Anyone who’s worried about the state of local journalism faces a conundrum.
On the one hand, good local news coverage brings big societal benefits, as multiple studies have found. When newspapers shrink or close, voter turnout and civic engagement tend to decline, while political corruption and polarization rise. Even I — a journalist, obviously — have been surprised by the magnitude of these findings.
On the other hand, some of the country’s largest local newspaper owners, like GateHouse Media (which recently bought Gannett) and Alden Global Capital, don’t seem to care about good local news coverage. They’re stripping newspapers of their assets to make a buck. So if you decide to support your local newspaper by subscribing to it, you may be supporting good journalism — but you may not.
That’s why I was pleased to hear about the American Journalism Project, a new group created to support nonprofit local publications. Tuesday, it’s announcing its first batch of grants — 11 of them, to publications around the country. I recognized the names of several winners, like WyoFile, VTDigger and The Connecticut Mirror, because readers have emailed me about them when I’ve asked which local publications you trust.
The co-founders of the project, Elizabeth Green (a journalist) and John Thornton (a technology investor), have big ambitions. They think the country needs to raise about $500 million a year in national philanthropy for local news, which could then be matched by another $500 million in membership fees, advertising and other local revenue. The combined $1 billion would allow local publications to approach the size of public radio.
It would also make a meaningful dent in the roughly $2 billion annual decline of local newspaper budgets in recent decades. From 1990 to 2016, about 60% of American newspaper jobs disappeared, according to the Labor Department, and the decline has surely continued since 2016. The main reason is the sharp drop in print advertising revenue.
Thornton — who in 2008 founded the Texas Tribune, which has become a model nonprofit newsroom — calls local journalism “a public good that the market does not provide in sufficient quantity.” But unlike many other public goods, such as libraries, schools and roads, journalism can’t be funded by the government without violating the spirit of a free press. Philanthropy must fill the void, Thornton says.
When I met with him and Green recently, I asked them how they would make sure nonprofit publications were doing a good job — since nonprofits don’t face the market accountability that for-profit businesses do. I like the answer: The American Journalism Project will measure the health of publications largely through their ability to raise other money, such as through memberships or reader donations. To receive support, a publication will need to demonstrate that readers consider it valuable.
Keep that in mind if you’re trying to figure out how you can help local journalism and, by extension, democracy. If your area has a new nonprofit publication you like, support it — by reading it, engaging with it through both praise and criticism and, yes, sending it some money.
Speaking of which: If your favorite local publication isn’t among the 11 initial winners, send me an email putting in a good word for it. One or two quick sentences about why you like it would be enough. You can reach me at leonhardt@nytimes.com; please include the word “local” in the subject line.
For more …
• One of the 11 grant winners is the Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico, whose reporting this year helped bring down the island’s governor. The other grantees are Mississippi Today; Berkeleyside (in California); NOISE (Nebraska); City Bureau (Chicago); inewsource (San Diego); MLK50 (Memphis); and Underscore (Portland, Oregon).
• Julie Bosman of The Times wrote last month:
“School board and city council meetings are going uncovered. Overstretched reporters receive promising tips about stories but have no time to follow up. Newspapers publish fewer pages or less frequently or, in hundreds of cases across the country, are shuttered completely. All of this has added up to a crisis in local news coverage in the United States that has frayed communities and left many Americans woefully uninformed, according to a report by PEN America released on Wednesday.”
• Local journalism can reduce partisan polarization, as one study found, partly because it gets people talking about something other than the national hot-button issues. “Local news should be the public square in which you engage your neighbors as people, to solve problems you can see, rather than on politics as a national religion,” Green told me.
• Josh Stearns of the Democracy Fund has written a good summary of the academic research on local journalism. Democracy Fund is one of the funders of the new project, along with Arnold Ventures, Emerson Collective, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and others.
David Leonhardt
David Leonhardt is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.