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Episode Transcript
Thanks for joining The Fortune Factor.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Podcast Who Owns Your Voice?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Break down the merger, spotlight local journalists, and expose how
consolidation silences marginalized community One.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
What's happening.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Local news is collapsing fastest where people most need it.
In twenty twenty four, Northwestern's Medill found two hundred eight
US counties with no local news outlet and fifteen hundred
sixty three counties with only one, leading fifty five million
people with little or no access to local.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
News Medill School of Journalism plus one. Across newspapers, employment,
circulation and AD revenue have falling for years, intensifying pressure
to merge and.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Cut Pew Research Center plus one. Broadcast consolidation is accelerating.
Nexstar is the largest local TV owner, with two hundred
plus stations in one hundred and sixteen markets. Its scale
shapes what communities can.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
See Nextstar Media Group, Inc.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Two.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Why consolidation matters.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Mechanisms of silent Fewer owners, fewer beats when chains merge,
Duplicative beats are cut, Investigative projects shrink, and coverage narrows,
especially outside wealthier zip codes.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
The Gatehouse Gannet deal created the largest US newspaper chain
owning roughly one in six papers, followed by deep cost
cutting booking plus.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
One financialization hedge funds acquire papers, monetize real estate, and
reduce newsrooms. Alden's twenty twenty one takeover of Tribune Publishing
has been followed by repeated layoffs at the Chicago Tribune.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Gaykeeping power giant station groups can set tone or preempt
shows across many markets at once, illustrating leverage over what
reaches air. Example, the twenty twenty five Next Star Sinclear
Decisions Round Jimmy Kimmelive.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Three. Who's most Affected?
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Rural, low income and historically marginalized communities live disproportionately in
news deserts or ghost news areas, single weakened outlet with
fewer reporters. Issues like environmental hazards, housing abuses, court inequities,
and local corruption go under covered.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Four. How mergers shape your daily life.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Democracy less routiny of school boards, sheriffs, zoning boards, lowered turnout,
and less accountability public safety.
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Fewer watchdog stories on polluted wells, heat risks, transit failure.
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Economic life. Small businesses lose affordable targeted advertising channels that
local papers once provided. Shifting power to national platforms. These
trends are derived from Medill and Pew's multi year data
on local news decline.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Five What to ask during any.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Proposed merger jobs and beats. Will beat serving marginalized neighborhoods
be guaranteed, not just market white heads counts?
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Coverage minimums. Will owners commit to newsroom staffing floors per
one hundred k residents and publish them annually?
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Community oversight? Will there be a community advisory board with
agenda setting power and a public onboods?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Process data transparency? Will the outlet publish zip code level
coverage audits, who is covered, sources quoted, and language is offered?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Exit provisions? If owners miss targets? Do assets pass to
a nonprofit successor?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Six Spotlight Ways to platform local journalists playbook you can run?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Create a community desk fund, pull small donor subscriptions that
underwrite beats in Black, Latino, Immigrant, Indigenous, rural, and disability communities.
Publish a quarterly coverage audit model it on Medill's definitions
of news access. Co publish agreements pair freelancers and small
outlets with regional or national partners. Stories run free behind
(03:59):
pays for affected zip.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Codes, public record sprints monthly FOYA clinics at libraries, teach
residents how to file requests that power local stories.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Source equity, rubric track demographics and languages of sources quoted.
Set targets for parity by neighborhood, population.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Language access, budget translation for Spanish, Haitian, Creole, Vietnamese, et cetera,
and pay bilingual community editors.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Seven Policy and procurement levers.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Local government ad dollars, legal notices, service PSAs should prioritize
outlets with verifiable coverage in underserved zips.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Ownership rules, antitrust urge, FCC and DOJ to weigh us
deserts and newsroom employment not just consumer prices. In merger reviews,
use Medill's county level data as an evidentiary map. Nonprofit
conversions support conversions to nonprofit or co op models with
(05:00):
acts incentives, tit to staffing and coverage metrics.
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