problem orientated, whilst our idea (we actually had it to MVP) was more like foursquare meets old twitter - basically verified local recommendations, news, updates from folks who were actually local to the area, rather than transients who know little. Our attempt then the limit the transients to read only translates really well today to online trolls / bots etc
  - olivia-banks 10mo ago
    Seems like an interesting idea. If only I had the time ;)

khelavastr 10mo ago

"Unless the journalism is too critical, then they're far-right/far-left agitators"

dfajgljsldkjag 10mo ago

Did anyone read the article? This is obvious AI Slop. A million em dashes and tons of other chatgpt-isms are all over. This isn't journalism - it's nonsense. This is a "reader" submitted article and not written by the staff at the paper. I'm surprised they didn't give it more due diligence though.

tyjen 10mo ago

It's rare to find local newspapers owned locally, and even rarer to find a local newspaper that's a fair representation of the local population instead of an insulated clique with heavy handed control over what's represented. Local online forums dedicated to a locality produce more representative content and everyone can participate as long as their isn't a similar controlling clique in charge of moderation. See /r/Seattle and /r/SeattleWA for how moderation manipulates outcomes. Both perspectives are important, but each clique tends to omit what others deem important; leading to topic over-representation/under-representation problems. There's clearly a loss on long forum informational pieces, but your community is misinformed or misrepresented if those pieces only support the motives of the clique.

quasse 10mo ago
Seattle actually happens to have some absolutely great examples of local journalism as well as some extremely bad examples of corporate owned "news" factories. https://westseattleblog.com/ https://westseattleblog.com/ is run by a single person (formerly a husband and wife team) and she attends huge numbers of local events and city meetings providing hyper-local coverage on things that are happening in the area.

Cockbrand 10mo ago

Further reading on this, very worthwhile IMHO: Paper Girl by Beth Macy, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Girl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Girl

daveaiello 10mo ago

As someone who lives in the Bucks County, Pennsylvania that Stu Faigen calls home, I say that half of the county, which is about 325,000 people, should agree but will disagree because of how strident his politics generally are in favor of politicians and causes from one side of the aisle. I say "his politics" but I mean his and those of the other contributors and staff of the Bucks County Beacon. It is a who's who of radical-left Bucks County politics. You can't look at the decline in journalism in our country without looking at how one-sided the coverage provided by the journalists has been for the last 40 or 50 years. If journalists had taken a neutral political position and called out wrong doing equally, they'd have at least 2x the paying subscriber base now. Who knows how that would have affected the secular decline to this point?

sjsdaiuasgdia 10mo ago
This breaks down when one half of a two party system goes all-in on lying. Reality has a left wing bias because reality is fact-based. To take a "neutral" political position in this environment is to accept blatant lies. Journalism should be a pursuit of truthful information, thus being "neutral' politically is untenable if you want to do actual journalism. It's true that might not always be the best for your subscriber numbers. But some folks do, actually, care about the truth.
- its_ethan 10mo ago
  I don't think the OP is saying he has an issue with the reporting of facts. I think what he's getting at is that a lot of what passes for news today (especially online) are really just op-eds. Presenting just the facts is being politically neutral, but only when it's just the facts. Providing commentary on the facts is not. I don't think it's all that crazy to say there's been an obvious left-leaning bias in that regard for the last 10-20 years.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 10mo ago
    Congratulations, you've bought into the fascists' framing. Whenever the media doesn't present the fascists' narrative unchallenged, it's declared that they're being biased. Doesn't matter what the facts are, the accusations still come.

ecshafer 10mo ago

Local journalism is important but I am not really sure how to fix it. Lets say we make a big fund to pay for "independent journalism" at the local level. That only works for so long until people get inside with their own axe to grind and take control. The activist class will eventually get in, become managers and corrupt the organization if its a non-profit. If its a political organization it will have political pressures. If it is a for profit it will have financial incentives that probably cant survive in the modern day in small markets.

thunderfork 10mo ago
There's no such thing as an "activist class", just people with opinions. But people with opinions are enough to kill good journalism if they can't keep them in their pants.
Okawari 10mo ago
I think that supporting a wide spread of newspaper on the local level will alleviate all these issues in aggregate. This is what we do in Norway and I think it works quite well to be honest. My municipality of around 250k inhabitants has 4 newspapers that I am aware of, none of which feels very overtly influenced by activists nor political or financial pressures. There are quite a few newspapers who are political and receive subsidies, but overall I think our system works quite well at providing high quality local reporting at affordable prices.

999900000999 10mo ago

So the big issue with the entire business model of journalism is it's just too easy to buy influence. Jeff Bezos has already reaped many multiples of his investment in the Washington Post. For more or less a nominal amount of money to him He's able to shape much of our public discourse. I suspect a volunteer non profit news organization could emerge. But even then, how many skilled journalists are going to be able to work a "real" job too.

slfnflctd 10mo ago
> volunteer non profit news organization [...] skilled journalists This could maybe be done with retirees or those who are mostly financially independent, as well as those who want to help run the nonprofit. The problem is that in the current climate, it is harder both to retire and to become financially independent. If you want the labor of skilled journalists beyond a trickle of content from the ivory tower type, you either need to set up an intentional community or simply pay people enough to live on. I don't see any clear shortcuts. Quality output requires sufficient energy inputs.
Aunche 10mo ago
> Jeff Bezos has already reaped many multiples of his investment in the Washington Post. Has he though? The Washington Post has actually been a leader in primary reporting in Amazon's union busting activities [1]. He may have pressured them to not endorse Kamala Harris, but he likely would have better standing with Trump had he had never bought the Post in the first place. For all the shit that mainstream media gets, much of which is deserved, alternative media is order of magnitudes worse with regards to manipulating public discourse. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-union-bessemer-history/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/09/amazon-...
- 999900000999 10mo ago
  Controlled opposition is great. I don't think the Washington Post really would of made a difference in terms of the election, but I have no faith in them having any editorial independence. My boss also lets me criticize parts of the business, but he's still my boss

Zaskoda 10mo ago

I once interviewed for a tech job at the Seattle times. I didn't land the job, but the interview was enlightening. I was told that the investigative reporters at the newspaper did all of the "work" of uncovering news. Subsequently, the TV broadcast station would just report on what the newspaper found. Meanwhile, the broadcast news was raking in tons more ad revenue than the newspaper. Ever since then, I've often brainstormed of ways to remove all of the layers between the actual investigative reporter and the general public looking for a way to get as much of the revenue directly from the public into the hands of those doing to investigations and reports. I've had ideas though nothing revolutionary enough to share here. Still, I think the overall goal would be good for literally everyone.

veep_in_general 10mo ago
Yeah thats interesting. I wonder what a solution would look like for this. Would legislating a 'finders fee' be the right approach for whoever news source was breaking the topic?
whammybammybo 10mo ago
I would love to read some of the ideas you have (even if they aren't fleshed out). Maybe a blog post or something?

tptacek 10mo ago

In my local, extremely progressive community, Facebook Groups are about 20x more important to democracy than local journalism, which residents genuflect to but provides less value than a replacement-level blog. I love journalism and stick up for it here all the time, but this platitude about local journalism has never rung true to me.

godzillabrennus 10mo ago
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg continues to embrace the current administration.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  We're plausibly one of the 10 most progressive munis in the country (we are the most progressive in Chicagoland, which should put us easily in the running nationwide), and this argument has zero (0) suction here, which means it presumably has zero suction anywhere.
phil21 10mo ago
I’m guessing I know the local newspaper/newsletter you speak about being in Chicago. I was a very early supporter of them when they started up, but canceled a couple years back when it was clear they care far less about reporting and more about pushing personal beliefs and vendettas. To the point of outright destroying local businesses over petty ideological driven things. I still think they do good work here and there, but their editorial standard is such that when faced with evidence of a reporter ignoring facts their response was to double down much less post a retraction. A conversation with one reporter I had basically summarized to “we will report what we want to how we want to, it’s our organization and we don’t get paid enough to be objective”. Fair enough, I suppose. At that point random people with a blog is better since at least there is not an aura of neutral fact-based journalism behind it. Unfortunately I refuse to participate in the Facebook ecosystem so I can’t comment on if Facebook Groups is a suitable replacement for knowing the general happenings in my neighborhood and city. I’ve made an attempt to get more involved with local meetings and events the alderman holds, etc. but it seems far too little to keep up on anything in a major way.

cobber2005 10mo ago

In addition to local journalism, cooperatives are another way democracy can show up close to home. Combining the two, I believe 404Media.co is effectively a journalist-owned outlet (i.e. a worker coop).

spmartin823 10mo ago

The death of local journalism is fundamentally a revenue problem. My cofounder and I have been working for the last year to find new revenue streams for newspapers at https://seward.presspass.ai/ https://seward.presspass.ai/. Our current hypothesis is that local rewards programs could be a sustainable revenue stream and give the newspaper a way to prove their advertising works with locals. While trying this out, we've also helped a few papers get up and running - we're calling it "newspaper in a box". Check out a few of the papers we've helped launch: https://sewardfolly.com/ https://sewardfolly.com/ (9 months old) https://homerindependentpress.com/ https://homerindependentpress.com/ (2 weeks old).

venndeezl 10mo ago
I really don't understand this pathetic grovel and prostrate at the feet of the rich, thing. Why are the masses, the majority, obliged to kiss ass and suck up to what, a half million politicians, a million cops, and 1%ers? Why do you see others as court jesters that must dance for modern equivalent of barons and baronesses? What an antiquated and childish cult behavior.
j45 10mo ago
There are crowd and community funded models doing hyperlocal journalism sustainably.
- spmartin823 10mo ago
  Can you give some examples?
  - nerdponx 10mo ago
    Small team does local journalism, motivated locals donate to keep it running. It's that simple. Some people are happy to donate $20 a month to their favorite Twitch streamer or open source project, and other people are happy to do the same for their local newspaper. The failed model is trying to run it like a journalism factory: producing articles at some marginal cost and selling them at a fixed price that exceeds marginal cost. Just look at NPR and member stations. The federal government ended their funding, but they kept right on going because of donations.

rendall 10mo ago

On the contrary, I think we are entering a new golden age of local journalism in the US, but it does not look like the old one, so we do not recognize it yet. What is collapsing is the legacy institutional model. What is emerging is a procedural one: individuals showing up locally, documenting power directly, publishing primary evidence, and forcing accountability through visibility rather than prestige. Projects like Honor Your Oath, Long Island Audit, Guerilla Media, and even single-person operations with a camera and FOIA literacy are doing real journalism. They attend meetings, record encounters, publish receipts, and focus on consequences that are immediate and specific. The cost of presence is now low. The cost of obscurity for local officials is higher. Credibility increasingly comes from raw evidence rather than narrative authority. These outlets are not trying to inform everyone. They are informing the people affected directly. It feels messy, personal, and sometimes abrasive because it is not professionalized in the old sense. Historically, that is what journalism looked like before it was institutionalized. For example, Jeff Gray quietly stands in public with a “God Bless Homeless Vets” sign. People often assume he is homeless and attempt to violate his rights, frequently including police officers. The resulting interactions, all on camera, expose how poorly basic constitutional rights are understood or respected at the local level. https://youtu.be/-um41lMH3c4 https://youtu.be/-um41lMH3c4 Ronald Durbin of Guerilla Media is a muckraker in the classic sense, repeatedly confronting local power structures in person. He recently had a gun drawn on him at a town council meeting. https://youtube.com/@guerrillapublishing https://youtube.com/@guerrillapublishing Sean Reyes from Long Island Audit has been arrested multiple times for filming inside police station lobbies despite clear New York law allowing it, and has been physically attacked and had firearms brandished at him while attempting interviews, all documented on video. https://youtube.com/@longislandaudit https://youtube.com/@longislandaudit There are so many others. This is what local journalism looks like now. https://youtube.com/@lacklustermedia https://youtube.com/@lacklustermedia https://youtube.com/@audittheaudit https://youtube.com/@audittheaudit https://youtube.com/@amagansettpress https://youtube.com/@amagansettpress https://youtube.com/@susanbassi https://youtube.com/@susanbassi Many, many others. Here are lawyers giving their perspectives on these interactions: https://youtube.com/@southerndrawllaw https://youtube.com/@southerndrawllaw https://youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer https://youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer https://youtube.com/@americasattorney https://youtube.com/@americasattorney https://youtube.com/@legalbytesmedia https://youtube.com/@legalbytesmedia

j45 10mo ago

If local journalism doesn’t exist in your town or city, start it.

markstos 10mo ago

They had a solid podcast interview with journalist Jordan Green on the raise of far-right extremism in the US. https://buckscountybeacon.com/2025/08/journalist-jordan-green-on-why-the-neo-nazi-movement-is-an-escalating-threat-to-us-democracy/ https://buckscountybeacon.com/2025/08/journalist-jordan-gree...

SubiculumCode 10mo ago

...and the more government is local, the more local journalism means a damn thing.

misterbishop 10mo ago

Liberal values can't be preserved in the midst of a Pharaonic distribution of wealth. The only way to defend liberal values is to fight for socialism.

0xbadcafebee 10mo ago

There's this idea that Democracy and Journalism are intrinsically linked (thanks John Milton), but they're not. Look at the history of Democracy (by that of course we mean representative democracy): it has existed long before, and independent from, Journalism. Then look at the history of Journalism: it has always been a partisan affair, funded, written, and published by people who want to get their own point across. The idea that truth emerges from freedom of speech ignores the fact that the speaker can lie, or that different people view different things as true. The romantic idea of Journalism as a bastion of Democracy conveniently ignores the facts. Democracy is a form of Government, and Government is power exerted on people. You don't get more power or influence because you heard about a thing happening. And most people will never do anything about what they hear. The real purpose of Journalism is to galvanize the public's feelings based on a selective viewpoint towards a specific aim. An article is written, using selective information, presented in a particular way, in order to effect a change the writer wants. If effective, the writer gets what they want, or something close to it. Journalism is just another form of power. But it's not power of the people. It's power using the people. You and the rest of the people have no power of your own. But as a group, the people are wielded by institutions (Journalism, Religion, Party, Industry, Culture, etc) to act on behalf of those institutions. The group can try to push back on power. But without organization, leadership, clear goals, and strong motivation, there's no effective opposition. So occasionally the group will take on these qualities, and becomes... another institution, wielding power to get its way. And as a group with power, the results are not always positive for everyone (see: Anti-Saloon League, National Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth, etc)

reop2whiskey 10mo ago

[dead]

testing22321 10mo ago

Except then all the local news stations are owned by mega corps and this happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI

hirpslop 10mo ago

As part of a research project, I combed through archives of my local paper from the 70s and 80s. As a practice exercise, I highly recommend you log in to your local library and try exploring yours. I was stunned at the quality papers used to produce. It left me with a profound sense of loss and regret, but also hope that we can do better. Even the most trivial seeming stories were treated with a care that seems lost to time. The power of observation beats most content I encounter now. For instance, the coverage of a Lieutenant Governor’s election victory celebration after being snubbed by Gov. Reagan’s inaugural party. The clever politician persevered because he knew the way to people’s hearts: free steins of beer and brats. Thousands attended on a chilly winter night in a parking garage. They even followed up to verify precisely how much beer and brats were consumed. They were also funnier and better written that most journalistic writing see today. Local restaurant reviews had a sense of responsibility and respectful conduct, but didn’t shy away from levity when the food stank. Far from a mere aggregate of gripes of the crankiest customers or sycophantic pablum, it was a the product of someone who’d honed their craft—taking pains to represent what was there according to a professional ethic. This amounts to a public record that’s a dependable source of historical truth in a way that a forum or social platform doesn’t approximate. They may not be as good today, but $200 a year is arguably worth the democracy protecting function alone.

silexia 10mo ago

Lots of local journalism now happens locally on social media, at least for me. I post about my county and city and have great discussions.