Community Matters: How to save local journalism

Because you are reading this newspaper, you probably have some appreciation for the important role journalism plays in our community and our democracy.

Whether in print or online, people read local news to stay informed about civic affairs, figure out who to vote for and how to speak up at City Council or school board meetings.

Local journalism equips people to act. When a news reporter’s investigation reveals the cause of a major community problem or public corruption, solutions are found, action is taken and people are held accountable. The health of local news, therefore, is tied inextricably to the health of our democracy.

Unfortunately, communities across the United States are steadily losing access to local news. According to a recent report by Northwestern University’s journalism school, at least 20% of Americans — or 70 million people — live in places without any reliable source of local news and information essential to a community’s economy, governance and quality of life.

And this trend is growing, driven in large part by unregulated tech giants like Facebook, Google and others which have robbed news organizations of the advertising revenue they once relied upon to underwrite quality journalism. As a result, more than 2,500 American newspapers have closed since 2005 and those that remain are producing far less news for their communities.

A growing number of “news deserts” have left increasing numbers of American citizens with no way of knowing what their local government officials are doing.

According to numerous studies, less local news reporting leads to an ill-informed populace, lower voter turnout, decreased civic participation, increased government corruption, higher taxes, lower bond ratings, more political polarization and less effective schools. It also makes it harder for voters to hold their elected officials accountable and for communities to solve problems.

Further worsening the situation has been the takeover of media organizations by hedge funds like Alden Global Capital which has an alarming track record of buying distressed newspapers, selling off their real estate and equipment assets and gutting their newsrooms to generate enormous profits for shareholders. In the East Bay, home to 2.5 million people, Alden has 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.

Here in the North Bay, the latest newspaper casualty is the 160-year-old Napa Valley Register, which regularly published a print newspaper seven days a week. But beginning this week, subscribers will only receive the print newspaper three days a week.

Petaluma and Sonoma County are not immune to the severe economic headwinds buffeting the American news industry. Despite the multiple successes of Sonoma Media Investments, the parent company of the Argus-Courier, the company was forced to lay off 12 employees earlier this year.

Yet the local investors who own this media company deeply value the importance of journalism to maintain a well-informed and engaged citizenry. To preserve journalism, the company has continually adopted many innovative practices to grow revenues and gain cost efficiencies.

Still, enormous challenges threaten all California news organizations. For example, a state law will soon require newspaper carriers to be treated as employees rather than independent contractors, adding significant costs to newspaper companies’ overhead.

Realizing the law would significantly increase operational costs and possibly trigger the elimination of some newspapers altogether, the legislature agreed to temporarily exempt newspapers from complying until 2025.

But to avoid further worsening the alarming local news crisis, state lawmakers should make the exemption permanent.

The California State legislature has, in fact, shown some limited interest in preserving local news. Last year, for example, the state authorized a $25 million expenditure to create the California Local News Fellowship program administered by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The multi-year initiative will help local news reporting by placing up to 40 fellows in newsrooms throughout the state for two-year, full-time reporting positions beginning this September, for which fellows receive a $50,000 annual stipend.

The State Assembly also recently passed a bill aimed at forcing social media companies like Meta and Google to pay news publishers a “journalism usage fee” for news content posted alongside the platforms’ digital ads.

But the bill’s future is murky because tech companies have brazenly threatened to block user access to all news content on platforms like Facebook and Instagram if such a law were to pass.

Far more useful public policies, like extending tax credits to consumers who subscribe to or donate to local news media, should instead be seriously considered by state legislators. So should tax credits for small businesses that advertise in local news publications and for the news organizations themselves that hire and retain local journalists.

Such innovative public policies would help prevent local news from disappearing altogether.

Nonprofit media organizations, philanthropists and community foundations — like those collaborating in Napa County to save the longstanding community newspapers in Calistoga and Yountville — can also make a big difference.

A local nonprofit media corporation there is producing independent, public interest journalism that is funded, in part, by the Napa Valley Community Foundation, which created a media and democracy fund to support news coverage of education, housing, climate, agriculture, health, local government, the economy and community affairs.

The model was documented by the California Press Foundation which recently produced a guidebook showing how any regional community foundation can help support local journalism with similar funding programs available to both for-profit and nonprofit local news publishers.

So, what can you do?

Tell your state assemblyman and senator to support public policies that help local news media companies survive and thrive.

Donate to a philanthropic organization working to support local journalism initiatives.

Because high school journalism programs are being cut everywhere, consider supporting Casa Grande High School’s online magazine, the Casa Revista, or the Trojan Live morning broadcast program at Petaluma High School which reports daily on campus and community affairs.

Subscribe to your local newspaper and encourage others to do the same.

The ongoing collapse of local news represents a severe threat to our communities and our democracy. Doing nothing is not an option.

(John Burns is a former publisher of the Petaluma Argus-Courier and president of the California Press Foundation’s board of directors. He can be reached at john.burns@arguscourier.com).