Forget Local News

Dead or Dying

It’s not much of a secret anymore. Local newspapers, digital and otherwise, have been sliding into oblivion for years. Competition from social media, national purveyors of news and a proclivity to filter out periodicals (in any format) that present anything a viewer/listener/reader finds remotely troubling or contrary to what they want as their “reality” has devastated the old-world local news business. The very local news purveyors, where so many mainstream journalists have cut their baby teeth, their attempts to be relevant, have been dramatically usurped by… well… every other form of media.

“The economic environment of local news continues to become more dismal as print advertising disappears and managements struggle to raise digital advertising and subscription fees enough to take up the slack… Advertisers have many online platforms to reach customers, and the vast majority of remaining newspaper readers are in the aging demographic that digital advertisers don’t much care for.

“‘Since 2008, there hasn’t been a single year of revenue gain in the newspaper industry as a whole,’ says veteran industry analyst Ken Doctor. That’s produced a strategy of ‘continuous cost-cutting for more than a decade in local news.’ The cuts have come heavily in the form of layoffs at media companies of scores or hundreds of workers at a time.” Michael Hiltzik writing for the November 20^th Los Angeles Times.

Search engines and social media, even neighborhood flyers, seem like a much more efficient marketing approach. Advertising for its own sake, not in support of local news gathering. Cheap. Even local announcements no longer require a formal “newspaper” to reach their targeted audience. Try Twitter or Facebook. But what are falling between the cracks are those “little stories” and the accountability of local government officials who are no longer being watched by local journalists.

On November 19^th, newspaper giants, Gannett and GateHouse Media, formally merged. They hollered that the financial strength of the combined mega-news organizations would result in a “stronger” and “more viable” print and digital news enterprise “with deep local roots and national scale” per Michael Reed, the chief executive of New Media Investment Group, GateHouse’s parent, on November 14^th. 

“One would hope so, since the news business could use an injection of optimism these days. Perhaps there are grounds for hope, since the ‘new Gannett,’ as Reed dubbed the combination, will have national-scale heft, creating the largest newspaper chain in the U.S., encompassing 263 daily news organizations. But there may be just as much reason for doubt. The economic environment of local news continues to become more dismal as print advertising disappears and managements struggle to raise digital advertising and subscription fees enough to take up the slack. But the numbers just don’t support the intention.” LA Times. 

But the numbers just don’t support that very noble aspiration. Others have made similar promises, but the results speak for themselves: local news, where it has continued, is hemorrhaging red ink. We may not be privy to the little local stories of financial difficulty, but as publicly traded companies snap up these local losers, the required published numbers are not pretty.

The “new Gannett” merged entities are supposed to save an annual $300 million in “synergies” reflected in their going forward business plan. Really? “Earlier this year, GateHouse reportedly laid off more than 60 employees (the company would not disclose the actual number but called it ‘immaterial’) and Gannett reportedly laid off several hundred...

“The private equity firm Alden Capital — which owns the Orange County Register, Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News and more than 90 other publications and boasts a reputation as a pitiless parer of payroll — has attracted much of the ire over wholesale plundering of local news resources — with good reason, for Alden publications have been cutting staff at about twice the rate of the industry as a whole… But public companies such as Gannett, GateHouse and also McClatchy Co. can’t escape the industry’s economic challenges.

“McClatchy — a chain of 30 newspapers including the Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald and Kansas City Star — may be another canary in the news industry’s coal mine. McClatchy reported a loss of $304.7 million on revenue of $167.4 million in the third quarter that ended Sept. 29. Most of the loss reflected a write-down of the Sacramento company’s news assets.

“But the company also reported long-term debt of more than $700 million. McClatchy said its finances were so impaired that it wouldn’t have the cash or cash flow to make a required minimum contribution of $124 million to its pension fund next year and was negotiating a possible takeover of the plan by the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp… McClatchy’s parlous condition has sent it on a quest for a merger partner.” LA Times.

Cutting back physical delivery saves money, but maintaining a rigorous digital infrastructure requires big start-up costs and continued upgrades and security patches. Advertisers are finding and staying with alternatives: “As traditional revenues continue to decline — and at an ever faster pace — those companies find themselves in a vise. Making the transition to digital news requires resources that may be harder to come by. Meanwhile, Doctor says, they’re trying to buy time through shrinkage even as their ultimate destination remains unclear.

“‘After two more years of this,’ Doctor asks, ‘what kind of products are going to be left in local communities that readers feel are worth a digital subscription? What’s your strategy after all the cost-cutting?’” LA Times. 

So what, you ask? But as outlets for professional journalism are replaced by online pseudo-news gathering amateurs, including hordes of conspiracy theorists recently equipped with new deep fake news tools – see my November 14^th Can Democracy Survive Deep Fakes? blog, what happens to trained professional truth-seekers? Is there even more filtration in search of appropriately biased online “news” sources? Do we become more polarized? Do we continue to be victimized by “news by the richest” under the extraordinarily damaging Citizens United Supreme Court ruling? Have the lines between “opinion” and “news” been so blurred that facts just die in no man’s land? 

All I see these days, is little ripples and big waves eroding democracy here every day… aggregated into a tsunami seeking to sweep away all contrary views and facts. Nothing screams a Rashomon view of what is happening like the impeachment hearings. Ad hominin personal attacks substitute for facts, opinions gather a growing immunity to facts, and distortion rules the day. 

              I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly how do American voters assess truth when they enter their polling stations at the next election?