When it comes to local journalism, the Flathead Valley is an anomaly.
Consider that 70 million Americans – more than one-fifth the nation’s population – reside in a “news desert,” where little if any access to local journalism exists. Herein lies the danger:
When local journalism disappears misinformation and disinformation follows, political polarization grows, fewer people run for public office, voter participation declines and civic engagement suffers.
Democracy, in other words – already teetering on the edge in this country – breaks down, more easily and swiftly than some might realize.
Since 2005, the nation has lost more than a quarter (2,500) of its newspapers and it’s on track to lose one-third by 2025. Every week, as tracked by Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative, two or more newspapers – each its own driver of democracy – vanish.
Newspaper employment, at the same time, has dropped 70 percent. To paraphrase one recent headline: coal mining, steel manufacturing and commercial fishing haven’t lost jobs as fast as the newspaper industry.
For local newspapers still surviving there is light at the end of the tunnel. Online sites of newspapers, for example, have seen both readership and digital ad revenue on average grow steadily for the past 11 years.
Meanwhile, the once ballyhooed digital-only news organizations “unaffiliated with newspapers” are proving to be “no replacement for local journalism,” Medill finds, and often “fail to attract the monthly traffic of … local newspaper sites.”
None of which surprises me. When reaching for local newspapers, Americans have come to rely on the three cornerstones of journalism ethics: truth, accuracy and objectivity (good luck finding that guarantee on social media or your favorite 24-hour cable news channel).
Meanwhile, even as the news deserts expand, individual community-targeted newspapers continue to be published today in Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Bigfork (such odds are even more remarkable given their close proximity).
The Flathead similarly supports an impressive number of radio and TV stations, which despite their own gutted budgets and skeletal staffs play important roles in local news dissemination.
Prior to returning to Montana I was “country editor” for four years of a weekly newspaper published since 1877 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Talk about a shoestring budget, our full-time staff consisted of the publisher, general manager and you guessed it.
Between the three of us we covered car wrecks and government meetings; wrote articles and penned columns; and edited, designed and distributed the newspaper. Our online site was constantly updated with breaking news and other information vital to a community.
Still, glaring gaps existed in our news coverage, particularly pertaining to the inner workings of local government. COVID-19 only made matters worse.
Then the cavalry rode in. A concerned group of citizens united to help the newspaper not only survive, but thrive.
Guessing correctly that readers would be willing to provide financial support, a private nonprofit news organization named Foothills Forum was formed. Its core consists of local retired, semi-retired and freelance journalists who are researching and writing the in-depth investigative stories our staff couldn’t tackle. And the journalism industry has taken notice.
“Our model has been replicated elsewhere, in whole or in part,” observes Foothills chair Andy Alexander, a former Washington Post ombudsman who oversees the forum’s news coverage from his rural home.
Also coming to the rescue has been Report for America, a relatively new national service program that in support of “democracy” plants emerging journalists in local newsrooms. I welcomed two of its talented reporters to our newspaper, and another soon followed (RFA generously pays 50 percent of a reporter’s salary, with the remainder split by the newspaper and local donors).
Other initiatives to preserve local journalism include redirecting venture and philanthropic funding to deserving news organizations; while community focused media groups are buying struggling weeklies and dailies in small and medium-sized markets all but abandoned by mega-newspaper chains.
Even federal and state lawmakers witnessing first-hand the alarming consequences when newspapers are allowed to wither and die are exploring existing government policies and programs as avenues to safeguard local journalism.
When casting an early ballot last week at the new Flathead County Elections Office in Kalispell, the election officer asked me to “remind people to vote!”
Ah yes, the right to vote: an American principle, enshrined in the Constitution, essential to a functioning democracy – one now unimaginably under threat.
John McCaslin is a longtime print and broadcast journalist and author.