Community journalism needs change.
By: Robert Locklear
Tags: Journalism, Journalists, Media Criticism, Local Journalism, Local News

Community journalism needs change.

I grew up out in the countryside a long way from anything. I was homeschooled, and never used technology until high school. Instead of looking at a phone I read books. What I read was mostly older material from times gone by.

Some of the books had stories about journalists, newspapers and paper delivery boys. In my mind was the idea of an Industrial-age print newspaper, with a busy newsroom full of journalists passionate about putting out the big New York City news for appreciative and unquestioning citizens in the community to read. This gilded age print news mirage stuck with me until high school, until I became involved in technology and saw what journalism had become.

In my mind was the idea of an Industrial-age print newspaper, with a busy newsroom full of journalists passionate about putting out the big New York City news for appreciative and unquestioning citizens in the community to read.

We’re never going to go back to the world where the old print papers were the only form of news. Going into the field of journalism in college I knew that, but as long as there will be people to talk to and stories to write, journalists will always be important.

Community journalism is a part of my dream that’s still alive, but in modern times it’s been rapidly declining. Print newspaper circulation fell in 2018 to be lower than it ever has since 1940, according to a Pew Research Center study. In an era of “fake news,” distrust of the media has risen. In the digital age it’s harder than ever for rapidly falling media ad revenue to bring in enough money for newspapers to survive — especially when most Americans think newspapers are doing well financially.

Thankfully, most Americans also believe community journalism is important. A Steamboat Pilot & Today story talks about the role that journalists often play within communities.

“In addition to fulfilling [a] watchdog role, newspapers also serve their communities when they publish stories that would go untold unless reporters pursued them — stories that shed light on compelling issues such as drug addiction, poverty and crime, stories that provide readers with information about how their taxes are being spent or how a bill in the state legislature will affect their health care options,” Lisa Schlichtman, editor of Steamboat Pilot & Today wrote.

Schlichtman says newspapers publish untold stories, but more and more, nobody covers some stories. Small towns and rural areas of the U.S. are rapidly becoming less-represented in the “news deserts.”

Newspapers serve their communities when they publish stories that would go untold unless reporters pursued them.

This case study by Patrick Ferrucci and Kathleen Alaimo goes into depth about news deserts. One angle they touch on near the beginning of the piece is the idea that without local news, Americans are at an information disadvantage.

Local news covers many topics, from crime to local events to the weather broadcast to local government — and the list goes on. News Deserts prevent those important local pieces of information from getting to the people who need to hear them. In 2019, 57% of Americans in rural areas said they don’t believe their area is covered by the local news.

Poynter reported in 2018 that over 1,300 communities in the U.S. have totally lost news coverage. News deserts have become a major problem.

I believe the situation can only be improved by communities realizing the importance of community journalism. Without support, journalism as we know it may fail — not because of distrust and “fake news” being killed off, but because there is no money left to pay journalists in a dying field.

One aspect of community journalism that I found interesting was pointed out in this study. The piece discusses the connections between community and national journalism by asking these questions:

“Is there still a strong correlation between consumption of local news and measures of community participation?” “Is there a strong correlation between consumption of national news and measures of community participation?” “What is the comparative strength of relationship between local and national news use and measures of community participation?”

The study goes into detail with statistics and working through what can be found about the answers to them, but I think simply thinking about those questions offers a lot of insight to how the field of community journalism works.

In a previous journalism class assignment I came across an effort which I thought was brilliant as a way in which local journalism is encouraged and supported in a practical way. Report for America nurtures new community journalists by choosing the most promising entrants in a competition. The entrants are then sent out across the country with half their pay funded by Report for America.

The idea behind the effort is to lessen the workload of media companies so that undercovered topics may be reported on by the budding journalists. I believe if local news organizations look for creative ways like this to bring in more help, then the press could essentially be revolutionized to meet modern times better. It’s also a great way to put new journalists into a position in a field that’s already declining.

Once I believed journalism to be an noble profession of investigation and writing. Images of the famous Titanic newspaperboy, romanticized Industrial-age stories, and the charming idea of a small-town print newspaper were what I once thought local news was. I still believe journalism to be a noble field — especially in these times. But community journalism, important as it is, needs change of some kind or the news deserts will merge into one. When I enter the field, I hope to be a part of that change.