Slashdot Mirror
The Crisis in Local News (axios.com)
Sara Fischer, writing for Axios: The economic strains on local news have forced local outlets to close, shutter their print editions or consolidate into major holding groups, often headquartered in far-away cities. Why it matters: "As long as [cuts to local news] continues, the people in power will get away with murder," veteran NYC TV journalist Errol Louis told CNN's Brian Stelter on Sunday. Most recently, billionaire Joe Ricketts' decision to shut down local city coverage site DNAInfo and Gothamist in response to employees voting to unionize has called into question how local news outlets can survive through conflicting business interests of ownership. The cuts are the latest of local coverage setbacks this month. The Houston Press has effectively closed down; The Baltimore City Paper, a 40-year-old publication, published its last issue November 1. Local media continues to have a complicated relationship with technology, because while technology can be blamed for upended news economics, local media companies still rely on it for traffic and resources.
decision to shut down local city coverage site DNAInfo and Gothamist in response to employees voting to unionize
I thought it was established the other day that the sites were being shutdown because they were losing money.
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If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
You don't actually believe that, do you? Have you SEEN the media coverage of Trump since he was elected? I would hardly call that "under his control."
If you want to see State control of the media, look at North Korea, not the US.
Fifteen years ago our small town had a newspaper. There were newspaper boxes on every corner. Every person would at least see one headline a week that pertained to local news, because it was prominently shown through the newspaper boxes.
Ten years ago, the online version of the local news had a comment section. The trolls took over, but as long as you didn't scroll down, you could stick to finding the news.
Today, those newspapers are gone. National conglomerates have bought the small papers, and our now filled with USA Today style click bait. "This many people died this morning..."
People now say that they get their local news from Facebook. At the same time, their feeds are filled with angry neighbors arguing with each other. These news hawk are having trouble sifting through the lost dog notices trying to find a local person that wrote "news."
The current conversation revolves around making it easier to find news, all in one place where people can read it, where lost dogs are on page 7, and "real news" would be near the front.
We aren't full circle, and its causing serious problems. The local community is fractured. Fluffy the dog has been found 3 times though, and grandma is really happy every time.
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"That won't be easy" Jiminy Cricket
My dad emailed a link today about how the Guardian is protected from "outside influence" by a trust fund that was set up back in the 1930s. I'd be curious to hear what others think about this setup, and how well it has succeeded in that goal.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Just as today is voting day in the United stated. Being that it is an off year election only the local officials are running. However the local officials are the ones who will directly control your quality of life and the community, yet we don’t go out and masses and vote for them. Then we get supposed that a million dollars is wasted and the officials just go off unpunished because voting is so low for their positions and local news is so scarce that they can get away with it.
We can live with an idiot baby as president, but we need an adult who is mayor and town clerk. Otherwise we get real problems.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Check out "The Media Monopoly" by Ben Bagdikian as a primer on all things media-consolidation. He dives into the detail of how and why it happened. Back in Victorian times, there were 4-5 newspapers even in small towns. Right now, communications technology favors centralized syndication because it's much cheaper than having a news room staff in every town. Americans are often just as interested in "big" national stories vis-a-vis small local ones. So, after reading his book (and it's updated editions) it's pretty clear that there is equal blame on both news consumers and news producers. However, I also think it has something to do with the perception that journalism is just a tool for propaganda these days. Journalism has taken a hit in perceived trust on all fronts by all consumers. Perhaps it's because of the corporatism at work in most news organizations, or maybe it's also the fact that every journalist I've ever met (personally) has been an ignorant tool just chasing "trends" not news.
Fox News has decided they want to be the state media while Trump is in office.
But, they took on that role voluntarily - apparently there's a market for having you biases constantly re-affirmed.
The news media has been in a long downward spiral of consolidation and/or bankruptcies since about 1980 which coincides with the birth of both CNN and the age of a zillion cable channels. Prior to then, the limited media available (only major networks, radio and print) kept traditional advertising at the top of the heap for revenue generation. Networks and local papers saw news gathering as a quasi independent, money losing necessary evil. Networks had to be viewed as somewhat neutral in news to attract viewers and advertisers. In cities with more than one paper, the papers tended to take particular editorial positions but they still had to be viewed as accurate. Cable started taking viewers and ad dollars from the major networks and after the internet further messed up the advertising model channels like CNN and Fox discovered that ad revenue grew and they made more money by biasing their coverage (and their accuracy) to pander to their viewership. In the meantime daily rags were losing their shirts. The lack of readership killed ad revenues major mergers started happening everywhere. Most cities were whittled down to one major daily and the battling editorial positions were gone. At the same time USA Today showed papers that a lot of readers were happy without local news and loads of papers became localized versions of a national paper. Now the paper only needed a handful of employees or just contract reporters for local news with everything else (layout, production, website, delivery, billing etc) handled by the national organization. We have no independent mainstream media left in the US. Every story that comes out of every organization has a primary focus of revenue generation.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
If you want to see State control of the media, look at North Korea, not the US.
The problem with the USA media is that it's controlled by the ultra-rich. Ordinary Americans are distracted by by trivial issues like terrorism into voting to give up healthcare for their children. Ordinary Americans are the bull, Rupert Murdoch is the matador and Fox News is his cape. Bull fights do not end well for the bull.
What seems to be 'under his control' (at least for his followers) is what outlets can be believed - and even what stories on those outlets.
Orwell envisioned North Korea style government controlled media pretty well, but he seems to have missed what happens when there is no sense of what a reliable media outlet (let alone reliable truth) is. The apologists for the latest waves of media consolidation and breakdown of ownership limits always point to the vast number of sources now available for information. But if none of those sources can be counted on to be telling the truth, then what? Say what you will, but the fairness doctrine produced some reliable concept of objective reality in media.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Fox -- 19
NYT -- 4
NBC -- 3
Reuters -- 3
WSJ -- 2
CBN -- 2
ABC -- 1
CBS -- 1
WashPost -- 1
AP -- 1
Time -- 1
Forbes -- 1