Both Sides Win

All politics is local, the adage goes, but the same can’t be said for news. There are layers, from international all the way to school boards. And never has there been so much access, so many outlets, a veritable fire hose of information flowing out of televisions, newspapers, cellphones and computer screens.

But that high-pressure source carries a great deal of pollution with it. There’s misinformation mixed in, some of it intentionally, depending on the source. The wider the story, the bigger the audience — and the bigger the audience, the more likely the waters will get muddy.

At the same time, there are news organizations — like this one — that serve a real community, not a virtual one. What’s the difference? A virtual community typically assembles around a unifying activity, a belief, a political stance. A real community has a mix of all kinds of people who happen to be living together, if not in harmony then largely in accord. The best of those communities are well-informed, and they trust and support the community journalism at their fingertips. Both sides win.

This is a critical moment for American democracy, but also for the future of community journalism. It’s no coincidence that while more and more readers have drifted online, and to social media in particular, our country and communities across the world have become fractured. The spread of misinformation online has become a cancer, and while large digital companies like Facebook and Google have capitalized on their global reach, small community news outlets have suffered financially — even as their work has been widely recognized as essential. (Studies over the last 10 years have addressed news deserts across America, where community newspapers have been shuttered, leading to corruption, misinformation and rampant division.)

When it comes to saving local newspapers, the solutions won’t be found in web metrics, ad rates or shrinking news holes. The solution, seemingly simple yet terrifying complicated, is for newspapers to reconnect with the people they’re supposed to be serving.

And things are changing, as we speak, for local news outlets and the communities they serve. A bill before Congress, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, would provide tax credits to small media companies to hire actual journalists. The bill originally included tax credits that would incentivize advertising by local businesses and subscriptions for local readers, but those may be scrapped in favor of a scaled-down bill that supports the hiring of journalists alone. Any level of support will help, and it’s a more educated consumer who will benefit the most.

The focus on local newspapers was prompted in part by frustration that industry leaders were too focused on the major players — papers run by corporations and big chains. That approach overlooks the more than 8,600 local newspapers covering the parades, the school board meetings and the soccer games of small-town America and Canada.

The problems those papers face mirror those of the bigger players: declining revenues and rising costs that sometimes force closings. But for independent local papers with shoestring budgets, the financial burdens fall proportionately harder: Cutting a position from a four-person newsroom, for example, is a lot more difficult than cutting one from a newsroom of 40. Small papers with few resources have been left to fend for themselves as the ground shifts under them.

A national initiative by the newspaper association managers in the United States and Canada, called “The Relevance Project,” took stock of all the industry’s warts, from public mistrust to falling page counts, from rising subscription costs to poorly functioning websites. From the newspaper association managers’ perspective, the results were a much-needed slap in the face: Newspapers weren’t doing right by their readers.

The Relevance Project is working to reassert newspapers’ relevance to their communities by building on the credibility they already have. It aims to remind people that newspapers serve as a trusted community forum and as a resource. A newspaper’s strength and future rely on its local community; fortifying that relationship will fortify the paper.

This week is National Newspaper Week, and here at the Express News Group we are constantly working to find new ways of building reader trust and community engagement. Our Express Sessions series returns next week and will focus on critical issues facing our communities, from Westhampton to Montauk. Subscribers are invited to join us for free; others are asked to pay a nominal fee. We’ve started a podcast, publish 11 magazines every year, are partnering with WLIW-FM on a weekly radio show showcasing local journalists, and are constantly updating our websites — all while producing, printing and distributing more than 200 print editions every year.

There’s no question that a community newspaper needs the support of advertisers and readers. The newspaper understands that the community is what makes a newspaper great. The reverse is true, too.