Almost 40 years ago, I was covering cops and courts in Hot Springs, Ark., a typical first beat for young reporters of my generation, when a source urged me to scour the local police department’s log books for driving while intoxicated arrests. “Look for jockeys,” she whispered.
Hot Springs had then — and has now — an intense horse racing culture. Jockeys were local celebrities. And so with some trepidation, I walked to the police department and asked to see the logs. I turned every page, noticing an entry here and there that had been whited out. Odd. It was a hand-written log; why would they use typewriter white-out? What do they not want me to see? I used my thumb nail to gently scratch away the white paint-like substance. Lo and behold, it was hiding the name of a prominent jockey.
I scratch another whited-out entry. Another jockey. One more time, same story. With my heart thumping, I tucked the log under my arm and walked into the office of the public information officer. “Hey there, sir,” told him. “You’ve got a problem … .”
I share this with you not to brag. Hell, I’m still not sure if what I did was ethical, though it did uncover a favoritism racket that was keeping habitually drunk drivers on our local roads. I share this with you as sort of a eulogy to local news.
It’s dying.
Local news is vital to social connectiveness, good government, and healthy communities. Where local news doesn’t exist, you’ll find more polarization, radicalization, loneliness, and lack of trust in institutions.
"In 2000, many Americans lived in a community with journalists — people whose job it was to cover school board decisions, announce small business openings and closures, root out corruption at city hall, warn commuters about road work and trumpet the exploits of the high school teams," reads a stunning new report from Muck Rack. "Today, most of those journalists are gone. The evaporation of local news coverage has hit small towns and big cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Even as the country has grown, we’ve lost journalists."
Just look at these numbers:
Less than a quarter-century ago, the United States had about 40 journalists per 100,000 residents on average. Now, the equivalent number is 8.2 local journalists, a 75% decline.
More than 1,000 counties — one out of three — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist.
About two-thirds of the counties — home to 217 million people — are below even that already-catastrophic national average of 8.2 local journalists.
It's worse than we thought and it breaks my heart.
Local new was not just a great way to learn my craft. It was a path to serve my community, uncovering corruption, asking tough questions on behalf of my neighbors, and promoting all the good things happening in town — high school basketball games, beauty pageants, livestock shows, honored scholars, and local heroes of all types.
I did all that — and more — before moving to Washington to cover the White House and national politics. And you know what? Local news was the most meaningful work of my career.
Any one story I wrote in Hot Springs or metro Detroit was more relevant and meaningful to my audience than almost anything I wrote from Washington.
Local journalism can’t be replaced by social media, because social media doesn’t uncover corruption or report hard truths. It confirms biases, and rather than creating connective tissue for townspeople, the algorithms tear people apart.
We need a new local media business model, now that classified ads and car dealerships no longer print money for publishers and broadcasters. There are some interesting experiments out there, including non-profits like Bridge Michigan in my home state, and local independent journalists on Substack, like
, where Sam Robinson arguably is covering city politics better than Detroit’s mainstream media.My friend
left NBC news to focus on reinventing local news. His plan, according to the New York Times, calls for “a constellation of local sites owned by their communities and anchored by coverage of local youth sports.” It’s an intriguing idea.Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on the jockeys.
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Gannett's shell of a newsroom in Battle Creek shows fresh evidence of the death spiral, not that added confirmation is needed.
The Enquirer, the only daily in its county, has no front-page coverage Friday of the sale a day earlier of a 119-year-old major local employer -- W.K. Kellogg Co. -- to an Italian candymaker, Ferrero. Its business page article is from Reuters, bylined by two reporters based in Bangalore, India. (A local editor has a contributing tagline and a 5-graf sidebar quoting statements from the mayor and city manager.)
"It's heartbreaking that the nation's largest newspaper company can't (or won't) cover the sale of the largest employer in its own company town," says a social media post by Gary Miles, editor and publisher of The Detroit News, which sent a reporter and photographer to Battle Creek on Thursday.
Turn every page! Great story and lesson for all young journalists, Ron. As for your larger point, sad but true. But some alternatives are popping up.