(Roughly) Daily

Your correspondent is off again– back on March 13… and then (for all your sins) around for a while…

The Media Power Collaborative (a project of Free Press) compares local news to public goods like safe roads and public education and argues that it needs– and deserves– public funding. But those funds need to support authentic local journalism, not the zombiefied private equity-mined operations currently passing for “local news.” Sarah Scire reports…

What would a local media system that prioritizes working and middle classes over corporate profits and the interests of billionaires look like? A new public policy agenda released this week has some ideas.

The Media Power Collaborative, which released its policy framework on Tuesday, describes itself as an organizing space for media workers and their allies in research, activism, and education. The collaborative grew out of a peer networking group — now known as the News Futures collective — and is part of the media reform group Free Press. If you remember the much-discussed Roadmap for Local News that argued that the future of local news is “civic information,” this is the same crowd.

The local news industry, as Nieman Lab readers well know, has been devastated by ad revenue losses, layoffs, and profit-driven corporate ownership over the past couple of decades. Over that time, local newspapers have shrunk faster than a new crop of local news sites and nonprofit newsrooms have been able to grow. Through the policy agenda, policy tracker, and a new network of regional coalitions, the Media Power Collaborative wants to push the public policy conversation toward support for some of the more community-minded local media that’s emerged to fill that gap…

… The Media Power Collaborative agenda highlights local news and information as a public good that deserves “robust public funding” whether it comes from a legacy newsroom or not. From the report:

Just like safe roads and strong public-education systems, public-service journalism and civic information are public goods that benefit entire communities. Unfortunately, the market is critically underproducing these public goods: Estimates of what it would cost annually to bridge current community-information gaps range from $1 billion to $10 billion or more. Even with promising new philanthropic investments in local news and civic media, public funding is essential to addressing a deficit of this magnitude and building toward a community-centered local-news system.

The agenda also reflects a widespread frustration with public policy proposals that would benefit legacy newspaper chain owners such as Alden Global Capital. This has been a consistent theme for civic information advocates though by no means limited to them.

“Corporate media and hedge funds and broadcasters — these are folks who have the ears of lawmakers. They have resources to lobby. And so every starting place in the conversations about media policy is something that protects their interests,” Rispoli said. “A bit of it is saying this [civic media] part of the field deserves a seat at the table. But a bit of it is saying we should be the ones setting the table.”…

… The agenda attempts to address some of the biggest questions in local news policy, including how to protect editorial independence; which local news orgs should qualify for assistance; and, given finite public funding, which communities should be prioritized. Limiting public funds to legacy news organizations does not address their history of underserving communities of color as well as rural and low-income groups. It seems more likely to reinforce existing news deserts and information gaps. Candice Fortman, a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford and former executive director of Outlier Media, was one of the 10 members that met over the course of 2024 to craft the public policy agenda.

“Many minds are working to build the agenda for the future of local news and how we will protect and fund reporting,” Fortman said. “This initiative, however, is about more than just saving local news; it’s about rebuilding it in a way that is equitable, sustainable, and deeply rooted in community needs.”…

[Scire recounts the elements of the Media Power Collaborative’s agenda (which is resonant with the thinking that led to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967)…

… No one is saying any of this will be easy. Those estimates for closing the local news gap are enormous and it’s unlikely public funding alone is the answer. There are also important and fair questions about editorial independence and giving anyone — never mind the government — the power to decide which journalists and news organizations will receive taxpayer dollars.

Perhaps more pressingly, though, is that although majorities of both Democrats and Republicans approve of local media, the political polarization and harsh rhetoric at the national level has trickled down to state and local policy conversations. Funding for public media — already lower in the U.S. than in many other democracies — is under threat. Even paid news subscriptions for government workers have been criticized and exploited for political purposes in recent weeks. Federal legislation seems off the table for now, and we’ll have to see how many states and cities will see proposals to support local news become law. 

I noted one other ominous sign. The Media Power Collaborative’s policy agenda mentions that research tells us low-income communities, communities of color, immigrant communities, and rural communities are the most underserved by our current local media system. The report includes a link to research published by the FCC. The report, which was live in late December, now shows a “page not found” error message…

On a possiblle future for local journalism: “A new public policy agenda has a vision for ‘local news for the people’,” from @sarahscire.com and @niemanlab.org.

See also: “America Needs a Working-Class Media” from @columjournreview.bsky.social (source of the image above)

* Jane Smiley

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As we pay attention, we might recall that it was on this date in 1954 Edward R. Murrow and his CBS news program, See It Now, examined Senator Joseph McCarthy’s record and anti-communist methods, now widely understood to have been a witch-hunt.

The program is often remembered for these words:

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’

Good night, and good luck.”

– Poynter Institute

It is often referred to as “television’s finest hour.”

(One notes that McCarthy’s right-hand man, Roy Cohn, went on to become a Mafia lawyer (before being disbarred), a political fixer, and Donald Trump’s mentor.)