We are in an era of misinformation, ignorance, and distrust.
A community newspaper is part of the solution.
Ashland.news has been up and running for three months.
Something ominous is happening all across America. Newspapers are disappearing. They hollow out. They get smaller, with fewer stories. Then they disappear. This happened in Ashland, Oregon.
It usually happens slowly enough that customers barely notice at first. A reporter is laid off. Then another. Instead of having a reporter observe a city council or school board meeting and report on it, the reporter telephones an official and asks what happened. Sometimes we get a fair representation of what happened. Sometimes not. We don't hear from people who might have a contrary view of things. Then another reporter is laid off, and there are few if any stories at all on these institutions. It is hard to notice what isn't there. No news? Apparently nothing important is happening.
Sometimes the local newspaper is consolidated with the newspaper of a larger city. Local news becomes photographs of big civic events--an annual parade, the high school football team scores. Readers get a Potemkin Village of news.
Ashland.news is an effort to fill the hole left by the hollowing out and disappearance of the Ashland Daily Tidings. Ashland.news intends to be a new, financially stable institution. Ashland.news addresses the financial realities of local journalism by being on-line only. It maintains a curated website (https://ashland.news) and delivers a newsletter to the email boxes of those who request it. There is no physical paper, no printing press, no delivery cost, no heavy upfront capital cost to amortize. Ashland.news is established as a non-profit community service, so there are no investors to pay or to please. It hopes to get by on a combination of voluntary subscription donations, advertisers, and the continued support of the community benefactors.
This system will sound familiar. It is essentially the system in place for public radio and public television. They provide services not found elsewhere. People donate to keep the programming coming. It is a workable, time-tested formula.
A community newspaper, run by professional reporters and editors, does something very different from social media. Ten or fifteen years ago many of us hoped that the free flow of ideas and opinions through Facebook and other platforms would create a golden age of social cohesion and an informed citizenry. Wrong. It turns out that free, instantaneous communication creates the dystopia feared by our nation's founders. They built a republic, not a democracy. Democracy collapses under the emotional sway of a charismatic demagogue. Social media platforms have a business model built around spreading provocative speech. Anger engages. Outrage engages. Look what that idiot just said!! The engaged audience is itself the product, sold to customers, the advertisers. In contrast, a community newspaper, run by professional editors, switches the polarity. The readers are the customer. News is the product.
The executive editor of Ashland.news, Bert Etling, sent a letter yesterday on the milestone of its having completed three months of publication.
We've been going out into the Ashland community and bringing back news and information about the people, places and events that shape our day-to-day experiences, and sharing that news about our neighborhood with you.
We believe that information is of value to the community, and are confident it will receive the support of those who find it of value. We believe information about what’s going on around us is essential to creating and maintaining a vibrant, diverse community. We believe that information should be accessible to all, not hidden behind paywalls.
We believe you, the more than 1,200 subscribers to our emailed newsletter, support our vision.
Some version of what happened in Ashland likely has happened to the many readers of this blog who live outside a major metropolitan area. New forms of nonprofit subscription-based journalism are springing up around the country to fill the news hole. You won't discover them by seeing a stack of papers at a store. The new journalism is on line. Watch for these, and support them if you can.
Examples of this in Denver are The Colorado Sun and The Denverite. The Sun began with journalists who had been let go from The Denver Post. It covers local news in-depth.
The Denverite has a more breezy style focusing on local issues and entertainment, but still worthwhile.
We are having a battle here in Athens OH regarding what had been a very successful community newspaper since I arrived in 1979, www.athensnews.com