We should support local news outlets like we do local businesses
By: Ingrid Voicu Roth
Tags: Economy, Support, Business, Media, Journalism

We’ve all heard the popular saying that journalism is a dying industry, or that it’s a profession of the past, and all kinds of negativity surrounding the future of it.

One of the major reasons we’ve come to this unfortunate problem is because of the lack of value that people have given journalism in the past decades. With the rise of social media and the increase and availability of technology, information can now be easily spread by just about anyone who wishes to get something out there.

A survey from the Reuter’s corporation done in 2015, shows that people mostly get their news and information from websites like Facebook and Twitter. It also shows that a lot of people use adblockers for websites which have ads.

As we know by now, advertisements have become the major way in which media and news outlets gain revenue. The problem with people’s news preferences toady, is that most are looking for instant and immediate news, which they find on Facebook and Twitter, perhaps without even reading the article itself, and just looking at the headline. If they do make it to the article, the adblockers prevent the outlet from actually making any money, causing a massive decline in the industry’s demand.

Because of this, I think that local news outlets are similar to, and should be in the same category as local businesses. We can draw a parallel between social media giants, such as Twitter and Facebook, and Amazon, and also between local news outlets and local retail businesses.

We are constantly encouraged to shop local in order to support small business owners who are trying to make a living. Using Amazon for our shopping has been discouraged since it is the highest profiting company right now. Initiatives such as retail markets specifically designed for small business owners are put in place to constantly support them.

The continual push for support of retail local business, is seen as noble and necessary, but if someone were to suggest the same amount of support go to local media outlets, they would probably be ridiculed.

Photo credit: Huffington Post

So why this massive difference? With Facebook and Twitter taking the monopoly of news, it’s become extremely hard for the other outlets to survive the way that they are.

The same attention should be given to these outlets, because locally produced stories, by quality journalists, are not something that should be taken for granted, yet many do not see much value in them.

We’ve watered down this profession and the perception of good storytelling, to the point where it’s free, and we just don’t prioritize it anymore.

Journalism is also a job that produces content that makes the world go around, news cannot be simply scrapped, and so much influence over movements and mindsets comes from what we know and do not know, and what information is being presented to us. The job itself requires time, effort, and persistence. To add the worry of job loss to a journalist makes for a distressing situation.

People’s apathy towards good journalism is the reason it isn’t considered something worth saving, like small businesses, but the truth is that it should be.

Over the course of the pandemic, more than 60 local newsrooms closed all across America. Adding to about 1800 since 2004, according to Penny Abernathy’s research on news deserts.

Her research shows that most of the closed newsrooms were for very small communities, meaning that they are left without locally sourced news, which is a difficult reality to face. It also shows that without the locally sourced news, communities lose transparency and accountability, which results in increases of taxes and decrease in voter participation.

Whether we like to believe it or not, news makes a massive difference, and governments, as well as people should make an effort to protect them for the sake of those communities, much like they do with local small retail businesses.

Media policy economist, Robert G. Picard, argues in a presentation titled “Why journalists deserve low pay”, that they are not experts, or “knowledge workers”, therefore their work is devalued, because they don’t possess specific skills.

The reason this is wrong is because he’s missing a clear piece of the puzzle. Although journalists are not per se experts in a particular given subject (and if they were, they would not be considered impartial), they have the one aspect that most people miss: the ability to story-tell.

Putting together a story that focuses on finding reliable sources, documents, and even personal physical observation, as well as producing it all while under a very tight deadline is not an easy task that many can do.

Picard forgets the reality that bringing news to people is a challenge within itself and something fundamental to society.

Surely not everything on the internet is reliable, which is why paid content is a lot more dependable than the free news we get on Facebook and Twitter that just about anyone can put out there.

The truth is that the importance of journalism is being forgotten. Many losses come from that, and not protecting the industry hurts society in the long run.

Good journalism should be supported financially and socially for the sake of our nation’s well-being.