> but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding.
I don't think that is true with local news.
At our city council meetings, you see two news outlets:
* The local paper had a reporter who would sit through the whole damn thing.
* The local TV news, who would show up, get some clips of the meeting, a few sound bites with different people, and then pack up and leave in order to get the segment produced for the 10 o'clock news.
Now, the paper is going through bankruptcy and the person doing the city council beat has left.
I'm not sure anyone will sit through the whole meeting to cover it all.
Boston has a long-time independent hyperlocal reporter, Adam Gaffin ("https://universalhub.com/"), who actually sits through not only city council meetings, but even liquor licensing board hearings and zoning hearings.
Gaffin was an early "tech" industry reporter, IIRC, and involved pretty early in the Internet. He invested many years in building a hyperlocal news following, and apparently now makes a modest living off of ads and donations.
Gaffin's is impressive for a one-person operation, but of course his coverage isn't complete, and a major city really needs at least tens of sharp journalists covering the basics. Unfortunately, although the two main local papers (Boston Globe, Boston Herald) are soldiering on thus far, they're in financial trouble, and have been sold and under new management since their heydays.
Theoretically if a creator exists, they could be found. The unique issue to news is that the mass perceived value is zero. Either a market doesn't exist b/c of the perceived value or a marketplace doesn't exist to facilitate the trade.
I don't think that is true with local news.
At our city council meetings, you see two news outlets:
* The local paper had a reporter who would sit through the whole damn thing.
* The local TV news, who would show up, get some clips of the meeting, a few sound bites with different people, and then pack up and leave in order to get the segment produced for the 10 o'clock news.
Now, the paper is going through bankruptcy and the person doing the city council beat has left.
I'm not sure anyone will sit through the whole meeting to cover it all.