October 21, 2021 • 37 mins
Katie Couric got her start in local news, and found her footing as a broadcast journalist, reporting for WTVJ in Miami. But that was nearly 40 years ago. Unfortunately, today, local news, particularly print, is an industry in crisis. This week on Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with longtime journalist Margaret Sullivan about her book, “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy,” and why the dire state of local news isn’t just bad for budding journalists, it’s bad for everyone. They also talk about their early days reporting for smaller markets and the people who are trying to save the industry today. The episode ends with first-person accounts of local news journalists, members of Report for America, a national service program that places emerging journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. They share what they’ve learned and why their work is so vital.
Report for America is currently fielding some 300 corps members in more than 200 newsrooms across the country. These include newspapers, radio, television, and digital outlets. Applications for new corps members will be open Dec. 1. Find out more about at their website, reportforamerica.org.
Pre-order Katie Couric’s memoir, “Going There,” to learn more about her early reporting days and the makings of her broadcast career. To find out where Katie is stopping on her book tour and to buy tickets go to ticketmaster.com/goingthere.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to next question. I'm here's for as
Katherine Curry is standing by at the Civic Center station
right now. Actually I'm Katie currk Well John. About every
ten minutes a metrorail train is arriving here at the
station dropping off concert goers. Yep, that's me in night
Something reporting for the local CBS affiliate w t VJ
(00:27):
in Miami. I gotta tell you, Miami was such a
great news town for a young reporter. It had immigration,
extreme weather like hurricanes, and crime galore. It was action
central North Miami Beach. Police say crimes like personatchings are
up at the sixty Street Mall, partly because many shoppers
are elderly and easy targets, and with Christmas fast approaching,
(00:51):
the problem will get worse. Shoppers are scared and it
was the perfect place to find my footing as a
news reporter. The experience was invaluable. But that was nearly
forty years ago. Unfortunately, today, local news, particularly print, just
isn't what it used to be. In fact, it's an
industry in crisis since the pandemic. Another papers have gone
(01:15):
out of business, and overall it's been you know, since
two thousand four it's been over two thousand papers in
the country, mostly weeklies, but weeklies are important, you know,
and some dailies too, So it's a really heartbreaking story.
Margaret Sullivan is a longtime journalist. She is now the
media columnist for the Washington Post, and back in she
(01:38):
wrote an excellent book called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism
and the Crisis of American Democracy. If you're paying attention,
the book will scare the pants off of you, because
the dire state of local news isn't just bad for
budding journalists, it's bad for everyone. It matters so much
because we don't trust and Moore as a as a nation,
(02:01):
we don't trust in the press, but we do still
have a great deal of trust in local news. So
it's this weird paradox of Okay, well, this is the
trusted this is the trusted media, but it's withering and
it's going away. Because local news was such an integral
part of my life and career, I wanted to talk
(02:22):
to Margaret about the state of it. Margaret also got
her start in local news working for one of her
hometown papers, the Buffalo Evening News, back in the eighties.
I came there straight out of school, and you know,
I had internship offers at the two papers in Buffalo,
which is my hometown. And I remember saying to my dad, Um,
(02:45):
should I go to work for the Buffalo Evening News
or the Buffalo Courier Express. And he said, I think
he was a lawyer, you know, he was pretty savvy guy,
and he said, I think the Evening News is the
dominant paper. And turns out father knows best because two
years I did go to work there. They hired me
at the end of my internship, and two years later
(03:06):
the Courier Express was out of business. Smart smartness, right dead.
So I stayed at the News for a long time
and I um did every job, and eventually I became
the first woman editor of the paper, the top editor,
and it was an incredible honor. Yeah, thank you, it was.
You know. Really, even though I've now been you know,
(03:28):
I've worked for the New York Times in the Washington Post,
and I have more of a national scope now, I
would still say that being the editor of my hometown
paper and the first woman is really the privilege of
my life. I mean, my professional life. I will call
my children the privilege of my good but but you know,
(03:48):
I mean it was a big newsroom. There were there
were two undred people in it. We covered an eight
county area. We really did the job for people, um
in all of western New York and and and it
was an exciting place to be. I was a politics
reporter there, a government reporter, education reporter, and it was,
(04:10):
you know, a tremendous experience. And then it's been you know,
it's been extremely difficult and painful to watch the withering
of local news across the country, including at the Buffalo News.
Although I have to say I just spent a big
chunk of the summer in the Buffalo area at a
cottage on Lake Erie, and I get the print edition
(04:33):
of the paper every day, and every day I was like, Wow,
this is still extremely informative and important and well done.
So um, you know, it's kind of a split story.
The ghosting the news thing is about places that really
don't even have that anymore, and they've turned into so
called news deserts. Why do you think people do trust
(04:55):
local news more than national news. I think I know
the answer to it, but I'd like to hear your explanation. Yeah,
it's a varied you know, it's It's got a few
different aspects to it, but one of them is that,
you know, these are people who live in your community.
You could run into a reporter whom maybe his or
her child is in school with your child. You might
(05:17):
know them from something that's personal and obituary of a relative.
I mean, it's all very dog in in the community.
And so therefore, when they tell you this is what's happening,
you sort of have a personal connection to it, or
even if it's not a completely personal connection, you've got
that sense of place. And I think that that goes
(05:38):
a long way where the national media seems like, oh,
you know, I think a lot of people feel like
these are elites. That are they all live in New
York and Washington and and you know, California. They don't
have anything to do with me and my life. Well,
it's kind of true. It is kind of true. I mean,
there's a very strong presence um in national news in
(06:01):
those in those places, and so and you know, I
think we saw that very very clearly in twos sixteen,
when the national press was so out of touch with
the rest of the country and was like completely surprised
that Trump was elected. The tentacles of local news really
reach out into the community and perhaps some unexpected ways,
(06:24):
so people not only learn about things, but it has uh,
some some unintended positive consequences, doesn't it. Yes, And maybe
they're intended. Actually well they I mean I think it
is intended. It has a way, just as you say,
of sort of knitting the community together. And so that
could be a concert review, it could be a restaurant review,
(06:46):
it could be a feature story on an interesting person.
It doesn't all have to be heavy duty watchdog journalism,
although that's extremely important, but it's it's a lot of
different things. And honestly, I have to say that one
of the real appointments, um, that's happened at my old
paper in Buffalo is that I kind of founded, um,
(07:07):
this section called Life and Arts, and it was the
place where the you know, the reviews were and the
feature stories and the culture coverage. And that section doesn't
appear in the daily paper anymore, and I really miss it.
You know, there's still sports, of course, there's still sports coverage,
right but um, and there's still you know, political coverage
and all of that local coverage, but that piece of
(07:30):
it is diminished, and that that hurts, and I think
that's one of the ways that you're talking about that
we you know, sort of intended or unintended. It's like,
oh did you see this thing? Did you? Are you
going to this show? You know, it's it's more casual,
it's more informal, and it's more the sort of the
fabric of life. There's that. Then there are other things
(07:53):
that go along with local news participation and elections and
also the instigative reporting you were talking about or the
political coverage that you did as a cub reporter. Um,
that actually keeps local officials in check. I mean, there's
a real reason for that. Talk about those two things,
(08:14):
and the role of local newsplays in both of those. So,
you know, just having some reporter at a meeting, whether
it's the city council or the you know, town board
or a school board, whatever, it is, just having that
reporter there, you know, I think it keeps public officials
on their toes. It's sort of a way of bearing witness.
(08:35):
Oh somebody's watching, you know. Um. I remember talking to
the publisher of the Youngstown Vindicator, which very sadly went
out of business two summers ago, and he said that
you know, I mean just really resonated with me. He said,
when the paper was in its heyday, they were able
to send a reporter or stringer, meaning a freelance reporter
(08:57):
to every meeting in a three county area. And he
said they knew, meaning the public officials, they knew that
and they behaved. And you know, when that goes away,
when you don't have that sort of person there, who's
who's watching? Then I think people, you know, there's a
human nature. It's like maybe things could be snuck through
(09:19):
in some way. Well there's no watchdog, mean dog. I mean,
it's as simple as that, there's nobody there to watch.
And while there are, you know, I don't think this
is a black and white situation because even in places
where the local paper may have gone away, or you know,
maybe it's a weekly that's closed, you know, sometimes there's
a radio station or a startup digital um news organization
(09:42):
that's still doing the job. It's not all about newspapers,
and I think we need to always remember that. But
having said that, newspapers are a huge and really really
important piece of the puzzle. What was the first sign
when you were at the Buffalo News that, uh, it
was a declining, not in expanding industry. Right. Well, you know,
(10:03):
I was very focused when I first came in as editor,
and that was an h two thousand that I wanted
to increase the staff. So we had had a two
member news room staff for a long time, and I
wanted to be bigger. I wanted to add people, add
reporters and so on. And I got made a little
bit of progress with the being encounters, and then things
(10:25):
started to change. Circulation, you know, started to go down. Um,
the rise of the Internet really started to you know,
Craigslist came along and really knocked the um, you know,
the legs out from underclassified advertising, which was such a
money maker. And you know, I started to come under
(10:46):
pressure to reduce the staff instead of to grow the staff.
And that was you know, that was really the sign
that you know, things were not going well and there
and then it just you know, then it got to
be two thousand eight and we were in this great recession. Um,
the whole country was hurting. And then print advertising, which
(11:08):
was the lifeblood of my paper and a lot of
papers really really started to go away. And then we
had to make even more dire cuts, you know, started
to do buyouts. We never did layoffs when I was there,
which I was very proud of. I had hired all
these people and I felt like they were family members.
But you know, we didn't do layoups, but we did
(11:30):
do voluntary buyouts, and we lost a lot of staff
members that way. So all this institutional memory stuff people
knew about the community and what had happened, it was
all walking out the door, and it was really tough
to see. Well, let's talk about some of the the
other factors that have led to the disintegration, not only
of local newspapers, but also what about radio and television.
(11:54):
That's interesting. I mean, TV has managed to um hold
onto its revenue and its business model much better local TV,
much better than local newspapers UM. And that you know,
some of that has to do with the kind of
advertising it has, and some of it has to do
with transmission fees and sort of the nitty gritty of
(12:15):
of how TV gets its money. UM. That isn't as
susceptible as newspapers to this decline. UM And in some cases,
I mean, I've been really impressed when I've been at
investigative and reporters editors conferences around the country that there
are a ton of local TV people there who are
(12:36):
really interested in investigative reporting, and maybe it's more of
a day turn where they do a piece that has
an investigative aspect to it or an enterprise aspect to it.
But it's, you know, it's that's part of how we're
going to fill the gap. And then radio, you know,
it's you know, radio is tough to say. Public radio,
I think is a part of the puzzle. And um,
(12:58):
it's it's it has some pretty good ambitions for for
trying to fill that gap. We'll be right back. What
(13:20):
about participation in elections? Talk about how that is so
closely aligned with the vibrant local news ecosystem. Right, Well,
there's you know, there's a strong connection between a vibrant
local news situation in a community and good political participation.
And part of it is do you vote? Are you
(13:41):
active in your community in some way? Um? Do you
ever cross party lines when you vote? Or are you
you know, when local news goes away, people tend to
go more into their sort of echo chambers, more into
their tribes, and you know, we've become very very tribal.
We're either this or that, and so people don't cross
the party lines as much as they did because they're
(14:05):
getting their information in many cases through you know, social
media and through a very sort of self um, you know,
self sustaining idea. You know, you hear the same ideas
over and over from people who are telling you what
you want to hear, and you're not sharing this common
basis of reality. So definitely political engagement, political participation, and
(14:31):
that ability to sort of evaluate a candidate on his
or her qualities rather than simply his or her party.
That really changes when local news goes away. This vacuum
that's created by the dearth of local news is one
of the what you're talking about Facebook getting affirmation not
(14:51):
information algorithms serving you up very similar you know pieces
of information um with that vacuum. I mean, don't you
think that's essentially led to a lot of the distrust
that you were describing at the beginning of our conversation. Yes,
it's no, there's no question that it's part of the
sort of whole disinformation misinformation um, you know, difficulty. I
(15:17):
would say, even tragedy that we're experiencing that you know,
people are getting their news from not very credible sources.
They you know, it's sort of like what it boils
down to what your neighbors tell you. And your neighbors
may know what they're talking about or may not, but
what they aren't doing is filing freedom of information requests
(15:39):
vetting the information. Um. You know, when a newspaper or
a public radio station or whatever it may be, puts
a story out there, it had better be right. And
if it's not right, they have to correct it, and
they have to you know, own up to the fact
that it's not right, or they're going to really get hammered. Um.
That doesn't happen on social media. If it's wrong, maybe
(16:00):
you delete it, maybe you let it just spin out
there forever. I mean again, during the election, the the
amount of you know, some people call want to call
it fake news. I think that term has been kind
of stolen in a way. Well, I think it's a
terrible term. I try to avoid it to cost because
I think it began to it started to be used
(16:22):
by a president who considered anything critical of him to
be fake exactly. And I don't use it for that
reason too. But let's call it false news. So you know,
for example, a story that uh, you know, the Pope
had endorsed Donald Trump. I mean that story was very
very widely circulated. It was viral, and Um, once something
(16:45):
is out, it's very very hard to pull it back.
It just doesn't work that way. What do they say,
a lie makes it around the world while the truth
hasn't even tied at shoelaces something like that? Exactly right.
I mean it's and you know, a correct shan doesn't
corrections don't even happen. In fact, some of that false
news is done on purpose. I mean a lot of
(17:07):
it is, so no one has any interest in correcting
it or making it right. Let's, um talk about just
sort of other reasons for the decline real quickly before
we get to solutions. Um. You talked about the ad model,
the ad revenue kind of cratering with the advent of
digital etcetera, etcetera in Craig's list. Um, but also what
(17:31):
about ownership. I mean, whether it's Sinclair, which is a
whole could be a whole documentary, or these private equity
firms you know, going for these newspapers and demanding profits. Um.
It seems the public service side of what a newspaper
is all about has been forgotten. In many of these markets, right.
(17:52):
I mean, there was a time when newspapers were owned
by local families and that what you know, didn't mean
that the local emilias were always great owners, but they
did have a stake in the community. Now, you know,
most newspapers are owned by big chains, and some of
the big chains are actually essentially hedge funds or private
(18:14):
equity firms, and they have very little interest, if any,
in doing good journalism or even doing valid journalism. They
are interested in sort of harvesting the last profits that
can be made from these companies, these newspaper companies, which
by the way, are still making money. You know, um,
it's not as if they're losing money, so there's profit
(18:36):
to be made. They're going to cut the staff, um,
take advantage of the fact that they're still trust in
these places and that people are still subscribing and advertising,
and you know, sort of I mean, people call them
vulture capitalists because they're sort of circling these properties like
vultures and taking advantage of the last you know, the
(18:57):
last bits of value that are there. And a lot
of journalists are saying, no, we're not going to do that. Right,
there have been big protests and there have been, but
I mean, you know, your ownership as your ownership, and
now most recently the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the
Orlando Sentinel, the Hartford Current, we're all bought by essentially
(19:20):
by Alden Global, which is essentially a hedge fund. And
it's really sad because these are storied newspapers that have
done great work. One Pulitzer Prises employed you know, fabulous
journalists and you know they're still doing the job today,
but you know, with fewer people, and we don't know
what's coming, but we have a pretty good idea what's
(19:42):
coming because of what what's happened in other markets when
Alden has swooped in. So I think it would be
good for people to just check into who owns their
TV station that they're listening to and is there an alternative?
And you know, is that or an ulterior motive? Right exactly?
You use a stat from from Pew, from the Pew
(20:02):
Research Center that shows people pulled actually think local news
is doing well and that this was in two thousand nineteen.
But they're not only in the dark in terms of
the ownership, but they don't even know that local news
is in trouble right exactly, Well, why are they so?
Why are they so unaware? You think? I mean, I
(20:22):
think it's because a local newspapers for such a long
time were money making machines, and I think people got
used to that idea that oh, well, you know, the
paper's fine, it's making money. It's they're making money hand
over fist, and they just sort of haven't adjusted to
the new reality. And that was one of the reasons
that I really wanted to write my book Posting the
(20:44):
news was to sort of sound the alarm. Um. You know,
obviously it's not everybody read it or knows about it,
but I hope it made a little bit of difference
in raising people's consciousness. Well what is it? What are
the solutions? Margaret? Um, I know that that that one
of the things you're going to be talking about in
your book and you've been thinking about because, let's face it,
(21:04):
ghosteeing the news was kind of a Debbie downer Margaret,
and there, Um, I guess the question is a are
their solutions and be what do you think are the most, um,
potentially sound ones. Yeah, well, I mean there's not one answer, um,
but there's different pieces that have to happen. One of
(21:24):
them is I think that education in the schools would really,
um could really benefit us as a country if they
would start to teach a little bit of news literacy,
media literacy in the classroom, So teaching kids, you know,
I think as young as ten or eleven or twelve
year old kids, you know how to tell a false
(21:45):
story from a true one, and how to read with
some sort of you know, critical reasoning, UM, and you
know how to know what you're taking in is good
or bad, and you know kind of a compare and contrast.
I think really basic information about that. It wouldn't have
to be a full year course. It could be part
of a social studies or something like that, or civics.
(22:07):
So I think that's a piece of it. And I
think that there is now an effort, you know, there's
a bipartisan effort in Congress to try to get some
indirect help, not a handout, but some tax credits the
Local Journalism Sustainability Act. Yes, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act.
They need a good editor when they when it comes
(22:30):
to with that title, Zippy your name, let's um. But
at any rate, it would give tax credits of various
kinds to try to help local journalism stay viable. And
I think it's it's pretty I think it's pretty good.
I've been really troubled about the idea of sort of
(22:51):
government getting involved in this because I don't really want
government officials messing with journalism, you know, journalism right be independent.
But I think we're at a point now where we
need to look at things that maybe didn't seem like
a good idea before, and just to build some guardrails
into it so that it can be done, you know,
(23:12):
intelligently and safely and independently and independently. That's hugely important.
There's also Report for America. Stephen Waldman is the founder.
This seems like such a cool idea, is it? Is
it gaining traction? And are a lot of people doing it?
Tell us explain to our listeners what that's all about. Sure,
So it's a little bit like the Peace Corps UM
(23:34):
in that it takes young people. I guess the Peace
Corps isn't all young people, but usually Report for America UM.
It lets young people take a year and it funds
them to go into a community that has already has
some local news, but it puts them in an existing
news room so that they can sort of help and
(23:55):
and you know, broaden and sort of deepen their coverage.
And yeah, it's grown a lot. It's only been around
for a couple of years, but now there are think
I think there are you know, at least a thousand
maybe more report for America. UM. I guess they call
them fellows who are in local newsrooms and you know,
(24:15):
doing a really good job. You know. I think that's
another piece of the puzzle. It's not going to solve
the whole thing obviously. Well, how worried are you about
training the next generation of journalists if there are fewer
and fewer places to work and you know a lot
of national places, some are growing, but some are shrinking. Yeah,
you know, it's funny because I am somewhat worried about it.
(24:38):
But I also know a lot of young journalists. Um
some of them personally wants my nephew, wants my my
son's ex girlfriend, you know, people that And then some
are my own students who I've taught at different places,
and I'm always very very heartened by how good they are. Smart, um,
you know, dedicated to journalism and really wanting to do
(24:59):
the job. And um, so they give me a lot
of hope, and I think that we might be in
pretty better shape there than you might expect. There's another
one to watch named Carrie Monahan. I hear she's got
she's got a lot of t Yeah, what about this.
I sent you an article about this startup called six
am that's doing sort of hyperlocal newsletters. I think newsletters
(25:22):
are the new newspapers. Honestly, it seems it seemed pretty interesting.
I mean, uh, it's one to watch for sure. I'm
not sure how it'll play out. You know, there's been
a lot of efforts, Like there's something called Patch. Um
there's well Patch kind of didn't Patch not do well, Margaret,
I think that's what I mean. So sometimes these things
kind of crop up and they look super promising and
(25:44):
then they kind of fade away. So we'll have to
see if this one takes off. Yeah, but I think
it newsletters that model is so interesting. Since we're so
you know, tethered to our phones. You know, I missed
the days where my dad was, you know, at the
kitchen table eating as Wheatie's reading the Washington Post and
pointing out interesting articles or obituaries. Um, you know, I
(26:07):
miss those days, but I think the good news and
I'm on this Aspen Commission for Disinformation as you know,
or to tackle disinformation. And you know, one thing that's
been very clear to me with the very diverse group
of people, the good old days weren't the good old
days for everybody. And now with a new sort of
landscape in journalism, it's become much more inclusive and the
(26:29):
voices are much more diverse. So that's that's a real positive,
even though the actual platforms are shrinking, You're right, though
the voices are expanding. I think that's important to keep
in mind that a lot of times the coverage that
we got in these places that we wanted, you know,
Revere now and say how great they were, it was covering,
(26:50):
you know, it was covering the white and the more
affluent and the more establishment parts of their communities. So
it is great to have a more diverse um ecosystem.
That's hugely important coming up. A new generation of journalists
committed to bringing local news back. Local news maybe in
(27:25):
a dire state, but it's far from dead. Organizations like
Report for America, which Margaret and I touched on, place
talented emerging reporters into local newsrooms all across the country
for up to two years. These core members report for
newspapers and digital outlets, radio and TV stations. Sometimes they're
(27:47):
jumping into news deserts, towns or counties that no longer
have anyone covering the state of the local government, economy,
or social sphere. Other times, these intrepid reporters are going
to larger news markets but covering historically underserved issues and communities.
This work has never been so necessary and important, so
(28:10):
I wanted to end this episode by hearing from some
of those who are reinvigorating the local news industry. My
name is Cassidy Arena. I report with Iowa Public Radio
and I focus on Latino Spanish speaking in immigrant communities
in the state of Iowa. My name is Most Cherry,
(28:31):
and reporting from Florida, covered the Haitian American community for
the Haitian Time. My name is Charlie McGee. I am
the sole reporter in Barstow, California, writing for the victor
Ville Daily Press. My name is Ellen Chung. I am
originally from China and right now I'm a report for
America Works member covering immigration, but the Columbus is Pastuna, Ohio.
(28:56):
What I'm doing is sort of filling in a gap,
which is, you know, basically this whole northern area of
the High Desert, you know, giving them a focused sort
of reporter for the first time in about four or
five years. People kind of hear about the word news desert,
and it's always referred to in this sense of geographic location.
There's a hole there within the definition of news desert.
(29:19):
It's not just based on geographic location. It's based on
the populations in the communities in a place. So even
though Iowa say, you know, has this big city newspaper,
are they really focusing on those undercovered communities, those Spanish
speaking communities, the African refugees, are they really focusing on
them too? My last thing I bought it, I saw them.
(29:42):
Seeker just came to a new country on a different
way from most people. I mean, coming from Brazil to
the Mexican border by walking public transportation. As Jenny was
horrible when he came here. There's a lot of hope
for him that he's not he's not alone because the
(30:03):
community is helping him. He goes back to two logan news. Uh,
if people are not really getting deep into Florida. They're
not really gonna tell those stories right now. I'm trying
to see a larger investigation into buildings that mainly house
immigrants and refugees to see, you know, on a larger scale,
(30:24):
how many people are forced to live in apartment complexes
with lawsuits, code violations and the deal with you know,
racist lawlords and managers. So I'm really excited to see
that story. I do the watchdog reporting stuff. That's my
just personally. I love that kind of you know, digging
in the weeds and finding you know, looking at numbers.
(30:44):
But it's also been great just to give you know,
do profiles of like a local barber who's owned a
barbershop for twenty years, right and put pictures of him
with his dad right when he was you know, getting
his barber's license with the big mullet in the nineties,
and you know those kind localize just personality feature stories,
you know, give people sort of reasons to be proud
(31:06):
of their community or just people around them. Yeah. I
just finished the story recently about two soccer clubs, one
focused on African refugees and another focus on Latino children.
Um making sure that these kids still have access to
a competitive youth sport that will get them those opportunities
(31:26):
later in life, such as college scholarships things like that.
So it was just an example of here's what journalism
can do. Also is showing Iowa what these communities are
doing really well and where they really shine. You know,
what I found here in Columbus is that we haven't
had that much coverage of the immigrant communities, and I
(31:48):
think that's true for minority communities in general. So when
I talked to residents and out of the case in
a few they're always really appreciative of the fact that
we're covering their stories at all, which really shows how
there's a lack of coverage of these marginalized communities right now. Yeah,
I think it's very important to tell people about what's
(32:09):
going on in their community. You could, I don't want
to say, sit a person's life where you could make
their life much better. For example, does there's a lot
of resources that the community doesn't know about. I'm mentioned
to a slum seekers before. There's a lot of resources
for them that they're not don't know about it, someone
is not writing about it. The majority of what people
(32:31):
say when they see that I'm here in doing this
work and reporting on them, and there are people that
they care about. Most of the time, they're shocked that
somebody is actually here. And I asked them, who did
you tell your stories too before this, and they say, nobody.
We didn't really talk to anybody about our stories before
(32:52):
you came. So it's an incredibly humbling experience to have
that responsibility. But also you when you have that reaction,
you see how just how necessary that experience is. I
mean one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
I actually the most rewarding is I've gotten a lot
of you know, emails from just people who live in
(33:13):
the community, who live in Barstow or or around the
area in another part of the High Desert, who are
just you know, like thank you for Like I'm so
happy that we have a reporter just focusing on us now.
I'm so happy I learned about this. Local journalism really
lets you have that rapport and building that that trust
in that they can trust you with their stories, but
(33:33):
also I can trust them that they will keep me accountable.
I'll never see what I'm doing as a as a job,
because that's sodom seeka. I wrote about I don't see
him as a as someone I interviewed. I see him
as a as a friend. So I don't really see
(33:53):
see it as a job. And I don't want to
say local news is like it's like the first there
for you to again do something higher. I don't want
to see it like that, because if we leave, then
who's gonna talk to that I saw them see there?
You know, if we don't have reporters who are living
(34:14):
in these communities, meeting people, producing work that reflects the
community itself, then inevitably people are gonna get left behind.
And you know, I think a lot of people are
very polarized in their views on the national news, and
they really want a local voice that's just you know,
someone who they can trust, who they you know, know,
is living in the same community as them, eating the
(34:36):
same you know, restaurants as them, and going to the
same city council meetings, are looking at the same Facebook
groups they're looking at, you know, like all that stuff.
I think makes people more connected as a community, more informed,
and really I think more you know, in control of
their own lives. I mean, I think that's just as
important a part of democracy is the ability to contribute
(34:57):
to your local government. YEA, even though new local nuisance
are struggling, we shouldn't just try to cut to what
people want to read. We should also make sure to
tell stories that are important to make sure that local
residents are where all these larger, harder issues. And I
think that's a responsibility of local reporters in Columbus and
(35:22):
everywhere else. We're really here to give the power back
to people. It's again, it's going to sound cliche to
say that, you know, we're the fourth branch of democracy,
but we really are, and you can see that when
you're down at this local level. It's opened up the
door for me to realize that journalism as a public
service is really teaching people about the power that they have,
(35:43):
but also teaching people to utilize that power in the
way to really make a difference. The value of local news,
the value of getting to know people in the locality
that you are covering, and the ability to sort of
speak to truth to power at local levels from the
perspective people who otherwise can't is really important. Think it's
(36:06):
really important part of the American experiment, and we have
to keep it alive. That was Charlie McGee, Cassidy, Arena
Ellen Chung and As Cherry from Report for America. Thanks everybody,
and also a big thank you to my guest Margaret Sullivan.
Her book is called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and
(36:28):
the Crisis of American Democracy. And by the way, she's
working on her own memoir, so stay tuned for that
next week on Next Question is book released week. Katie
is a pack rat and she has basically her own
archive of sorts in her basements. I take you behind
(36:51):
the making of my memoir and so much more. That's
next Thursday on Next Question. Next Question with Katie Kurik
is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media.
The executive producers Army Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The
supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio,
(37:16):
and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by
Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to
sign up for my morning newsletter wake Up Call, go
to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me
at Katie Currik on Instagram and all my social media channels.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
(37:36):
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to next question. I'm here's for as
Katherine Curry is standing by at the Civic Center station
right now. Actually I'm Katie currk Well John. About every
ten minutes a metrorail train is arriving here at the
station dropping off concert goers. Yep, that's me in night
Something reporting for the local CBS affiliate w t VJ
(00:27):
in Miami. I gotta tell you, Miami was such a
great news town for a young reporter. It had immigration,
extreme weather like hurricanes, and crime galore. It was action
central North Miami Beach. Police say crimes like personatchings are
up at the sixty Street Mall, partly because many shoppers
are elderly and easy targets, and with Christmas fast approaching,
(00:51):
the problem will get worse. Shoppers are scared and it
was the perfect place to find my footing as a
news reporter. The experience was invaluable. But that was nearly
forty years ago. Unfortunately, today, local news, particularly print, just
isn't what it used to be. In fact, it's an
industry in crisis since the pandemic. Another papers have gone
(01:15):
out of business, and overall it's been you know, since
two thousand four it's been over two thousand papers in
the country, mostly weeklies, but weeklies are important, you know,
and some dailies too, So it's a really heartbreaking story.
Margaret Sullivan is a longtime journalist. She is now the
media columnist for the Washington Post, and back in she
(01:38):
wrote an excellent book called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism
and the Crisis of American Democracy. If you're paying attention,
the book will scare the pants off of you, because
the dire state of local news isn't just bad for
budding journalists, it's bad for everyone. It matters so much
because we don't trust and Moore as a as a nation,
(02:01):
we don't trust in the press, but we do still
have a great deal of trust in local news. So
it's this weird paradox of Okay, well, this is the
trusted this is the trusted media, but it's withering and
it's going away. Because local news was such an integral
part of my life and career, I wanted to talk
(02:22):
to Margaret about the state of it. Margaret also got
her start in local news working for one of her
hometown papers, the Buffalo Evening News, back in the eighties.
I came there straight out of school, and you know,
I had internship offers at the two papers in Buffalo,
which is my hometown. And I remember saying to my dad, Um,
(02:45):
should I go to work for the Buffalo Evening News
or the Buffalo Courier Express. And he said, I think
he was a lawyer, you know, he was pretty savvy guy,
and he said, I think the Evening News is the
dominant paper. And turns out father knows best because two
years I did go to work there. They hired me
at the end of my internship, and two years later
(03:06):
the Courier Express was out of business. Smart smartness, right dead.
So I stayed at the News for a long time
and I um did every job, and eventually I became
the first woman editor of the paper, the top editor,
and it was an incredible honor. Yeah, thank you, it was.
You know. Really, even though I've now been you know,
(03:28):
I've worked for the New York Times in the Washington Post,
and I have more of a national scope now, I
would still say that being the editor of my hometown
paper and the first woman is really the privilege of
my life. I mean, my professional life. I will call
my children the privilege of my good but but you know,
(03:48):
I mean it was a big newsroom. There were there
were two undred people in it. We covered an eight
county area. We really did the job for people, um
in all of western New York and and and it
was an exciting place to be. I was a politics
reporter there, a government reporter, education reporter, and it was,
(04:10):
you know, a tremendous experience. And then it's been you know,
it's been extremely difficult and painful to watch the withering
of local news across the country, including at the Buffalo News.
Although I have to say I just spent a big
chunk of the summer in the Buffalo area at a
cottage on Lake Erie, and I get the print edition
(04:33):
of the paper every day, and every day I was like, Wow,
this is still extremely informative and important and well done.
So um, you know, it's kind of a split story.
The ghosting the news thing is about places that really
don't even have that anymore, and they've turned into so
called news deserts. Why do you think people do trust
(04:55):
local news more than national news. I think I know
the answer to it, but I'd like to hear your explanation. Yeah,
it's a varied you know, it's It's got a few
different aspects to it, but one of them is that,
you know, these are people who live in your community.
You could run into a reporter whom maybe his or
her child is in school with your child. You might
(05:17):
know them from something that's personal and obituary of a relative.
I mean, it's all very dog in in the community.
And so therefore, when they tell you this is what's happening,
you sort of have a personal connection to it, or
even if it's not a completely personal connection, you've got
that sense of place. And I think that that goes
(05:38):
a long way where the national media seems like, oh,
you know, I think a lot of people feel like
these are elites. That are they all live in New
York and Washington and and you know, California. They don't
have anything to do with me and my life. Well,
it's kind of true. It is kind of true. I mean,
there's a very strong presence um in national news in
(06:01):
those in those places, and so and you know, I
think we saw that very very clearly in twos sixteen,
when the national press was so out of touch with
the rest of the country and was like completely surprised
that Trump was elected. The tentacles of local news really
reach out into the community and perhaps some unexpected ways,
(06:24):
so people not only learn about things, but it has uh,
some some unintended positive consequences, doesn't it. Yes, And maybe
they're intended. Actually well they I mean I think it
is intended. It has a way, just as you say,
of sort of knitting the community together. And so that
could be a concert review, it could be a restaurant review,
(06:46):
it could be a feature story on an interesting person.
It doesn't all have to be heavy duty watchdog journalism,
although that's extremely important, but it's it's a lot of
different things. And honestly, I have to say that one
of the real appointments, um, that's happened at my old
paper in Buffalo is that I kind of founded, um,
(07:07):
this section called Life and Arts, and it was the
place where the you know, the reviews were and the
feature stories and the culture coverage. And that section doesn't
appear in the daily paper anymore, and I really miss it.
You know, there's still sports, of course, there's still sports coverage,
right but um, and there's still you know, political coverage
and all of that local coverage, but that piece of
(07:30):
it is diminished, and that that hurts, and I think
that's one of the ways that you're talking about that
we you know, sort of intended or unintended. It's like,
oh did you see this thing? Did you? Are you
going to this show? You know, it's it's more casual,
it's more informal, and it's more the sort of the
fabric of life. There's that. Then there are other things
(07:53):
that go along with local news participation and elections and
also the instigative reporting you were talking about or the
political coverage that you did as a cub reporter. Um,
that actually keeps local officials in check. I mean, there's
a real reason for that. Talk about those two things,
(08:14):
and the role of local newsplays in both of those. So,
you know, just having some reporter at a meeting, whether
it's the city council or the you know, town board
or a school board, whatever, it is, just having that
reporter there, you know, I think it keeps public officials
on their toes. It's sort of a way of bearing witness.
(08:35):
Oh somebody's watching, you know. Um. I remember talking to
the publisher of the Youngstown Vindicator, which very sadly went
out of business two summers ago, and he said that
you know, I mean just really resonated with me. He said,
when the paper was in its heyday, they were able
to send a reporter or stringer, meaning a freelance reporter
(08:57):
to every meeting in a three county area. And he
said they knew, meaning the public officials, they knew that
and they behaved. And you know, when that goes away,
when you don't have that sort of person there, who's
who's watching? Then I think people, you know, there's a
human nature. It's like maybe things could be snuck through
(09:19):
in some way. Well there's no watchdog, mean dog. I mean,
it's as simple as that, there's nobody there to watch.
And while there are, you know, I don't think this
is a black and white situation because even in places
where the local paper may have gone away, or you know,
maybe it's a weekly that's closed, you know, sometimes there's
a radio station or a startup digital um news organization
(09:42):
that's still doing the job. It's not all about newspapers,
and I think we need to always remember that. But
having said that, newspapers are a huge and really really
important piece of the puzzle. What was the first sign
when you were at the Buffalo News that, uh, it
was a declining, not in expanding industry. Right. Well, you know,
(10:03):
I was very focused when I first came in as editor,
and that was an h two thousand that I wanted
to increase the staff. So we had had a two
member news room staff for a long time, and I
wanted to be bigger. I wanted to add people, add
reporters and so on. And I got made a little
bit of progress with the being encounters, and then things
(10:25):
started to change. Circulation, you know, started to go down. Um,
the rise of the Internet really started to you know,
Craigslist came along and really knocked the um, you know,
the legs out from underclassified advertising, which was such a
money maker. And you know, I started to come under
(10:46):
pressure to reduce the staff instead of to grow the staff.
And that was you know, that was really the sign
that you know, things were not going well and there
and then it just you know, then it got to
be two thousand eight and we were in this great recession. Um,
the whole country was hurting. And then print advertising, which
(11:08):
was the lifeblood of my paper and a lot of
papers really really started to go away. And then we
had to make even more dire cuts, you know, started
to do buyouts. We never did layoffs when I was there,
which I was very proud of. I had hired all
these people and I felt like they were family members.
But you know, we didn't do layoups, but we did
(11:30):
do voluntary buyouts, and we lost a lot of staff
members that way. So all this institutional memory stuff people
knew about the community and what had happened, it was
all walking out the door, and it was really tough
to see. Well, let's talk about some of the the
other factors that have led to the disintegration, not only
of local newspapers, but also what about radio and television.
(11:54):
That's interesting. I mean, TV has managed to um hold
onto its revenue and its business model much better local TV,
much better than local newspapers UM. And that you know,
some of that has to do with the kind of
advertising it has, and some of it has to do
with transmission fees and sort of the nitty gritty of
(12:15):
of how TV gets its money. UM. That isn't as
susceptible as newspapers to this decline. UM And in some cases,
I mean, I've been really impressed when I've been at
investigative and reporters editors conferences around the country that there
are a ton of local TV people there who are
(12:36):
really interested in investigative reporting, and maybe it's more of
a day turn where they do a piece that has
an investigative aspect to it or an enterprise aspect to it.
But it's, you know, it's that's part of how we're
going to fill the gap. And then radio, you know,
it's you know, radio is tough to say. Public radio,
I think is a part of the puzzle. And um,
(12:58):
it's it's it has some pretty good ambitions for for
trying to fill that gap. We'll be right back. What
(13:20):
about participation in elections? Talk about how that is so
closely aligned with the vibrant local news ecosystem. Right, Well,
there's you know, there's a strong connection between a vibrant
local news situation in a community and good political participation.
And part of it is do you vote? Are you
(13:41):
active in your community in some way? Um? Do you
ever cross party lines when you vote? Or are you
you know, when local news goes away, people tend to
go more into their sort of echo chambers, more into
their tribes, and you know, we've become very very tribal.
We're either this or that, and so people don't cross
the party lines as much as they did because they're
(14:05):
getting their information in many cases through you know, social
media and through a very sort of self um, you know,
self sustaining idea. You know, you hear the same ideas
over and over from people who are telling you what
you want to hear, and you're not sharing this common
basis of reality. So definitely political engagement, political participation, and
(14:31):
that ability to sort of evaluate a candidate on his
or her qualities rather than simply his or her party.
That really changes when local news goes away. This vacuum
that's created by the dearth of local news is one
of the what you're talking about Facebook getting affirmation not
(14:51):
information algorithms serving you up very similar you know pieces
of information um with that vacuum. I mean, don't you
think that's essentially led to a lot of the distrust
that you were describing at the beginning of our conversation. Yes,
it's no, there's no question that it's part of the
sort of whole disinformation misinformation um, you know, difficulty. I
(15:17):
would say, even tragedy that we're experiencing that you know,
people are getting their news from not very credible sources.
They you know, it's sort of like what it boils
down to what your neighbors tell you. And your neighbors
may know what they're talking about or may not, but
what they aren't doing is filing freedom of information requests
(15:39):
vetting the information. Um. You know, when a newspaper or
a public radio station or whatever it may be, puts
a story out there, it had better be right. And
if it's not right, they have to correct it, and
they have to you know, own up to the fact
that it's not right, or they're going to really get hammered. Um.
That doesn't happen on social media. If it's wrong, maybe
(16:00):
you delete it, maybe you let it just spin out
there forever. I mean again, during the election, the the
amount of you know, some people call want to call
it fake news. I think that term has been kind
of stolen in a way. Well, I think it's a
terrible term. I try to avoid it to cost because
I think it began to it started to be used
(16:22):
by a president who considered anything critical of him to
be fake exactly. And I don't use it for that
reason too. But let's call it false news. So you know,
for example, a story that uh, you know, the Pope
had endorsed Donald Trump. I mean that story was very
very widely circulated. It was viral, and Um, once something
(16:45):
is out, it's very very hard to pull it back.
It just doesn't work that way. What do they say,
a lie makes it around the world while the truth
hasn't even tied at shoelaces something like that? Exactly right.
I mean it's and you know, a correct shan doesn't
corrections don't even happen. In fact, some of that false
news is done on purpose. I mean a lot of
(17:07):
it is, so no one has any interest in correcting
it or making it right. Let's, um talk about just
sort of other reasons for the decline real quickly before
we get to solutions. Um. You talked about the ad model,
the ad revenue kind of cratering with the advent of
digital etcetera, etcetera in Craig's list. Um, but also what
(17:31):
about ownership. I mean, whether it's Sinclair, which is a
whole could be a whole documentary, or these private equity
firms you know, going for these newspapers and demanding profits. Um.
It seems the public service side of what a newspaper
is all about has been forgotten. In many of these markets, right.
(17:52):
I mean, there was a time when newspapers were owned
by local families and that what you know, didn't mean
that the local emilias were always great owners, but they
did have a stake in the community. Now, you know,
most newspapers are owned by big chains, and some of
the big chains are actually essentially hedge funds or private
(18:14):
equity firms, and they have very little interest, if any,
in doing good journalism or even doing valid journalism. They
are interested in sort of harvesting the last profits that
can be made from these companies, these newspaper companies, which
by the way, are still making money. You know, um,
it's not as if they're losing money, so there's profit
(18:36):
to be made. They're going to cut the staff, um,
take advantage of the fact that they're still trust in
these places and that people are still subscribing and advertising,
and you know, sort of I mean, people call them
vulture capitalists because they're sort of circling these properties like
vultures and taking advantage of the last you know, the
(18:57):
last bits of value that are there. And a lot
of journalists are saying, no, we're not going to do that. Right,
there have been big protests and there have been, but
I mean, you know, your ownership as your ownership, and
now most recently the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the
Orlando Sentinel, the Hartford Current, we're all bought by essentially
(19:20):
by Alden Global, which is essentially a hedge fund. And
it's really sad because these are storied newspapers that have
done great work. One Pulitzer Prises employed you know, fabulous
journalists and you know they're still doing the job today,
but you know, with fewer people, and we don't know
what's coming, but we have a pretty good idea what's
(19:42):
coming because of what what's happened in other markets when
Alden has swooped in. So I think it would be
good for people to just check into who owns their
TV station that they're listening to and is there an alternative?
And you know, is that or an ulterior motive? Right exactly?
You use a stat from from Pew, from the Pew
(20:02):
Research Center that shows people pulled actually think local news
is doing well and that this was in two thousand nineteen.
But they're not only in the dark in terms of
the ownership, but they don't even know that local news
is in trouble right exactly, Well, why are they so?
Why are they so unaware? You think? I mean, I
(20:22):
think it's because a local newspapers for such a long
time were money making machines, and I think people got
used to that idea that oh, well, you know, the
paper's fine, it's making money. It's they're making money hand
over fist, and they just sort of haven't adjusted to
the new reality. And that was one of the reasons
that I really wanted to write my book Posting the
(20:44):
news was to sort of sound the alarm. Um. You know,
obviously it's not everybody read it or knows about it,
but I hope it made a little bit of difference
in raising people's consciousness. Well what is it? What are
the solutions? Margaret? Um, I know that that that one
of the things you're going to be talking about in
your book and you've been thinking about because, let's face it,
(21:04):
ghosteeing the news was kind of a Debbie downer Margaret,
and there, Um, I guess the question is a are
their solutions and be what do you think are the most, um,
potentially sound ones. Yeah, well, I mean there's not one answer, um,
but there's different pieces that have to happen. One of
(21:24):
them is I think that education in the schools would really,
um could really benefit us as a country if they
would start to teach a little bit of news literacy,
media literacy in the classroom, So teaching kids, you know,
I think as young as ten or eleven or twelve
year old kids, you know how to tell a false
(21:45):
story from a true one, and how to read with
some sort of you know, critical reasoning, UM, and you
know how to know what you're taking in is good
or bad, and you know kind of a compare and contrast.
I think really basic information about that. It wouldn't have
to be a full year course. It could be part
of a social studies or something like that, or civics.
(22:07):
So I think that's a piece of it. And I
think that there is now an effort, you know, there's
a bipartisan effort in Congress to try to get some
indirect help, not a handout, but some tax credits the
Local Journalism Sustainability Act. Yes, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act.
They need a good editor when they when it comes
(22:30):
to with that title, Zippy your name, let's um. But
at any rate, it would give tax credits of various
kinds to try to help local journalism stay viable. And
I think it's it's pretty I think it's pretty good.
I've been really troubled about the idea of sort of
(22:51):
government getting involved in this because I don't really want
government officials messing with journalism, you know, journalism right be independent.
But I think we're at a point now where we
need to look at things that maybe didn't seem like
a good idea before, and just to build some guardrails
into it so that it can be done, you know,
(23:12):
intelligently and safely and independently and independently. That's hugely important.
There's also Report for America. Stephen Waldman is the founder.
This seems like such a cool idea, is it? Is
it gaining traction? And are a lot of people doing it?
Tell us explain to our listeners what that's all about. Sure,
So it's a little bit like the Peace Corps UM
(23:34):
in that it takes young people. I guess the Peace
Corps isn't all young people, but usually Report for America UM.
It lets young people take a year and it funds
them to go into a community that has already has
some local news, but it puts them in an existing
news room so that they can sort of help and
(23:55):
and you know, broaden and sort of deepen their coverage.
And yeah, it's grown a lot. It's only been around
for a couple of years, but now there are think
I think there are you know, at least a thousand
maybe more report for America. UM. I guess they call
them fellows who are in local newsrooms and you know,
(24:15):
doing a really good job. You know. I think that's
another piece of the puzzle. It's not going to solve
the whole thing obviously. Well, how worried are you about
training the next generation of journalists if there are fewer
and fewer places to work and you know a lot
of national places, some are growing, but some are shrinking. Yeah,
you know, it's funny because I am somewhat worried about it.
(24:38):
But I also know a lot of young journalists. Um
some of them personally wants my nephew, wants my my
son's ex girlfriend, you know, people that And then some
are my own students who I've taught at different places,
and I'm always very very heartened by how good they are. Smart, um,
you know, dedicated to journalism and really wanting to do
(24:59):
the job. And um, so they give me a lot
of hope, and I think that we might be in
pretty better shape there than you might expect. There's another
one to watch named Carrie Monahan. I hear she's got
she's got a lot of t Yeah, what about this.
I sent you an article about this startup called six
am that's doing sort of hyperlocal newsletters. I think newsletters
(25:22):
are the new newspapers. Honestly, it seems it seemed pretty interesting.
I mean, uh, it's one to watch for sure. I'm
not sure how it'll play out. You know, there's been
a lot of efforts, Like there's something called Patch. Um
there's well Patch kind of didn't Patch not do well, Margaret,
I think that's what I mean. So sometimes these things
kind of crop up and they look super promising and
(25:44):
then they kind of fade away. So we'll have to
see if this one takes off. Yeah, but I think
it newsletters that model is so interesting. Since we're so
you know, tethered to our phones. You know, I missed
the days where my dad was, you know, at the
kitchen table eating as Wheatie's reading the Washington Post and
pointing out interesting articles or obituaries. Um, you know, I
(26:07):
miss those days, but I think the good news and
I'm on this Aspen Commission for Disinformation as you know,
or to tackle disinformation. And you know, one thing that's
been very clear to me with the very diverse group
of people, the good old days weren't the good old
days for everybody. And now with a new sort of
landscape in journalism, it's become much more inclusive and the
(26:29):
voices are much more diverse. So that's that's a real positive,
even though the actual platforms are shrinking, You're right, though
the voices are expanding. I think that's important to keep
in mind that a lot of times the coverage that
we got in these places that we wanted, you know,
Revere now and say how great they were, it was covering,
(26:50):
you know, it was covering the white and the more
affluent and the more establishment parts of their communities. So
it is great to have a more diverse um ecosystem.
That's hugely important coming up. A new generation of journalists
committed to bringing local news back. Local news maybe in
(27:25):
a dire state, but it's far from dead. Organizations like
Report for America, which Margaret and I touched on, place
talented emerging reporters into local newsrooms all across the country
for up to two years. These core members report for
newspapers and digital outlets, radio and TV stations. Sometimes they're
(27:47):
jumping into news deserts, towns or counties that no longer
have anyone covering the state of the local government, economy,
or social sphere. Other times, these intrepid reporters are going
to larger news markets but covering historically underserved issues and communities.
This work has never been so necessary and important, so
(28:10):
I wanted to end this episode by hearing from some
of those who are reinvigorating the local news industry. My
name is Cassidy Arena. I report with Iowa Public Radio
and I focus on Latino Spanish speaking in immigrant communities
in the state of Iowa. My name is Most Cherry,
(28:31):
and reporting from Florida, covered the Haitian American community for
the Haitian Time. My name is Charlie McGee. I am
the sole reporter in Barstow, California, writing for the victor
Ville Daily Press. My name is Ellen Chung. I am
originally from China and right now I'm a report for
America Works member covering immigration, but the Columbus is Pastuna, Ohio.
(28:56):
What I'm doing is sort of filling in a gap,
which is, you know, basically this whole northern area of
the High Desert, you know, giving them a focused sort
of reporter for the first time in about four or
five years. People kind of hear about the word news desert,
and it's always referred to in this sense of geographic location.
There's a hole there within the definition of news desert.
(29:19):
It's not just based on geographic location. It's based on
the populations in the communities in a place. So even
though Iowa say, you know, has this big city newspaper,
are they really focusing on those undercovered communities, those Spanish
speaking communities, the African refugees, are they really focusing on
them too? My last thing I bought it, I saw them.
(29:42):
Seeker just came to a new country on a different
way from most people. I mean, coming from Brazil to
the Mexican border by walking public transportation. As Jenny was
horrible when he came here. There's a lot of hope
for him that he's not he's not alone because the
(30:03):
community is helping him. He goes back to two logan news. Uh,
if people are not really getting deep into Florida. They're
not really gonna tell those stories right now. I'm trying
to see a larger investigation into buildings that mainly house
immigrants and refugees to see, you know, on a larger scale,
(30:24):
how many people are forced to live in apartment complexes
with lawsuits, code violations and the deal with you know,
racist lawlords and managers. So I'm really excited to see
that story. I do the watchdog reporting stuff. That's my
just personally. I love that kind of you know, digging
in the weeds and finding you know, looking at numbers.
(30:44):
But it's also been great just to give you know,
do profiles of like a local barber who's owned a
barbershop for twenty years, right and put pictures of him
with his dad right when he was you know, getting
his barber's license with the big mullet in the nineties,
and you know those kind localize just personality feature stories,
you know, give people sort of reasons to be proud
(31:06):
of their community or just people around them. Yeah. I
just finished the story recently about two soccer clubs, one
focused on African refugees and another focus on Latino children.
Um making sure that these kids still have access to
a competitive youth sport that will get them those opportunities
(31:26):
later in life, such as college scholarships things like that.
So it was just an example of here's what journalism
can do. Also is showing Iowa what these communities are
doing really well and where they really shine. You know,
what I found here in Columbus is that we haven't
had that much coverage of the immigrant communities, and I
(31:48):
think that's true for minority communities in general. So when
I talked to residents and out of the case in
a few they're always really appreciative of the fact that
we're covering their stories at all, which really shows how
there's a lack of coverage of these marginalized communities right now. Yeah,
I think it's very important to tell people about what's
(32:09):
going on in their community. You could, I don't want
to say, sit a person's life where you could make
their life much better. For example, does there's a lot
of resources that the community doesn't know about. I'm mentioned
to a slum seekers before. There's a lot of resources
for them that they're not don't know about it, someone
is not writing about it. The majority of what people
(32:31):
say when they see that I'm here in doing this
work and reporting on them, and there are people that
they care about. Most of the time, they're shocked that
somebody is actually here. And I asked them, who did
you tell your stories too before this, and they say, nobody.
We didn't really talk to anybody about our stories before
(32:52):
you came. So it's an incredibly humbling experience to have
that responsibility. But also you when you have that reaction,
you see how just how necessary that experience is. I
mean one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
I actually the most rewarding is I've gotten a lot
of you know, emails from just people who live in
(33:13):
the community, who live in Barstow or or around the
area in another part of the High Desert, who are
just you know, like thank you for Like I'm so
happy that we have a reporter just focusing on us now.
I'm so happy I learned about this. Local journalism really
lets you have that rapport and building that that trust
in that they can trust you with their stories, but
(33:33):
also I can trust them that they will keep me accountable.
I'll never see what I'm doing as a as a job,
because that's sodom seeka. I wrote about I don't see
him as a as someone I interviewed. I see him
as a as a friend. So I don't really see
(33:53):
see it as a job. And I don't want to
say local news is like it's like the first there
for you to again do something higher. I don't want
to see it like that, because if we leave, then
who's gonna talk to that I saw them see there?
You know, if we don't have reporters who are living
(34:14):
in these communities, meeting people, producing work that reflects the
community itself, then inevitably people are gonna get left behind.
And you know, I think a lot of people are
very polarized in their views on the national news, and
they really want a local voice that's just you know,
someone who they can trust, who they you know, know,
is living in the same community as them, eating the
(34:36):
same you know, restaurants as them, and going to the
same city council meetings, are looking at the same Facebook
groups they're looking at, you know, like all that stuff.
I think makes people more connected as a community, more informed,
and really I think more you know, in control of
their own lives. I mean, I think that's just as
important a part of democracy is the ability to contribute
(34:57):
to your local government. YEA, even though new local nuisance
are struggling, we shouldn't just try to cut to what
people want to read. We should also make sure to
tell stories that are important to make sure that local
residents are where all these larger, harder issues. And I
think that's a responsibility of local reporters in Columbus and
(35:22):
everywhere else. We're really here to give the power back
to people. It's again, it's going to sound cliche to
say that, you know, we're the fourth branch of democracy,
but we really are, and you can see that when
you're down at this local level. It's opened up the
door for me to realize that journalism as a public
service is really teaching people about the power that they have,
(35:43):
but also teaching people to utilize that power in the
way to really make a difference. The value of local news,
the value of getting to know people in the locality
that you are covering, and the ability to sort of
speak to truth to power at local levels from the
perspective people who otherwise can't is really important. Think it's
(36:06):
really important part of the American experiment, and we have
to keep it alive. That was Charlie McGee, Cassidy, Arena
Ellen Chung and As Cherry from Report for America. Thanks everybody,
and also a big thank you to my guest Margaret Sullivan.
Her book is called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and
(36:28):
the Crisis of American Democracy. And by the way, she's
working on her own memoir, so stay tuned for that
next week on Next Question is book released week. Katie
is a pack rat and she has basically her own
archive of sorts in her basements. I take you behind
(36:51):
the making of my memoir and so much more. That's
next Thursday on Next Question. Next Question with Katie Kurik
is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Kuric Media.
The executive producers Army Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The
supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio,
(37:16):
and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by
Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to
sign up for my morning newsletter wake Up Call, go
to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me
at Katie Currik on Instagram and all my social media channels.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
(37:36):
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your favorite shows.
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