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Big mainstream news outlets are thriving and doing the best job in a generation of defending democracy. Local news outlets, however, are in total economic collapse. And big media is doing almost nothing to fight this collapse. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/two-and-a-half-cheers-for-the-mainstream-press/
A quarter of all newspapers folded between 2004 and 2019, and half of all newspaper jobs disappeared since 2008, about the same rate of decline as in textile manufacturing.
This decline, which has accelerated since the pandemic, is as big a long-term threat to democracy as anything Donald Trump is doing now. Indeed, it may even explain why he got elected in the first place. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2018/editors-note-did-the-fall-of-local-news-bring-us-authoritarianism-in-washington/
The big media outlets cover the collapse of local journalism as if it’s some kind of tragic natural disaster, like an earthquake. It is not. It is a consequence of policy choices made or not made in Washington. As such, it is a solvable problem.
In the new issue of the Washington Monthly, we lay out several ways to reinvigorate the economics of journalism without jeopardizing editorial independence—just as the Framers did when they created a postal system that subsidized the spread of newspapers. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/can-journalism-be-saved-2/
Steven Waldman makes the case that today, every American should receive a refundable tax credit for a local news subscription, membership, or donation to build a new era of what he calls “civic news.” https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/the-coming-era-of-civic-news/
Phillip Longman argues that journalism’s advertising-based business model can be revived using a combination of tougher privacy and anti-discrimination laws and a return to traditional standards of antitrust enforcement. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/starving-the-news/
These policy changes would not only recharge traditional news enterprises, they would also supercharge and protect innovative new models. Anne Kim shows, for instance, how journalists of color are diversifying media by forming their own outlets. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/reporters-of-color-are-declaring-independence/
Matt Connolly reports on promising early experiments with cooperatively owned business models for digital news media. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/own-a-newspaper-for-1-per-month/
And Grace Gedye investigates efforts by firms like Spotify to corner the podcasting market, one of the few product lines that bring in growing advertising dollars for independent media outlets. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november-december-2020/big-tech-comes-for-podcasts/
Reinforcing our wobbly democracy will require a free and energetic press. That won’t happen, however, unless the major news outlets demand solutions to the industry's economic plight—using the power they’ve shown they have for a cause they are uniquely positioned to champion.
