The press is sick; Local journalists can help us heal us

One of the confusing challenges of our democracy is how we create a common understanding of what is happening in our community, nation and world. A fragmented system of information providers makes this challenge even more confusing.

A long time ago we exceeded the world of three large networks, Daily Newspapers and weekly news magazines that provide the most news and information. We even blow past the cable -TV -IRA of 24/7 messages and speaking heads.

We are now in an individualized era that spreads the public square. The spread of information through social media contributes to fragmentation. This is also the rise of influencers who use digital platforms to offer their large followers their views over the world.

Jeff Bezos’s decision to lead only comments in his Washington Post This includes free markets and personal freedom also shrinks the public square. He has the paper so that he can do what he likes with his sphere of opinion. But the postal pages of the post together with those of The Wall Street Journal And The New York TimesLong was the place where people with competing views debated to discuss national issues.

So the splitter continues. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls our modern fragmentation the tower of Babel. Write The Atlantic In April 2022 he concluded: “We are disoriented, not able to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off and from the past.”

I’m not sure if we are so far away. If this is comfort, the nation had previously experienced times when it was difficult to achieve the truth of a matter.

Past of American journalism

As my colleagues have already examined, partisan newspapers mixed with opinions in the 1700s. One of the first to at least tried to separate messages from the opinion was that Boston Gazette and Country JournalAn anti-British newspaper.

“The authors have a sense of distinction between facts and comments by printing their opinions in italics,” wrote the late journalism professor Kenneth Rystrom in The why, who and how from the editorial side.

Partisan presses also remained after we had become our own country. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton each sought partisan newspapers to work for their competing views of the government.

The populist “Penny Presses” later came to print papers cheaper thanks to the ability of new presses. As your name suggests, the populist papers on the street were sold for a cent. The New York sun And others made their marking, sold crime, drama and gossip to the masses. Think of Newsboys Hawking Papers.

When the 19th century closed, William is Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal Was hardly a bastion of passionate reason. Joseph Pulitzer wasn’t either New York world. The two were bitter rivals, but the “yellow journalism” that were pioneering their papers USS Maine Exploded in the Havan’s harbor. Harold Holzer writes in The presidents against the press That their two papers tried to exceed each other with “huge, inflammatory headlines that had been deliberately blessed the battleship.

Past as foreplay

This shortened tour of American journalism is reminded for two reasons.

First, our era is not necessarily unique. We have previously experienced information times that have been splintered, although this should not reduce the challenge of governing if we have our own truths. A time like our current, in which the truth is fun with a small “t”, can be both frustrating and dangerous.

Second, the course corrections are followed by some of our previous journalistic periods. The end of the partisan presses of the 19th century led to a more described separation of news from the opinion. The era “Yellow Journalism”, which was an early version of news as entertainment, led to a age of reform in journalism.

The prestigious columnist and author Walter Lippmann drove many of these reforms in the early parts of the 20th century. The movement tried to professionalize the press corps, including the deepening of the knowledge base of journalists. They had to grasp a subject like economy to report it more thoroughly.

Role of local journalism

What improves our current news and information system? Local journalism is an essential part of the answer.

The United States have 5,595 newspapers, 227 public broadcasters, 1,404 digital news pages of various types and 719 ethnic media that offer local news, reported in their study of 2024 State of Local News. (Only four of these 5,595 newspapers are nationally within reach: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today And The Washington Post.))

Although half of all US counties now only have a local news source, Americans trust their trust in local journalism more than in the national media. The PEW Research Center was found in 2024 that 74% of Americans trust their local news operation more than national news and social media.

There are also light places in local journalism, as Medill found his study. One of them is the Georges Media Group Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate, which was launched in 2023.

Georges Media, Louisiana’s largest media company, already had New Orleans. Times-Picayune and nola.com and operated news companies in Baton Rouge and Lafayette. With the advocate The non -profit company is part of the mix and concentrates in the four largest cities in the state on in -depth local journalism, the congress delegation of Louisiana, state politics, education, public health and the environment.

Judi Terzotis from Georges Media finds that the company uses philanthropy to maintain its work. This includes 22 reporters financed by scholarships throughout the state.

The role of philanthropy in covering various topics has compensated for some of the lack of financing that Medill’s studies described. And the philanthropy model is not limited to Louisiana. Foundations also finance some reporters in this newspaper, although The Dallas Morning News Completely controls the work of the journalists.

Louisiana’s efforts are just an example of how local news organizations try to deliver more reporting and depth. Or what Chuck Todd, former moderator of Meet the pressTerms “Information from the region” that convey our understanding of local topics such as politics, healthcare and education.

Todd has campaigned in local journalism to provide reliable and relevant information. He told my colleague of the Bush Institute Andrew Kaufmann and me in a recently strategic podcast that reporting on high school sports, weather and consumer problems transform local news organizations into the “Information Help desk” of their community. At the same time, he emphasized and covered any corruption in the local government, the impact on the city in Washington on your own city and even where cheap gas buying our information ecosystem with trustworthy reporting.

Our fragmented world needs reliable information. Strong local journalism is of central importance for the meeting that is necessary today, since the reforms that Lippmann used a century ago improved the flow of information. If it is successful, we may be able to develop a more common understanding of our communities, states and even our nation.