Community Matters: Without journalism, democracy dies

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

--Thomas Jefferson

Russian despot Vladimir Putin’s brutal attack on Ukraine has shocked and horrified people across the globe as they watch and read about the ongoing slaughter of civilians trying to escape the carnage. The world’s collective revulsion at this barbaric invasion of a sovereign nation has triggered tough sanctions aimed at stopping the bloodshed by severely weakening the Russian economy.

But those sanctions and the widespread humanitarian aid being offered to Ukrainians would not be happening were it not for the heroic work of many international journalists who are literally risking their lives to accurately report on the Russian army’s atrocities to audiences around the world.

Think about that for a moment.

Imagine if you lived in Russia where the only information you received about this war was coming from state-run media which routinely censor the truth and are instead pushing Putin's lies that the military action is a “peacekeeping” mission to stop the “genocide” being perpetrated by “neo-Nazi” rulers in Ukraine.

Tragically, most Russian citizens today are totally unaware that their government is lying to them about the war and will remain ignorant due to a new, draconian law that makes it a crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to report the news if it even faintly conflicts with the Kremlin’s false narrative. Within hours of the new law’s adoption last week, the few remaining independent media outlets in Russia were quickly shuttered and internet access to international news sources blocked.

While an authoritarian news blackout would be flagrantly unconstitutional in the United States, don’t be fooled into thinking that we Americans are much better informed about current events just because the First Amendment guarantees “freedom of the press.”

Sadly, many Americans today remain badly misinformed. One example: Despite overwhelming evidence that the 2020 presidential election was free, fair and very secure, the vast majority (numbering in the tens of millions) of Republican voters today say they agree with former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen.

How could it be that so many people believe this persistent lie?

There are many causes, but one of the most salient is the decline in overall media literacy attributed to the collapse of local and regional news reporting in communities across the country over the last 20 years. Driven in part by unregulated tech giants like Facebook, Google and others which have robbed local news organizations of the advertising revenue upon which they once relied to underwrite quality journalism, many hundreds of newspapers across the country have either disappeared entirely or today offer far less news for their readers. Newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers has dropped by more than half in the last two decades, leaving behind numerous “news deserts” where citizens have few sources to know what their local government officials are doing.

Filling this news void are cable news channels, talk radio stations, bloggers and podcasts which generally employ hyper-partisan, highly-opinionated “personalities” whose priority is ginning up outrage over culture wars and elevating political tribalism at the expense of actual news reporting, fairness and factual accuracy. Rather than inform and educate, they seek to anger and agitate and they do that very well.

Add to this the pervasive misinformation from social media companies which profit by capturing as much of our attention as possible, then turning around to sell that attention to the highest bidder. Rather than promote an informed citizenry, unregulated social media algorithms do the exact opposite. Facebook, for example, failed to safeguard its users from hateful, deceptive content which helped drive Donald Trump supporters to violently assault Capitol police officers while attempting to halt the constitutionally mandated certification of President Biden’s election victory last year. Facebook also spread extensive COVID-19 vaccine falsehoods that needlessly sickened or killed many thousands of people.

Locally, the Nextdoor platform was similarly exploited to spread misinformation and political vitriol in the months leading up to the 2020 Petaluma City Council election. Nextdoor spread damaging misinformation regarding certain city council candidates that seriously undermined the local election process. This occurred because local volunteer moderators were not acting in an unbiased fashion to consistently and fairly enforce the company’s stated content policies. Instead, moderators used their positions to unfairly promote certain candidates while allowing others to be maligned. The result was widespread animosity toward several competent local elected officials who were unfairly demonized on the platform.

Were the economic pressures on traditional media and the poisonous effects of social media not enough, the former president’s misuse of the bully pulpit to repeatedly bash legitimate news media as “fake news” only worsened the dilemma as Americans were repeatedly encouraged to hate and distrust the very people--journalists--who toil daily to bring them facts and truth.

Further worsening the outlook for journalism has been the takeover of media organizations by hedge funds like Alden Global Capital which has a disgraceful business formula of buying newspapers, selling off their real estate and equipment assets and gutting their newsrooms to generate enormous profits for its shareholders. One example: In the East Bay, home to 2.5 million people, Alden acquired, folded or consolidated multiple daily newspapers. What’s left is a single regional daily newspaper, the East Bay Times, which purports to cover the news in an area the size of Delaware with a tiny fraction of the news staff formerly covering the 40 large and small cities in the region.

Sonoma County is, thankfully, a bit of a news media anomaly. Unlike the East Bay, Petaluma residents still have access to a Pulitzer-prize winning daily newspaper as well as the community newspaper you hold in your hands, either in print or digital format.

This is because the local investors who own this local media company cherish the importance of journalism to maintain an informed citizenry and because you, our readers, deeply value local news coverage and support it with your subscription dollars.

Despite the severe headwinds that continue to thwart the efforts of the journalists, editors and news publishers across America, I’m profoundly grateful for their commitment and persistence to keeping our communities and our nation informed. The work they do is, after all, essential for the survival of American democracy.

John Burns is a former publisher of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. He can be reached at john.burns@arguscourier.com.