By Paul Fisk
Former Buffalo News Editor Margaret Sullivan was featured in a recent Albany Times Union article on the role and decline of local news journalism in American life. After leaving the Buffalo News she worked at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and is about to join the Columbia University Journalism School as the Executive Director for the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security. She was interviewed by the Times Union in preparation for a panel discussion on local journalism.
The November 12 article “Sullivan: local journalism necessary for democracy” raised important issues to a newspaper-reading audience that is probably already convinced, better informed and more likely to be influential than the average Fox fan. In times when our democracy, the rule of law, and objective truth are in peril, local news organizations could indeed use some moral and financial support if they are to play the critical role envisioned by the authors of the First Amendment to our Constitution.
The article pointed out the rapid decline in the number of local newspapers and the slashed staffing levels of the survivors. When I moved from Buffalo to Albany in 1979, both cities had two daily newspapers and the communities usually profited from their competition. Now each city has one, severely downsized newspaper. Since 2004 more than 2,000 American newspapers have closed, including nearly half of New York state’s weekly papers, and newspaper newsroom staff in the United States declined by more than half.
The Sullivan interview highlighted some of the damage caused by this trend: the growing lack of a common public set of facts or basis of understanding; the importance of citizens being well informed for a democracy to function properly; how diminished news coverage of local governments can lead to low citizen involvement and undetected corruption; and the loss of a bulwark against misinformation. A study reported by the Pew Research Center in 2020 found that Americans who mainly get their news on social media are less likely to get the facts right about issues and politics and more likely to hear unproven claims.
The decline of local newspapers is generally attributed to the loss of advertising revenues to online social media and news outlets resulting from the public’s shift to those sources for entertainment and news. Unfortunately, there are other, more disturbing forces at widespread work as well. Some hedge funds are buying up struggling newspapers simply to grab quick profits by decimating staff and selling off physical assets. They show no regard for the true value of these institutions, illustrating the seamier side of capitalism’s quest for profits regardless of any societal costs.
The Times Union quoted Peter Kramer, Chair of the Hudson Valley News Guild whose members staged a walkout this June in protest of drastic staffing cuts: “With every vacant position, another politician’s corruption goes unnoticed, another mom-and-pop store loses out on needed publicity, another parent is unaware of the actions of their local school board, … another low-income resident has no place left to turn when their benefits are in jeopardy.” Journalism is a crucial public service that should be nourished and flourish in a democracy.
The ongoing decline in local journalism should be a cause for national concern and quests for solutions. One response in New York to the crisis is the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, state legislation proposed to provide temporary tax credits to news organizations for the employment of local news journalists (Assembly Bill A02958C/Senate Bill S00625-B). The bill would provide a payroll tax credit of 50% of the first $50,000 of the salary of a fulltime professional journalist assigned to cover local news by a print or digital news organization that would need to meet strict standards designed to limit benefits to legitimate news organizations and weed out political or PAC-funded groups.
The legislation would apply to more than just traditional print media. It could be a lifeline to newspapers, news websites and broadcast news stations. (Full disclosure: this all-volunteer blog, “Politics and Other Stuff,” would not be eligible, although it is striving to fill part of the gap left by dwindling local political coverage.) In the panel discussion Sullivan mentioned Buffalo’s Investigative Post as another example of the type of venture that is trying to close the gap left by the shrinkage of conventional local coverage. The goal of the legislation is to enable professional journalists to remain in the community and develop relationships and institutional memory that improve coverage, trust and depth of reporting. The Albany Newspaper Guild and other guilds across the state have launched a cooperative campaign in support of the bill.
Other methods to assist legitimate news organizations have been proposed elsewhere. The California Assembly this year passed theCalifornia Journalism Preservation Act(Assembly Bill 886) that would require online tech companies to pay publishers a “journalism usage fee” for their content, the proceeds to be used primarily for news staffing. Google earns the ad revenue attracted by publication of news, without contributing to the salaries of the professional journalists who gather and report the news. Australia and Canada have launched similar efforts.
Philanthropic organizations have begun to step up to the problem. Twenty-two of them are teaming up to provide over $500 million to boost local news over five years in an undertaking called Press Forward. News organizations are seeking reimbursement from social media and artificial intelligence system platforms for using their information. Newsroom-to-newsroom collaborations and not-for-profit news organizations are being tried as possible new models.
In New York State, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act could help during a transition to a more sustainable business model. But strong currents are flowing against local news organizations. Broader measures are needed. Our democracy is at risk and needs all the help it can get.
Paul Fisk is retired from a career in local and state government, after earning his master’s degree in Public Administration. He has helped edit this blog for the past several years, but he and I have been friends for over fifty years. We both started in Western New York politics and government working on local campaigns in the 1960’s and then as Deputy Clerks at the Erie County Legislature in the early 1970s. Paul worked for six years in Buffalo City Hall in various positions, including Budget Director and City Auditor. He moved to the NY State Budget Division in Albany, where he completed his career. In retirement he has been active in various volunteer efforts, most recently in the Climate Reality Project where he does public speaking, writing and advocacy on the climate crisis causes, effects and solutions.
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