
Why local US newspapers are sounding the alarm - prostoalex
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44688274
======
russellbeattie
I started my career as a journalist at a small daily paper before moving into
tech in the 1990s. As a young reporter - still in college - I got horrible
assignments like having to attend local budget meetings, going down to the
police station to copy the blotter, sitting in on school board meetings,
updating the local calendar and reporting on the high school sports teams,
among other tasks. This stuff was boring, tedious and rarely ever generated
"news" of anything beyond an informational synopses of the goings on around
town.

It didn't matter - the paper was picked up and read daily by thousands of
readers. Many read it cover to cover. It's truly an important service to any
community. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper
an area isn't a community at all. Newspapers traditionally bring people
together and provide a sense of belonging and regional awareness and even
pride.

This stuff isn't sexy, nor particularly profitable, but it _has_ to be done!
Someone needs to keep track of these events, summarize and disseminate this
information. Even the most boring, mundane happenings _need_ to be recorded
and publicized for well-functioning society. Without that effort, the things
happening around us become opaque, and being informed relies literally on word
of mouth.

Sadly, pretty much every effort to digitally replicate the services provided
by local papers has failed to my knowledge. As a result, I know more about
what's happening in London than I do about my home city.

No idea what the solution is, and a lot of people much smarter than myself
have tried for years. But what I do know is the long term consequences of
small newspapers closing is a lot more dire than I think most people realize.

~~~
willio58
> In fact, I would go so far as to say that without a local newspaper an area
> isn't a community at all.

As a young (21yr) person in my community, I have to say I have never read
through a full local newspaper and don't know a single friend my age or
younger who has. The local news channels have websites these days and I would
say those, in combination with local public radio, television channels, and
even social media are the main source for local news in my town (for my
demographic at least).

I personally don't feel a lack of community due to the fact that this news
comes from my computer monitor instead of ink on some rolled up paper, but
then again I never really lived in an era when I got to experience that.

~~~
ethbro
As someone from the last generation born without ubiquitous web, the biggest
difference for me is the definition of community.

Now, a community is whoever you want it to be. Folks who play the same game
you do. People who hate rocks. People who think purple hair is awesome. People
who think purple hair is stupid and red hair is awesome.

The people may live next to you, or they may live in another country.

Previously, all these people who made up your community were in your town, by
necessity. Because of that, you pretty much rolled the random dice and that's
who you interacted with.

Gain (present vs past) -- being able to find a community that's similar to
you. Especially if you don't identify with the norm (imagine being the only
person you knew who thought computers were cool). Much more rapid
dissemination of ideas and social mores.

Loss -- forced mixing of and interaction with different groups. Exposure to
new ideas and different perspectives. Identification with people who aren't
like you (but are still "one of us", i.e. from the same town)

~~~
TangoTrotFox
There's an even bigger one on the loss. In my opinion the phenomena you're
describing is related to the rise in groupthink. The problem is as people
create communities based around shared ideology, it means that people can be
effectively 'exiled' from that community if they say something that may be
interpreted as going against that ideology. If your community is defined by
shared location, then nothing you can say or do changes that. I think this
community from ideology makes people afraid to say what they actually think,
for fear that it could unravel their created community connections. There are
some major parallels here to how cults sustain themselves, but in this case
we've done it entirely to ourselves!

~~~
pjc50
> as people create communities based around shared ideology, it means that
> people can be effectively 'exiled' from that community if they say something
> that may be interpreted as going against that ideology. If your community is
> defined by shared location, then nothing you can say or do changes that.

Small towns are historically _far worse_ for ideological conformance, because
once you're ostracized you're stuck.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Community doesn't translate to small town. The reason community would be
constrained to your 'town' was a matter of geographic distance. Community is
whoever you were surrounded by, and who you interacted with was more or less
random. People would end up making friends, often good friends, with others
even when they had deeply differing views. Of course had they known the views
of the person they were talking to ahead of time, they may well not have even
been willing to give them the time of day. Now a days people are able to get
that knowledge ahead of time, and it's resulted in this trend towards social
homogeneity. And I think there's a very strong argument to be made that that
homogeneity is really the source of so many of the social ills of today.

------
corysama
There have been studies showing that without local papers acting as watchdogs,
local government costs go up.

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175555)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280712)

[https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/public-finance-
loc...](https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/public-finance-local-
news.php)

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/study-when-local-
news...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/study-when-local-newspaper-
close-city-bond-finances-suffer/561422/)

~~~
Shivetya
this must only really work in small communities as most larger cities are
pretty much immune to monitoring except corruption.

anecdotal, in Atlanta we tend to see the local TV news doing a lot of
investigation with one partnered with the local paper (AJC). They tend to
focus on corruption more than costs of city programs. However the one expense
they never ever will touch is how cities are getting buried by pension costs
to where even the pension systems are threatened. (Chicago's system will be
out of money by 2021) too rich of benefits and more retirees than active is to
much of a burden

~~~
freddie_mercury
> this must only really work in small communities as most larger cities are
> pretty much immune to monitoring except corruption

You are wrong, didn't read the link, don't make any arguments about its
findings, and don't offer any evidence for your claims.

"To further account for within-state cross county variation, we control for
county-level differences in population, population growth, per capita income,
and employment growth."

Was it really so important that you say "this study is wrong" and share your
personal anecdote that you couldn't have spent a few minutes reading it first?
Commenting on HackerNews isn't a race and the level of discourse usually goes
up when people aren't in a rush to comment.

Is sharing a personal anecdote on HackerNews with strangers more valuable than
learning something new?

------
alienreborn
> "Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15
> years, before somebody figures out the business model," says Simon, a former
> crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "To gambol freely across the
> wastelands of an American city, as a local politician! It's got to be one of
> the great dreams in the history of American corruption."

\-- David Simon (Creator of The Wire) on the necessity of local newspapers
which are quickly disappearing.

Source: [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/mar/27/david-simon-
wi...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/mar/27/david-simon-wire-
newspapers)

------
simplecomplex
News is no longer what a local paper publishes. It's the latest Instagram
story from your friends. It's the Facebook post from a local school informing
parents of a PTA meeting. It's the Twitter status update from the President.
It's a Reddit post discussing problems with the latest MacBook keyboards.

Why is the newspaper dying? Because updates about what is happening in
people's world is no longer constrained by what is published in the local
paper! And everyone involved in the old industry still can't wrap their minds
around it.

The newspaper was a medium for communication. The World Wide Web is a medium
for communication. News didn't die, but what constitutes news is no longer
defined by what the local paper decides to publish.

~~~
LocalPCGuy
The difference is, the newspaper paid professional reporters to write the
news. They did a fantastic job (in most cases) of making sure they had their
facts straight, and local news broke most of the big stories you eventually
heard about on national news sources. Even today, a LOT of the national news
starts at local news sources, either papers or local channels, but that is
getting worse all the time due to the cuts.

Instead, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc. you get a flood of
"news", but you have to vet it all yourself to see what is true and what
isn't. And many many people don't do that - if they trust the person sharing,
they trust the "news". Or if it agrees with their world view, they trust the
"news". Sometimes amazing things are covered - live Reddit threads have broken
some amazing stories, with details from local residents. Same with Twitter,
etc. But for every one of those stories there are 100s that are fake, or
actually pushing alternative narratives that are not based in reality for
their own ends. And that flood is just too much for the average person to
actually separate the fact from the fiction.

Social media does not equal journalism. That isn't "old industry" thinking.
That is just a sad fact.

~~~
Retric
Every time I have known what was going on and read a local newspaper covering
it there has been a host of errors. Local news is ok for having a vague idea
what's going on, and little else.

So sure, there is some value there. But, less than many people seem to think.

PS: OK, local movie showtimes where generally correct.

~~~
ethbro
I typically find a large amount of information that simply doesn't exist
online in my local paper.

And don't get me started on ranting about Facebook trying to hamfistedly
assume that mantle.

------
davidw
In my town, there's still a local paper, and they send out that _one_ person,
who is reasonably neutral, to report on what happens during, say, city council
meetings. Without that person, you just have what the councilors say, what
Angry Neighbors report (the parking! won't someone think of the parking!), or
maybe a long, long, tedious recording that no sane person can sit through to
make heads or tails of what happened.

That's super important stuff and has a lot more impact on my life than many
things in DC.

From the article:

> Susan's a Daily Camera subscriber, but she mentions Boulder's local paper
> recently raised the subscription price by 25%.

This is, in part, a result of tariffs by the Trump administration:

[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-publishers-worry-
ab...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-publishers-worry-about-
pricier-newsprint-new-tariffs-n865416)

~~~
vkou
For a few years, I was that person in my village.

At least, I like to think I was neutral in my writing. There were two
political cliques, and one of them occasionally behaved in _incredibly_
jerkish ways (And would regularly have between 0 and 40% of the council
seats).

------
kalleboo
Sweden had the same problem of local newspapers shutting down in the 50's and
60's, and introduced a system of press support where the government directly
subsidizes newspapers to keep competition available
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_support](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_support)

~~~
ravenstine
Doesn't that create a conflict of interest?

~~~
kalleboo
It's a bit more complicated than that.

Rather than try or pretend to be neutral, Swedish newspapers tend to outright
state their political affiliations/biases. (e.g. "Skånska Dagbladet is close
to the Centre Party"[0] "Aftonbladet describes itself as an independent
social-democratic newspaper"[1]). This results in the newspapers having
protection of the parties they support, rather than the legislature-du-jour,
and an attempt by the government to influence an opposing newspaper would
quickly gain political attention.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skånska_Dagbladet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skånska_Dagbladet)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftonbladet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftonbladet)

------
moorhosj
Pew found a 35% decline in reporters covering statehouses from 2003 to 2014.
This is a scary lack of information for voters and watchdogs.

[http://www.journalism.org/2014/07/10/americas-shifting-
state...](http://www.journalism.org/2014/07/10/americas-shifting-statehouse-
press/)

==Less than a third of U.S. newspapers assign any kind of reporter—full time
or part time—to the statehouse. According to the Alliance for Audited Media,
only 30% of the 801 daily papers it monitor send a staffer to the statehouse
for any period of time. In Massachusetts, whose capital is the largest city
(Boston), just 6% of the state’s newspapers have any reporting presence at the
statehouse—the lowest percentage of newspaper representation of any state.==

------
katzgrau
A number of comments here are along the lines of "I'm more informed today than
I was before the web, no problem here."

You're probably more informed on the whole, but there are fewer and fewer eyes
watching our elected officials and shining lights into dark places.

A strong and free press is critical in maintaining a healthy democracy.
Support your local papers or hyperlocal bloggers if you see them doing good
work - you and your community will benefit in the long term.

~~~
kingofhdds
"Press" is just a technical method of information dissemination which
certainly can become outdated. Democracy needs freedom of speech and
expression.

~~~
katzgrau
Kind of a weird nitpick there. Democracy needs someone working to uncover
things that the public needs to know to make informed voting decisions.

~~~
kingofhdds
"Someone uncovering things" appears because in an environment where free
speech is not suppressed political, economical, and ideological competitions
create incentives to do it. Is it a newspaper, a TV channel, a blog, social
network, telepathy, or something else which is used to disseminate information
then is a purely technical issue.

~~~
katzgrau
Just because free speech is possible doesn't mean someone will take up the
role of investigative reporter

~~~
kingofhdds
Incentives -> someone will.

------
msie
In my town both the major newspapers are owned by one company. That one
company also laid off a lot of reporting staff and saved money by using
syndicated content in both papers.

It's sad to see how less diverse the opinions are. We are just being told what
to think now.

~~~
Accioni
Yeah, similar here. It really sucks.

------
dahdum
Civic engagement dropped by ~5%, with p<.05, per the study linked the article.
The way it was written I expected a drastic drop.

I didn't see any other years compared to see if that kind of variance is
typical.

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/figure/10.1080/10584609.2012...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/figure/10.1080/10584609.2012.762817?scroll=top&needAccess=true)

------
shoguning
> But nationwide, there's been no mass replacement of local newspapers. Non-
> profit online sites are largely based in major metro areas.

Is this really true? I've heard of at least a couple of non-profit newspapers
opening in small towns including the one I'm from, and I don't really pay that
close of attention to this stuff. For enterprising journalists there are a lot
of people willing to pay/donate to these causes. Optimistically, the funding
can move from ad/subscription more to donations/grants and the local reporting
can continue.

~~~
exotree
It is very true. And a journalist can’t do the job of being a journalist if
they have to spend hours in city council meetings in addition to wooing
subscribers. This business is tough.

------
a3n
It's odd that newspapers are dying because their old business model, ad
support, has gone away, but Facebook and Google thrive on ads.

~~~
mrweasel
Facebook and Google are outliers. Your average website (if there is such a
thing anymore) with 10.000 - 100.000 aren't thriving on ads, they struggle to
survive as well, at least the for profit sites.

------
ramblerman
The biggest loss to newspapers imo is the fact that they got just 1 chance
every day to publish their articles.

It was harder to spy on what the other was doing, unless you wanted to be a
day behind them. This allowed people to come up with more original opinions,
and less hivemind behavior that you see with the constantly updating/mutating
articles online.

------
jackfoxy
There may be hope for automating the dissemination of local and state
government information and news when agencies use services like opengov.com.
The problem is still getting this information to venues people will notice and
pay attention to. This will still probably come down to social media. In many
ways social media is taking the place of local newspapers.

------
kingofhdds
If taxi drivers were in the same way connected to social studies people as
journos are, we would be reading laments about oldschool taxi services as a
cornerstone of society now.

------
EGreg
I wrote an extensive comment as to why I consider the capitalist funding model
for news to be suboptimal and not resilient in the face of the Internet. I
described an alternative in terms of collaborative efforts like wikinews,
user-submitted content, and fact checking and analysis as a community effort.
It tried to be as detailed and helpful as possible in a reasonable space.

It was downvoted (fine) and then flagged and killed. Also replies to it that
agreed with it were flagged even more and killed.

My question is - why was it flagged? Can anyone explain? Is it because it
suggested a non-capitalist approach to news? Or because it made a broader
point? I really think the “flag” feature should require an explanation.

------
1996
Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease?

------
User23
It’s not surprising that a business based on providing printouts of
yesterday’s wire stories plus classified ads isn’t doing well.

~~~
ghaff
My town had a local newspaper for a while which went away. Now I have
basically no source of information about local planning, zoning, etc. board
meetings. I suppose I could more regularly attend town meetings and so forth
but that often isn't really an option.

~~~
qubax
Your town/municipality doesn't have a website with all that info? Granted,
most town websites are horrid to navigate, but the information should be
there.

~~~
vkou
Even when there is a website with meeting minutes/notes/bylaws/zoning info,
it's really helpful to have someone who knows what the government is talking
about to sift through, and highlight the important bits.

Likewise, I can go down to the river, and start taking water samples, to
figure out whether or not the local factory is polluting the waters. I'd
really rather not, though.

