Big US Foundations Bet Heavily on Local Journalism
Twenty-four North American big private philanthropic institutions committed $500 million as seed money for a billion-dollar fund to be used to recover and strengthen local journalism in the United States. This is the biggest effort made so far in the country to reduce the proliferation of so-called ‘information deserts’, regions without any journalistic outlets.
What the foundations, including the millionaires Knight, MacArthur and Lenfest, have in mind is to encourage other organizations and individuals to fill in the remaining five hundred million dollars to reach the billion-dollar goal. The entire project will be coordinated by an NGO called Press Forward, which could become a model to be followed by other countries where there are also many cities without newspapers or rádios.
The amount of money involved in the American effort to revitalize local information flows has a lot to do with the closure of 2,200 community newspapers since 2005 and the sharp drop in voter participation among residents in US small towns. But the issue of community press goes far beyond that, as numerous researchers point out. Local journalism may play a key role in rebuilding social relations destroyed by the political-ideological polarization on the rise throughout the world.
The budgetary crisis that hit the entire world press due to the migration of advertisers to the internet was particularly hard on local newspapers and radios, whose gradual disappearance created a news vacuum that was being occupied by the agenda of national newspapers. This ended up subjecting residents of small and medium-sized cities to the growing political/ideological polarization underway in most big countries.
The political importance of local ecosystems
Researchers such as the American Victor Pickard, author of the book Democracy Without Journalism, Confronting the Misinformation Society, agree in the perception that it is at the local level, where people physically meet, that the fight against polarization, fueled by misinformation, achieves better results. Interaction in neighbourhoods and municipalities is based on issues such as health, education, security, transport, and food, where the possibility of understanding is much greater than around abstract and polarized themes such as those proposed by the national and international agenda.
There are still other issues at stake. The entire world press has already entered a period of major transformations caused by the drop in credibility, loss of interest in the news agenda and competition from digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. There is no longer much doubt that the large traditional media conglomerates have their days numbered and that the trend now is to rebuild journalism and the press from the bottom up, that is, from local to national.
Vertical and hierarchical journalism, built on the use of news as a commodity to attract paid advertisements, created a narrative far from conversations between people. The emergence of influencers and public participation in social networks through comments broke the formal rigidity of the storytelling process used by the conventional press. This is one of the reasons why internet news has become more colloquial and informal, including the fact that non-journalists increasingly disseminate it.
But local journalism has two enormous challenges ahead: its long-term sustainability and combating the misinformation/fake news combo. The financial dilemma is basic because the survival of local online journalistic projects depends on it. It is also the most complex because each case tends to have a specific solution, as shown by dozens of ongoing studies in Europe and the United States. There is no plug-and-play sustainability formula for all projects.
The Main Lessons of Previous Sustainability Research
The one-billion-dollar fund still involves many doubts about how it will be applied, but it demonstrates the importance that the main foundations attribute to the role of local journalism in the political arena. This is important for other countries where the business and political parties elite traditionally follow American successful trends. This behaviour can encourage globalization of the debate about the future of our community press.
The search for sustainability in local journalism needs an initial boost that will inevitably come from those who have money, that is, from governments, private foundations, or business conglomerates. However, research such as the one led by the North American researcher Damian Radcliffe, shows that the survival of a project depends on a diversified basket of financial income, where donations and financing must be complemented with payment for access by the public and the provision of services such as events and courses.
Of all the components of the revenue basket, payment for access by readers, listeners and viewers is the most strategically important because it guarantees a more stable and long-lasting revenue stream than donations and the provision of services. However, it is the one that grows more slowly, as it involves a radical change in journalistic routines by requiring professionals to engage deeply with readers, listeners, viewers, and internet users.
People, especially those from the middle class and low income, will only pay for news if it is seen as essential for everyone's daily survival. This perception will not arise by chance, but rather by a systematic effort on the part of journalists and media companies.
