Hi, everyone, Welcome to next question. I'm here's for as Katherine Curry is standing by at the Civic Center station right now. Actually I'm Katie currk Well John. About every ten minutes a metrorail train is arriving here at the station dropping off concert goers. Yep, that's me in night Something reporting for the local CBS affiliate w t VJ in Miami. I gotta tell you, Miami was such a great news town for a young reporter. It had immigration, extreme weather like hurricanes, and crime galore. It was action central North Miami Beach. Police say crimes like personatchings are up at the sixty Street Mall, partly because many shoppers are elderly and easy targets, and with Christmas fast approaching, the problem will get worse. Shoppers are scared and it was the perfect place to find my footing as a news reporter. The experience was invaluable. But that was nearly forty years ago. Unfortunately, today, local news, particularly print, just isn't what it used to be. In fact, it's an industry in crisis since the pandemic. Another papers have gone out of business, and overall it's been you know, since two thousand four it's been over two thousand papers in the country, mostly weeklies, but weeklies are important, you know, and some dailies too, So it's a really heartbreaking story. Margaret Sullivan is a longtime journalist. She is now the media columnist for the Washington Post, and back in she wrote an excellent book called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. If you're paying attention, the book will scare the pants off of you, because the dire state of local news isn't just bad for budding journalists, it's bad for everyone. It matters so much because we don't trust and Moore as a as a nation, we don't trust in the press, but we do still have a great deal of trust in local news. So it's this weird paradox of Okay, well, this is the trusted this is the trusted media, but it's withering and it's going away. Because local news was such an integral part of my life and career, I wanted to talk to Margaret about the state of it. Margaret also got her start in local news working for one of her hometown papers, the Buffalo Evening News, back in the eighties. I came there straight out of school, and you know, I had internship offers at the two papers in Buffalo, which is my hometown. And I remember saying to my dad, Um, should I go to work for the Buffalo Evening News or the Buffalo Courier Express. And he said, I think he was a lawyer, you know, he was pretty savvy guy, and he said, I think the Evening News is the dominant paper. And turns out father knows best because two years I did go to work there. They hired me at the end of my internship, and two years later the Courier Express was out of business. Smart smartness, right dead. So I stayed at the News for a long time and I um did every job, and eventually I became the first woman editor of the paper, the top editor, and it was an incredible honor. Yeah, thank you, it was. You know. Really, even though I've now been you know, I've worked for the New York Times in the Washington Post, and I have more of a national scope now, I would still say that being the editor of my hometown paper and the first woman is really the privilege of my life. I mean, my professional life. I will call my children the privilege of my good but but you know, I mean it was a big newsroom. There were there were two undred people in it. We covered an eight county area. We really did the job for people, um in all of western New York and and and it was an exciting place to be. I was a politics reporter there, a government reporter, education reporter, and it was, you know, a tremendous experience. And then it's been you know, it's been extremely difficult and painful to watch the withering of local news across the country, including at the Buffalo News. Although I have to say I just spent a big chunk of the summer in the Buffalo area at a cottage on Lake Erie, and I get the print edition of the paper every day, and every day I was like, Wow, this is still extremely informative and important and well done. So um, you know, it's kind of a split story. The ghosting the news thing is about places that really don't even have that anymore, and they've turned into so called news deserts. Why do you think people do trust local news more than national news. I think I know the answer to it, but I'd like to hear your explanation. Yeah, it's a varied you know, it's It's got a few different aspects to it, but one of them is that, you know, these are people who live in your community. You could run into a reporter whom maybe his or her child is in school with your child. You might know them from something that's personal and obituary of a relative. I mean, it's all very dog in in the community. And so therefore, when they tell you this is what's happening, you sort of have a personal connection to it, or even if it's not a completely personal connection, you've got that sense of place. And I think that that goes a long way where the national media seems like, oh, you know, I think a lot of people feel like these are elites. That are they all live in New York and Washington and and you know, California. They don't have anything to do with me and my life. Well, it's kind of true. It is kind of true. I mean, there's a very strong presence um in national news in those in those places, and so and you know, I think we saw that very very clearly in twos sixteen, when the national press was so out of touch with the rest of the country and was like completely surprised that Trump was elected. The tentacles of local news really reach out into the community and perhaps some unexpected ways, so people not only learn about things, but it has uh, some some unintended positive consequences, doesn't it. Yes, And maybe they're intended. Actually well they I mean I think it is intended. It has a way, just as you say, of sort of knitting the community together. And so that could be a concert review, it could be a restaurant review, it could be a feature story on an interesting person. It doesn't all have to be heavy duty watchdog journalism, although that's extremely important, but it's it's a lot of different things. And honestly, I have to say that one of the real appointments, um, that's happened at my old paper in Buffalo is that I kind of founded, um, this section called Life and Arts, and it was the place where the you know, the reviews were and the feature stories and the culture coverage. And that section doesn't appear in the daily paper anymore, and I really miss it. You know, there's still sports, of course, there's still sports coverage, right but um, and there's still you know, political coverage and all of that local coverage, but that piece of it is diminished, and that that hurts, and I think that's one of the ways that you're talking about that we you know, sort of intended or unintended. It's like, oh did you see this thing? Did you? Are you going to this show? You know, it's it's more casual, it's more informal, and it's more the sort of the fabric of life. There's that. Then there are other things that go along with local news participation and elections and also the instigative reporting you were talking about or the political coverage that you did as a cub reporter. Um, that actually keeps local officials in check. I mean, there's a real reason for that. Talk about those two things, and the role of local newsplays in both of those. So, you know, just having some reporter at a meeting, whether it's the city council or the you know, town board or a school board, whatever, it is, just having that reporter there, you know, I think it keeps public officials on their toes. It's sort of a way of bearing witness. Oh somebody's watching, you know. Um. I remember talking to the publisher of the Youngstown Vindicator, which very sadly went out of business two summers ago, and he said that you know, I mean just really resonated with me. He said, when the paper was in its heyday, they were able to send a reporter or stringer, meaning a freelance reporter to every meeting in a three county area. And he said they knew, meaning the public officials, they knew that and they behaved. And you know, when that goes away, when you don't have that sort of person there, who's who's watching? Then I think people, you know, there's a human nature. It's like maybe things could be snuck through in some way. Well there's no watchdog, mean dog. I mean, it's as simple as that, there's nobody there to watch. And while there are, you know, I don't think this is a black and white situation because even in places where the local paper may have gone away, or you know, maybe it's a weekly that's closed, you know, sometimes there's a radio station or a startup digital um news organization that's still doing the job. It's not all about newspapers, and I think we need to always remember that. But having said that, newspapers are a huge and really really important piece of the puzzle. What was the first sign when you were at the Buffalo News that, uh, it was a declining, not in expanding industry. Right. Well, you know, I was very focused when I first came in as editor, and that was an h two thousand that I wanted to increase the staff. So we had had a two member news room staff for a long time, and I wanted to be bigger. I wanted to add people, add reporters and so on. And I got made a little bit of progress with the being encounters, and then things started to change. Circulation, you know, started to go down. Um, the rise of the Internet really started to you know, Craigslist came along and really knocked the um, you know, the legs out from underclassified advertising, which was such a money maker. And you know, I started to come under pressure to reduce the staff instead of to grow the staff. And that was you know, that was really the sign that you know, things were not going well and there and then it just you know, then it got to be two thousand eight and we were in this great recession. Um, the whole country was hurting. And then print advertising, which was the lifeblood of my paper and a lot of papers really really started to go away. And then we had to make even more dire cuts, you know, started to do buyouts. We never did layoffs when I was there, which I was very proud of. I had hired all these people and I felt like they were family members. But you know, we didn't do layoups, but we did do voluntary buyouts, and we lost a lot of staff members that way. So all this institutional memory stuff people knew about the community and what had happened, it was all walking out the door, and it was really tough to see. Well, let's talk about some of the the other factors that have led to the disintegration, not only of local newspapers, but also what about radio and television. That's interesting. I mean, TV has managed to um hold onto its revenue and its business model much better local TV, much better than local newspapers UM. And that you know, some of that has to do with the kind of advertising it has, and some of it has to do with transmission fees and sort of the nitty gritty of of how TV gets its money. UM. That isn't as susceptible as newspapers to this decline. UM And in some cases, I mean, I've been really impressed when I've been at investigative and reporters editors conferences around the country that there are a ton of local TV people there who are really interested in investigative reporting, and maybe it's more of a day turn where they do a piece that has an investigative aspect to it or an enterprise aspect to it. But it's, you know, it's that's part of how we're going to fill the gap. And then radio, you know, it's you know, radio is tough to say. Public radio, I think is a part of the puzzle. And um, it's it's it has some pretty good ambitions for for trying to fill that gap. We'll be right back. What about participation in elections? Talk about how that is so closely aligned with the vibrant local news ecosystem. Right, Well, there's you know, there's a strong connection between a vibrant local news situation in a community and good political participation. And part of it is do you vote? Are you active in your community in some way? Um? Do you ever cross party lines when you vote? Or are you you know, when local news goes away, people tend to go more into their sort of echo chambers, more into their tribes, and you know, we've become very very tribal. We're either this or that, and so people don't cross the party lines as much as they did because they're getting their information in many cases through you know, social media and through a very sort of self um, you know, self sustaining idea. You know, you hear the same ideas over and over from people who are telling you what you want to hear, and you're not sharing this common basis of reality. So definitely political engagement, political participation, and that ability to sort of evaluate a candidate on his or her qualities rather than simply his or her party. That really changes when local news goes away. This vacuum that's created by the dearth of local news is one of the what you're talking about Facebook getting affirmation not information algorithms serving you up very similar you know pieces of information um with that vacuum. I mean, don't you think that's essentially led to a lot of the distrust that you were describing at the beginning of our conversation. Yes, it's no, there's no question that it's part of the sort of whole disinformation misinformation um, you know, difficulty. I would say, even tragedy that we're experiencing that you know, people are getting their news from not very credible sources. They you know, it's sort of like what it boils down to what your neighbors tell you. And your neighbors may know what they're talking about or may not, but what they aren't doing is filing freedom of information requests vetting the information. Um. You know, when a newspaper or a public radio station or whatever it may be, puts a story out there, it had better be right. And if it's not right, they have to correct it, and they have to you know, own up to the fact that it's not right, or they're going to really get hammered. Um. That doesn't happen on social media. If it's wrong, maybe you delete it, maybe you let it just spin out there forever. I mean again, during the election, the the amount of you know, some people call want to call it fake news. I think that term has been kind of stolen in a way. Well, I think it's a terrible term. I try to avoid it to cost because I think it began to it started to be used by a president who considered anything critical of him to be fake exactly. And I don't use it for that reason too. But let's call it false news. So you know, for example, a story that uh, you know, the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump. I mean that story was very very widely circulated. It was viral, and Um, once something is out, it's very very hard to pull it back. It just doesn't work that way. What do they say, a lie makes it around the world while the truth hasn't even tied at shoelaces something like that? Exactly right. I mean it's and you know, a correct shan doesn't corrections don't even happen. In fact, some of that false news is done on purpose. I mean a lot of it is, so no one has any interest in correcting it or making it right. Let's, um talk about just sort of other reasons for the decline real quickly before we get to solutions. Um. You talked about the ad model, the ad revenue kind of cratering with the advent of digital etcetera, etcetera in Craig's list. Um, but also what about ownership. I mean, whether it's Sinclair, which is a whole could be a whole documentary, or these private equity firms you know, going for these newspapers and demanding profits. Um. It seems the public service side of what a newspaper is all about has been forgotten. In many of these markets, right. I mean, there was a time when newspapers were owned by local families and that what you know, didn't mean that the local emilias were always great owners, but they did have a stake in the community. Now, you know, most newspapers are owned by big chains, and some of the big chains are actually essentially hedge funds or private equity firms, and they have very little interest, if any, in doing good journalism or even doing valid journalism. They are interested in sort of harvesting the last profits that can be made from these companies, these newspaper companies, which by the way, are still making money. You know, um, it's not as if they're losing money, so there's profit to be made. They're going to cut the staff, um, take advantage of the fact that they're still trust in these places and that people are still subscribing and advertising, and you know, sort of I mean, people call them vulture capitalists because they're sort of circling these properties like vultures and taking advantage of the last you know, the last bits of value that are there. And a lot of journalists are saying, no, we're not going to do that. Right, there have been big protests and there have been, but I mean, you know, your ownership as your ownership, and now most recently the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, the Hartford Current, we're all bought by essentially by Alden Global, which is essentially a hedge fund. And it's really sad because these are storied newspapers that have done great work. One Pulitzer Prises employed you know, fabulous journalists and you know they're still doing the job today, but you know, with fewer people, and we don't know what's coming, but we have a pretty good idea what's coming because of what what's happened in other markets when Alden has swooped in. So I think it would be good for people to just check into who owns their TV station that they're listening to and is there an alternative? And you know, is that or an ulterior motive? Right exactly? You use a stat from from Pew, from the Pew Research Center that shows people pulled actually think local news is doing well and that this was in two thousand nineteen. But they're not only in the dark in terms of the ownership, but they don't even know that local news is in trouble right exactly, Well, why are they so? Why are they so unaware? You think? I mean, I think it's because a local newspapers for such a long time were money making machines, and I think people got used to that idea that oh, well, you know, the paper's fine, it's making money. It's they're making money hand over fist, and they just sort of haven't adjusted to the new reality. And that was one of the reasons that I really wanted to write my book Posting the news was to sort of sound the alarm. Um. You know, obviously it's not everybody read it or knows about it, but I hope it made a little bit of difference in raising people's consciousness. Well what is it? What are the solutions? Margaret? Um, I know that that that one of the things you're going to be talking about in your book and you've been thinking about because, let's face it, ghosteeing the news was kind of a Debbie downer Margaret, and there, Um, I guess the question is a are their solutions and be what do you think are the most, um, potentially sound ones. Yeah, well, I mean there's not one answer, um, but there's different pieces that have to happen. One of them is I think that education in the schools would really, um could really benefit us as a country if they would start to teach a little bit of news literacy, media literacy in the classroom, So teaching kids, you know, I think as young as ten or eleven or twelve year old kids, you know how to tell a false story from a true one, and how to read with some sort of you know, critical reasoning, UM, and you know how to know what you're taking in is good or bad, and you know kind of a compare and contrast. I think really basic information about that. It wouldn't have to be a full year course. It could be part of a social studies or something like that, or civics. So I think that's a piece of it. And I think that there is now an effort, you know, there's a bipartisan effort in Congress to try to get some indirect help, not a handout, but some tax credits the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. Yes, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. They need a good editor when they when it comes to with that title, Zippy your name, let's um. But at any rate, it would give tax credits of various kinds to try to help local journalism stay viable. And I think it's it's pretty I think it's pretty good. I've been really troubled about the idea of sort of government getting involved in this because I don't really want government officials messing with journalism, you know, journalism right be independent. But I think we're at a point now where we need to look at things that maybe didn't seem like a good idea before, and just to build some guardrails into it so that it can be done, you know, intelligently and safely and independently and independently. That's hugely important. There's also Report for America. Stephen Waldman is the founder. This seems like such a cool idea, is it? Is it gaining traction? And are a lot of people doing it? Tell us explain to our listeners what that's all about. Sure, So it's a little bit like the Peace Corps UM in that it takes young people. I guess the Peace Corps isn't all young people, but usually Report for America UM. It lets young people take a year and it funds them to go into a community that has already has some local news, but it puts them in an existing news room so that they can sort of help and and you know, broaden and sort of deepen their coverage. And yeah, it's grown a lot. It's only been around for a couple of years, but now there are think I think there are you know, at least a thousand maybe more report for America. UM. I guess they call them fellows who are in local newsrooms and you know, doing a really good job. You know. I think that's another piece of the puzzle. It's not going to solve the whole thing obviously. Well, how worried are you about training the next generation of journalists if there are fewer and fewer places to work and you know a lot of national places, some are growing, but some are shrinking. Yeah, you know, it's funny because I am somewhat worried about it. But I also know a lot of young journalists. Um some of them personally wants my nephew, wants my my son's ex girlfriend, you know, people that And then some are my own students who I've taught at different places, and I'm always very very heartened by how good they are. Smart, um, you know, dedicated to journalism and really wanting to do the job. And um, so they give me a lot of hope, and I think that we might be in pretty better shape there than you might expect. There's another one to watch named Carrie Monahan. I hear she's got she's got a lot of t Yeah, what about this. I sent you an article about this startup called six am that's doing sort of hyperlocal newsletters. I think newsletters are the new newspapers. Honestly, it seems it seemed pretty interesting. I mean, uh, it's one to watch for sure. I'm not sure how it'll play out. You know, there's been a lot of efforts, Like there's something called Patch. Um there's well Patch kind of didn't Patch not do well, Margaret, I think that's what I mean. So sometimes these things kind of crop up and they look super promising and then they kind of fade away. So we'll have to see if this one takes off. Yeah, but I think it newsletters that model is so interesting. Since we're so you know, tethered to our phones. You know, I missed the days where my dad was, you know, at the kitchen table eating as Wheatie's reading the Washington Post and pointing out interesting articles or obituaries. Um, you know, I miss those days, but I think the good news and I'm on this Aspen Commission for Disinformation as you know, or to tackle disinformation. And you know, one thing that's been very clear to me with the very diverse group of people, the good old days weren't the good old days for everybody. And now with a new sort of landscape in journalism, it's become much more inclusive and the voices are much more diverse. So that's that's a real positive, even though the actual platforms are shrinking, You're right, though the voices are expanding. I think that's important to keep in mind that a lot of times the coverage that we got in these places that we wanted, you know, Revere now and say how great they were, it was covering, you know, it was covering the white and the more affluent and the more establishment parts of their communities. So it is great to have a more diverse um ecosystem. That's hugely important coming up. A new generation of journalists committed to bringing local news back. Local news maybe in a dire state, but it's far from dead. Organizations like Report for America, which Margaret and I touched on, place talented emerging reporters into local newsrooms all across the country for up to two years. These core members report for newspapers and digital outlets, radio and TV stations. Sometimes they're jumping into news deserts, towns or counties that no longer have anyone covering the state of the local government, economy, or social sphere. Other times, these intrepid reporters are going to larger news markets but covering historically underserved issues and communities. This work has never been so necessary and important, so I wanted to end this episode by hearing from some of those who are reinvigorating the local news industry. My name is Cassidy Arena. I report with Iowa Public Radio and I focus on Latino Spanish speaking in immigrant communities in the state of Iowa. My name is Most Cherry, and reporting from Florida, covered the Haitian American community for the Haitian Time. My name is Charlie McGee. I am the sole reporter in Barstow, California, writing for the victor Ville Daily Press. My name is Ellen Chung. I am originally from China and right now I'm a report for America Works member covering immigration, but the Columbus is Pastuna, Ohio. What I'm doing is sort of filling in a gap, which is, you know, basically this whole northern area of the High Desert, you know, giving them a focused sort of reporter for the first time in about four or five years. People kind of hear about the word news desert, and it's always referred to in this sense of geographic location. There's a hole there within the definition of news desert. It's not just based on geographic location. It's based on the populations in the communities in a place. So even though Iowa say, you know, has this big city newspaper, are they really focusing on those undercovered communities, those Spanish speaking communities, the African refugees, are they really focusing on them too? My last thing I bought it, I saw them. Seeker just came to a new country on a different way from most people. I mean, coming from Brazil to the Mexican border by walking public transportation. As Jenny was horrible when he came here. There's a lot of hope for him that he's not he's not alone because the community is helping him. He goes back to two logan news. Uh, if people are not really getting deep into Florida. They're not really gonna tell those stories right now. I'm trying to see a larger investigation into buildings that mainly house immigrants and refugees to see, you know, on a larger scale, how many people are forced to live in apartment complexes with lawsuits, code violations and the deal with you know, racist lawlords and managers. So I'm really excited to see that story. I do the watchdog reporting stuff. That's my just personally. I love that kind of you know, digging in the weeds and finding you know, looking at numbers. But it's also been great just to give you know, do profiles of like a local barber who's owned a barbershop for twenty years, right and put pictures of him with his dad right when he was you know, getting his barber's license with the big mullet in the nineties, and you know those kind localize just personality feature stories, you know, give people sort of reasons to be proud of their community or just people around them. Yeah. I just finished the story recently about two soccer clubs, one focused on African refugees and another focus on Latino children. Um making sure that these kids still have access to a competitive youth sport that will get them those opportunities later in life, such as college scholarships things like that. So it was just an example of here's what journalism can do. Also is showing Iowa what these communities are doing really well and where they really shine. You know, what I found here in Columbus is that we haven't had that much coverage of the immigrant communities, and I think that's true for minority communities in general. So when I talked to residents and out of the case in a few they're always really appreciative of the fact that we're covering their stories at all, which really shows how there's a lack of coverage of these marginalized communities right now. Yeah, I think it's very important to tell people about what's going on in their community. You could, I don't want to say, sit a person's life where you could make their life much better. For example, does there's a lot of resources that the community doesn't know about. I'm mentioned to a slum seekers before. There's a lot of resources for them that they're not don't know about it, someone is not writing about it. The majority of what people say when they see that I'm here in doing this work and reporting on them, and there are people that they care about. Most of the time, they're shocked that somebody is actually here. And I asked them, who did you tell your stories too before this, and they say, nobody. We didn't really talk to anybody about our stories before you came. So it's an incredibly humbling experience to have that responsibility. But also you when you have that reaction, you see how just how necessary that experience is. I mean one of the most rewarding parts of the job. I actually the most rewarding is I've gotten a lot of you know, emails from just people who live in the community, who live in Barstow or or around the area in another part of the High Desert, who are just you know, like thank you for Like I'm so happy that we have a reporter just focusing on us now. I'm so happy I learned about this. Local journalism really lets you have that rapport and building that that trust in that they can trust you with their stories, but also I can trust them that they will keep me accountable. I'll never see what I'm doing as a as a job, because that's sodom seeka. I wrote about I don't see him as a as someone I interviewed. I see him as a as a friend. So I don't really see see it as a job. And I don't want to say local news is like it's like the first there for you to again do something higher. I don't want to see it like that, because if we leave, then who's gonna talk to that I saw them see there? You know, if we don't have reporters who are living in these communities, meeting people, producing work that reflects the community itself, then inevitably people are gonna get left behind. And you know, I think a lot of people are very polarized in their views on the national news, and they really want a local voice that's just you know, someone who they can trust, who they you know, know, is living in the same community as them, eating the same you know, restaurants as them, and going to the same city council meetings, are looking at the same Facebook groups they're looking at, you know, like all that stuff. I think makes people more connected as a community, more informed, and really I think more you know, in control of their own lives. I mean, I think that's just as important a part of democracy is the ability to contribute to your local government. YEA, even though new local nuisance are struggling, we shouldn't just try to cut to what people want to read. We should also make sure to tell stories that are important to make sure that local residents are where all these larger, harder issues. And I think that's a responsibility of local reporters in Columbus and everywhere else. We're really here to give the power back to people. It's again, it's going to sound cliche to say that, you know, we're the fourth branch of democracy, but we really are, and you can see that when you're down at this local level. It's opened up the door for me to realize that journalism as a public service is really teaching people about the power that they have, but also teaching people to utilize that power in the way to really make a difference. The value of local news, the value of getting to know people in the locality that you are covering, and the ability to sort of speak to truth to power at local levels from the perspective people who otherwise can't is really important. Think it's really important part of the American experiment, and we have to keep it alive. That was Charlie McGee, Cassidy, Arena Ellen Chung and As Cherry from Report for America. Thanks everybody, and also a big thank you to my guest Margaret Sullivan. Her book is called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. And by the way, she's working on her own memoir, so stay tuned for that next week on Next Question is book released week. Katie is a pack rat and she has basically her own archive of sorts in her basements. I take you behind the making of my memoir and so much more. That's next Thursday on Next Question. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers Army Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Currik on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hi, everyone, Welcome to next question. I'm here's for as Katherine Curry is standing by at the Civic Center station right now. Actually I'm Katie currk Well John. About every ten minutes a metrorail train is arriving here at the station dropping off concert goers. Yep, that's me in night Something reporting for the local CBS affiliate w t VJ in Miami. I gotta tell you, Miami was such a great news town for a young reporter. It had immigration, extreme weather like hurricanes, and crime galore. It was action central North Miami Beach. Police say crimes like personatchings are up at the sixty Street Mall, partly because many shoppers are elderly and easy targets, and with Christmas fast approaching, the problem will get worse. Shoppers are scared and it was the perfect place to find my footing as a news reporter. The experience was invaluable. But that was nearly forty years ago. Unfortunately, today, local news, particularly print, just isn't what it used to be. In fact, it's an industry in crisis since the pandemic. Another papers have gone out of business, and overall it's been you know, since two thousand four it's been over two thousand papers in the country, mostly weeklies, but weeklies are important, you know, and some dailies too, So it's a really heartbreaking story. Margaret Sullivan is a longtime journalist. She is now the media columnist for the Washington Post, and back in she wrote an excellent book called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. If you're paying attention, the book will scare the pants off of you, because the dire state of local news isn't just bad for budding journalists, it's bad for everyone. It matters so much because we don't trust and Moore as a as a nation, we don't trust in the press, but we do still have a great deal of trust in local news. So it's this weird paradox of Okay, well, this is the trusted this is the trusted media, but it's withering and it's going away. Because local news was such an integral part of my life and career, I wanted to talk to Margaret about the state of it. Margaret also got her start in local news working for one of her hometown papers, the Buffalo Evening News, back in the eighties. I came there straight out of school, and you know, I had internship offers at the two papers in Buffalo, which is my hometown. And I remember saying to my dad, Um, should I go to work for the Buffalo Evening News or the Buffalo Courier Express. And he said, I think he was a lawyer, you know, he was pretty savvy guy, and he said, I think the Evening News is the dominant paper. And turns out father knows best because two years I did go to work there. They hired me at the end of my internship, and two years later the Courier Express was out of business. Smart smartness, right dead. So I stayed at the News for a long time and I um did every job, and eventually I became the first woman editor of the paper, the top editor, and it was an incredible honor. Yeah, thank you, it was. You know. Really, even though I've now been you know, I've worked for the New York Times in the Washington Post, and I have more of a national scope now, I would still say that being the editor of my hometown paper and the first woman is really the privilege of my life. I mean, my professional life. I will call my children the privilege of my good but but you know, I mean it was a big newsroom. There were there were two undred people in it. We covered an eight county area. We really did the job for people, um in all of western New York and and and it was an exciting place to be. I was a politics reporter there, a government reporter, education reporter, and it was, you know, a tremendous experience. And then it's been you know, it's been extremely difficult and painful to watch the withering of local news across the country, including at the Buffalo News. Although I have to say I just spent a big chunk of the summer in the Buffalo area at a cottage on Lake Erie, and I get the print edition of the paper every day, and every day I was like, Wow, this is still extremely informative and important and well done. So um, you know, it's kind of a split story. The ghosting the news thing is about places that really don't even have that anymore, and they've turned into so called news deserts. Why do you think people do trust local news more than national news. I think I know the answer to it, but I'd like to hear your explanation. Yeah, it's a varied you know, it's It's got a few different aspects to it, but one of them is that, you know, these are people who live in your community. You could run into a reporter whom maybe his or her child is in school with your child. You might know them from something that's personal and obituary of a relative. I mean, it's all very dog in in the community. And so therefore, when they tell you this is what's happening, you sort of have a personal connection to it, or even if it's not a completely personal connection, you've got that sense of place. And I think that that goes a long way where the national media seems like, oh, you know, I think a lot of people feel like these are elites. That are they all live in New York and Washington and and you know, California. They don't have anything to do with me and my life. Well, it's kind of true. It is kind of true. I mean, there's a very strong presence um in national news in those in those places, and so and you know, I think we saw that very very clearly in twos sixteen, when the national press was so out of touch with the rest of the country and was like completely surprised that Trump was elected. The tentacles of local news really reach out into the community and perhaps some unexpected ways, so people not only learn about things, but it has uh, some some unintended positive consequences, doesn't it. Yes, And maybe they're intended. Actually well they I mean I think it is intended. It has a way, just as you say, of sort of knitting the community together. And so that could be a concert review, it could be a restaurant review, it could be a feature story on an interesting person. It doesn't all have to be heavy duty watchdog journalism, although that's extremely important, but it's it's a lot of different things. And honestly, I have to say that one of the real appointments, um, that's happened at my old paper in Buffalo is that I kind of founded, um, this section called Life and Arts, and it was the place where the you know, the reviews were and the feature stories and the culture coverage. And that section doesn't appear in the daily paper anymore, and I really miss it. You know, there's still sports, of course, there's still sports coverage, right but um, and there's still you know, political coverage and all of that local coverage, but that piece of it is diminished, and that that hurts, and I think that's one of the ways that you're talking about that we you know, sort of intended or unintended. It's like, oh did you see this thing? Did you? Are you going to this show? You know, it's it's more casual, it's more informal, and it's more the sort of the fabric of life. There's that. Then there are other things that go along with local news participation and elections and also the instigative reporting you were talking about or the political coverage that you did as a cub reporter. Um, that actually keeps local officials in check. I mean, there's a real reason for that. Talk about those two things, and the role of local newsplays in both of those. So, you know, just having some reporter at a meeting, whether it's the city council or the you know, town board or a school board, whatever, it is, just having that reporter there, you know, I think it keeps public officials on their toes. It's sort of a way of bearing witness. Oh somebody's watching, you know. Um. I remember talking to the publisher of the Youngstown Vindicator, which very sadly went out of business two summers ago, and he said that you know, I mean just really resonated with me. He said, when the paper was in its heyday, they were able to send a reporter or stringer, meaning a freelance reporter to every meeting in a three county area. And he said they knew, meaning the public officials, they knew that and they behaved. And you know, when that goes away, when you don't have that sort of person there, who's who's watching? Then I think people, you know, there's a human nature. It's like maybe things could be snuck through in some way. Well there's no watchdog, mean dog. I mean, it's as simple as that, there's nobody there to watch. And while there are, you know, I don't think this is a black and white situation because even in places where the local paper may have gone away, or you know, maybe it's a weekly that's closed, you know, sometimes there's a radio station or a startup digital um news organization that's still doing the job. It's not all about newspapers, and I think we need to always remember that. But having said that, newspapers are a huge and really really important piece of the puzzle. What was the first sign when you were at the Buffalo News that, uh, it was a declining, not in expanding industry. Right. Well, you know, I was very focused when I first came in as editor, and that was an h two thousand that I wanted to increase the staff. So we had had a two member news room staff for a long time, and I wanted to be bigger. I wanted to add people, add reporters and so on. And I got made a little bit of progress with the being encounters, and then things started to change. Circulation, you know, started to go down. Um, the rise of the Internet really started to you know, Craigslist came along and really knocked the um, you know, the legs out from underclassified advertising, which was such a money maker. And you know, I started to come under pressure to reduce the staff instead of to grow the staff. And that was you know, that was really the sign that you know, things were not going well and there and then it just you know, then it got to be two thousand eight and we were in this great recession. Um, the whole country was hurting. And then print advertising, which was the lifeblood of my paper and a lot of papers really really started to go away. And then we had to make even more dire cuts, you know, started to do buyouts. We never did layoffs when I was there, which I was very proud of. I had hired all these people and I felt like they were family members. But you know, we didn't do layoups, but we did do voluntary buyouts, and we lost a lot of staff members that way. So all this institutional memory stuff people knew about the community and what had happened, it was all walking out the door, and it was really tough to see. Well, let's talk about some of the the other factors that have led to the disintegration, not only of local newspapers, but also what about radio and television. That's interesting. I mean, TV has managed to um hold onto its revenue and its business model much better local TV, much better than local newspapers UM. And that you know, some of that has to do with the kind of advertising it has, and some of it has to do with transmission fees and sort of the nitty gritty of of how TV gets its money. UM. That isn't as susceptible as newspapers to this decline. UM And in some cases, I mean, I've been really impressed when I've been at investigative and reporters editors conferences around the country that there are a ton of local TV people there who are really interested in investigative reporting, and maybe it's more of a day turn where they do a piece that has an investigative aspect to it or an enterprise aspect to it. But it's, you know, it's that's part of how we're going to fill the gap. And then radio, you know, it's you know, radio is tough to say. Public radio, I think is a part of the puzzle. And um, it's it's it has some pretty good ambitions for for trying to fill that gap. We'll be right back. What about participation in elections? Talk about how that is so closely aligned with the vibrant local news ecosystem. Right, Well, there's you know, there's a strong connection between a vibrant local news situation in a community and good political participation. And part of it is do you vote? Are you active in your community in some way? Um? Do you ever cross party lines when you vote? Or are you you know, when local news goes away, people tend to go more into their sort of echo chambers, more into their tribes, and you know, we've become very very tribal. We're either this or that, and so people don't cross the party lines as much as they did because they're getting their information in many cases through you know, social media and through a very sort of self um, you know, self sustaining idea. You know, you hear the same ideas over and over from people who are telling you what you want to hear, and you're not sharing this common basis of reality. So definitely political engagement, political participation, and that ability to sort of evaluate a candidate on his or her qualities rather than simply his or her party. That really changes when local news goes away. This vacuum that's created by the dearth of local news is one of the what you're talking about Facebook getting affirmation not information algorithms serving you up very similar you know pieces of information um with that vacuum. I mean, don't you think that's essentially led to a lot of the distrust that you were describing at the beginning of our conversation. Yes, it's no, there's no question that it's part of the sort of whole disinformation misinformation um, you know, difficulty. I would say, even tragedy that we're experiencing that you know, people are getting their news from not very credible sources. They you know, it's sort of like what it boils down to what your neighbors tell you. And your neighbors may know what they're talking about or may not, but what they aren't doing is filing freedom of information requests vetting the information. Um. You know, when a newspaper or a public radio station or whatever it may be, puts a story out there, it had better be right. And if it's not right, they have to correct it, and they have to you know, own up to the fact that it's not right, or they're going to really get hammered. Um. That doesn't happen on social media. If it's wrong, maybe you delete it, maybe you let it just spin out there forever. I mean again, during the election, the the amount of you know, some people call want to call it fake news. I think that term has been kind of stolen in a way. Well, I think it's a terrible term. I try to avoid it to cost because I think it began to it started to be used by a president who considered anything critical of him to be fake exactly. And I don't use it for that reason too. But let's call it false news. So you know, for example, a story that uh, you know, the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump. I mean that story was very very widely circulated. It was viral, and Um, once something is out, it's very very hard to pull it back. It just doesn't work that way. What do they say, a lie makes it around the world while the truth hasn't even tied at shoelaces something like that? Exactly right. I mean it's and you know, a correct shan doesn't corrections don't even happen. In fact, some of that false news is done on purpose. I mean a lot of it is, so no one has any interest in correcting it or making it right. Let's, um talk about just sort of other reasons for the decline real quickly before we get to solutions. Um. You talked about the ad model, the ad revenue kind of cratering with the advent of digital etcetera, etcetera in Craig's list. Um, but also what about ownership. I mean, whether it's Sinclair, which is a whole could be a whole documentary, or these private equity firms you know, going for these newspapers and demanding profits. Um. It seems the public service side of what a newspaper is all about has been forgotten. In many of these markets, right. I mean, there was a time when newspapers were owned by local families and that what you know, didn't mean that the local emilias were always great owners, but they did have a stake in the community. Now, you know, most newspapers are owned by big chains, and some of the big chains are actually essentially hedge funds or private equity firms, and they have very little interest, if any, in doing good journalism or even doing valid journalism. They are interested in sort of harvesting the last profits that can be made from these companies, these newspaper companies, which by the way, are still making money. You know, um, it's not as if they're losing money, so there's profit to be made. They're going to cut the staff, um, take advantage of the fact that they're still trust in these places and that people are still subscribing and advertising, and you know, sort of I mean, people call them vulture capitalists because they're sort of circling these properties like vultures and taking advantage of the last you know, the last bits of value that are there. And a lot of journalists are saying, no, we're not going to do that. Right, there have been big protests and there have been, but I mean, you know, your ownership as your ownership, and now most recently the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, the Hartford Current, we're all bought by essentially by Alden Global, which is essentially a hedge fund. And it's really sad because these are storied newspapers that have done great work. One Pulitzer Prises employed you know, fabulous journalists and you know they're still doing the job today, but you know, with fewer people, and we don't know what's coming, but we have a pretty good idea what's coming because of what what's happened in other markets when Alden has swooped in. So I think it would be good for people to just check into who owns their TV station that they're listening to and is there an alternative? And you know, is that or an ulterior motive? Right exactly? You use a stat from from Pew, from the Pew Research Center that shows people pulled actually think local news is doing well and that this was in two thousand nineteen. But they're not only in the dark in terms of the ownership, but they don't even know that local news is in trouble right exactly, Well, why are they so? Why are they so unaware? You think? I mean, I think it's because a local newspapers for such a long time were money making machines, and I think people got used to that idea that oh, well, you know, the paper's fine, it's making money. It's they're making money hand over fist, and they just sort of haven't adjusted to the new reality. And that was one of the reasons that I really wanted to write my book Posting the news was to sort of sound the alarm. Um. You know, obviously it's not everybody read it or knows about it, but I hope it made a little bit of difference in raising people's consciousness. Well what is it? What are the solutions? Margaret? Um, I know that that that one of the things you're going to be talking about in your book and you've been thinking about because, let's face it, ghosteeing the news was kind of a Debbie downer Margaret, and there, Um, I guess the question is a are their solutions and be what do you think are the most, um, potentially sound ones. Yeah, well, I mean there's not one answer, um, but there's different pieces that have to happen. One of them is I think that education in the schools would really, um could really benefit us as a country if they would start to teach a little bit of news literacy, media literacy in the classroom, So teaching kids, you know, I think as young as ten or eleven or twelve year old kids, you know how to tell a false story from a true one, and how to read with some sort of you know, critical reasoning, UM, and you know how to know what you're taking in is good or bad, and you know kind of a compare and contrast. I think really basic information about that. It wouldn't have to be a full year course. It could be part of a social studies or something like that, or civics. So I think that's a piece of it. And I think that there is now an effort, you know, there's a bipartisan effort in Congress to try to get some indirect help, not a handout, but some tax credits the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. Yes, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. They need a good editor when they when it comes to with that title, Zippy your name, let's um. But at any rate, it would give tax credits of various kinds to try to help local journalism stay viable. And I think it's it's pretty I think it's pretty good. I've been really troubled about the idea of sort of government getting involved in this because I don't really want government officials messing with journalism, you know, journalism right be independent. But I think we're at a point now where we need to look at things that maybe didn't seem like a good idea before, and just to build some guardrails into it so that it can be done, you know, intelligently and safely and independently and independently. That's hugely important. There's also Report for America. Stephen Waldman is the founder. This seems like such a cool idea, is it? Is it gaining traction? And are a lot of people doing it? Tell us explain to our listeners what that's all about. Sure, So it's a little bit like the Peace Corps UM in that it takes young people. I guess the Peace Corps isn't all young people, but usually Report for America UM. It lets young people take a year and it funds them to go into a community that has already has some local news, but it puts them in an existing news room so that they can sort of help and and you know, broaden and sort of deepen their coverage. And yeah, it's grown a lot. It's only been around for a couple of years, but now there are think I think there are you know, at least a thousand maybe more report for America. UM. I guess they call them fellows who are in local newsrooms and you know, doing a really good job. You know. I think that's another piece of the puzzle. It's not going to solve the whole thing obviously. Well, how worried are you about training the next generation of journalists if there are fewer and fewer places to work and you know a lot of national places, some are growing, but some are shrinking. Yeah, you know, it's funny because I am somewhat worried about it. But I also know a lot of young journalists. Um some of them personally wants my nephew, wants my my son's ex girlfriend, you know, people that And then some are my own students who I've taught at different places, and I'm always very very heartened by how good they are. Smart, um, you know, dedicated to journalism and really wanting to do the job. And um, so they give me a lot of hope, and I think that we might be in pretty better shape there than you might expect. There's another one to watch named Carrie Monahan. I hear she's got she's got a lot of t Yeah, what about this. I sent you an article about this startup called six am that's doing sort of hyperlocal newsletters. I think newsletters are the new newspapers. Honestly, it seems it seemed pretty interesting. I mean, uh, it's one to watch for sure. I'm not sure how it'll play out. You know, there's been a lot of efforts, Like there's something called Patch. Um there's well Patch kind of didn't Patch not do well, Margaret, I think that's what I mean. So sometimes these things kind of crop up and they look super promising and then they kind of fade away. So we'll have to see if this one takes off. Yeah, but I think it newsletters that model is so interesting. Since we're so you know, tethered to our phones. You know, I missed the days where my dad was, you know, at the kitchen table eating as Wheatie's reading the Washington Post and pointing out interesting articles or obituaries. Um, you know, I miss those days, but I think the good news and I'm on this Aspen Commission for Disinformation as you know, or to tackle disinformation. And you know, one thing that's been very clear to me with the very diverse group of people, the good old days weren't the good old days for everybody. And now with a new sort of landscape in journalism, it's become much more inclusive and the voices are much more diverse. So that's that's a real positive, even though the actual platforms are shrinking, You're right, though the voices are expanding. I think that's important to keep in mind that a lot of times the coverage that we got in these places that we wanted, you know, Revere now and say how great they were, it was covering, you know, it was covering the white and the more affluent and the more establishment parts of their communities. So it is great to have a more diverse um ecosystem. That's hugely important coming up. A new generation of journalists committed to bringing local news back. Local news maybe in a dire state, but it's far from dead. Organizations like Report for America, which Margaret and I touched on, place talented emerging reporters into local newsrooms all across the country for up to two years. These core members report for newspapers and digital outlets, radio and TV stations. Sometimes they're jumping into news deserts, towns or counties that no longer have anyone covering the state of the local government, economy, or social sphere. Other times, these intrepid reporters are going to larger news markets but covering historically underserved issues and communities. This work has never been so necessary and important, so I wanted to end this episode by hearing from some of those who are reinvigorating the local news industry. My name is Cassidy Arena. I report with Iowa Public Radio and I focus on Latino Spanish speaking in immigrant communities in the state of Iowa. My name is Most Cherry, and reporting from Florida, covered the Haitian American community for the Haitian Time. My name is Charlie McGee. I am the sole reporter in Barstow, California, writing for the victor Ville Daily Press. My name is Ellen Chung. I am originally from China and right now I'm a report for America Works member covering immigration, but the Columbus is Pastuna, Ohio. What I'm doing is sort of filling in a gap, which is, you know, basically this whole northern area of the High Desert, you know, giving them a focused sort of reporter for the first time in about four or five years. People kind of hear about the word news desert, and it's always referred to in this sense of geographic location. There's a hole there within the definition of news desert. It's not just based on geographic location. It's based on the populations in the communities in a place. So even though Iowa say, you know, has this big city newspaper, are they really focusing on those undercovered communities, those Spanish speaking communities, the African refugees, are they really focusing on them too? My last thing I bought it, I saw them. Seeker just came to a new country on a different way from most people. I mean, coming from Brazil to the Mexican border by walking public transportation. As Jenny was horrible when he came here. There's a lot of hope for him that he's not he's not alone because the community is helping him. He goes back to two logan news. Uh, if people are not really getting deep into Florida. They're not really gonna tell those stories right now. I'm trying to see a larger investigation into buildings that mainly house immigrants and refugees to see, you know, on a larger scale, how many people are forced to live in apartment complexes with lawsuits, code violations and the deal with you know, racist lawlords and managers. So I'm really excited to see that story. I do the watchdog reporting stuff. That's my just personally. I love that kind of you know, digging in the weeds and finding you know, looking at numbers. But it's also been great just to give you know, do profiles of like a local barber who's owned a barbershop for twenty years, right and put pictures of him with his dad right when he was you know, getting his barber's license with the big mullet in the nineties, and you know those kind localize just personality feature stories, you know, give people sort of reasons to be proud of their community or just people around them. Yeah. I just finished the story recently about two soccer clubs, one focused on African refugees and another focus on Latino children. Um making sure that these kids still have access to a competitive youth sport that will get them those opportunities later in life, such as college scholarships things like that. So it was just an example of here's what journalism can do. Also is showing Iowa what these communities are doing really well and where they really shine. You know, what I found here in Columbus is that we haven't had that much coverage of the immigrant communities, and I think that's true for minority communities in general. So when I talked to residents and out of the case in a few they're always really appreciative of the fact that we're covering their stories at all, which really shows how there's a lack of coverage of these marginalized communities right now. Yeah, I think it's very important to tell people about what's going on in their community. You could, I don't want to say, sit a person's life where you could make their life much better. For example, does there's a lot of resources that the community doesn't know about. I'm mentioned to a slum seekers before. There's a lot of resources for them that they're not don't know about it, someone is not writing about it. The majority of what people say when they see that I'm here in doing this work and reporting on them, and there are people that they care about. Most of the time, they're shocked that somebody is actually here. And I asked them, who did you tell your stories too before this, and they say, nobody. We didn't really talk to anybody about our stories before you came. So it's an incredibly humbling experience to have that responsibility. But also you when you have that reaction, you see how just how necessary that experience is. I mean one of the most rewarding parts of the job. I actually the most rewarding is I've gotten a lot of you know, emails from just people who live in the community, who live in Barstow or or around the area in another part of the High Desert, who are just you know, like thank you for Like I'm so happy that we have a reporter just focusing on us now. I'm so happy I learned about this. Local journalism really lets you have that rapport and building that that trust in that they can trust you with their stories, but also I can trust them that they will keep me accountable. I'll never see what I'm doing as a as a job, because that's sodom seeka. I wrote about I don't see him as a as someone I interviewed. I see him as a as a friend. So I don't really see see it as a job. And I don't want to say local news is like it's like the first there for you to again do something higher. I don't want to see it like that, because if we leave, then who's gonna talk to that I saw them see there? You know, if we don't have reporters who are living in these communities, meeting people, producing work that reflects the community itself, then inevitably people are gonna get left behind. And you know, I think a lot of people are very polarized in their views on the national news, and they really want a local voice that's just you know, someone who they can trust, who they you know, know, is living in the same community as them, eating the same you know, restaurants as them, and going to the same city council meetings, are looking at the same Facebook groups they're looking at, you know, like all that stuff. I think makes people more connected as a community, more informed, and really I think more you know, in control of their own lives. I mean, I think that's just as important a part of democracy is the ability to contribute to your local government. YEA, even though new local nuisance are struggling, we shouldn't just try to cut to what people want to read. We should also make sure to tell stories that are important to make sure that local residents are where all these larger, harder issues. And I think that's a responsibility of local reporters in Columbus and everywhere else. We're really here to give the power back to people. It's again, it's going to sound cliche to say that, you know, we're the fourth branch of democracy, but we really are, and you can see that when you're down at this local level. It's opened up the door for me to realize that journalism as a public service is really teaching people about the power that they have, but also teaching people to utilize that power in the way to really make a difference. The value of local news, the value of getting to know people in the locality that you are covering, and the ability to sort of speak to truth to power at local levels from the perspective people who otherwise can't is really important. Think it's really important part of the American experiment, and we have to keep it alive. That was Charlie McGee, Cassidy, Arena Ellen Chung and As Cherry from Report for America. Thanks everybody, and also a big thank you to my guest Margaret Sullivan. Her book is called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. And by the way, she's working on her own memoir, so stay tuned for that next week on Next Question is book released week. Katie is a pack rat and she has basically her own archive of sorts in her basements. I take you behind the making of my memoir and so much more. That's next Thursday on Next Question. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers Army Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Currik on Instagram and all my social media channels. 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