Anu Anand’s Post

Weekend Read: A game-changing bill could allocate $11.5M to local newsrooms in DC, empowering residents with the spending power. Strengthening our local press is critical and Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, Esq.'s bill sets a national example. "Under this bill, every D.C. resident would get a set of  'News Coupons' and would choose which news sources to give the coupons to... This means the government never decides which outlets get money — you do. We do. Under the bill, a large number of people in D.C., many who now may not have the financial means to pay for news, will be able to support news outlets that serve them. This would be a remarkable step forward, not just for local news, but also for building community." Read RLN Policy Director Anna Brugmann and Mark Histed’s piece on the bill in The Washington Informer: https://lnkd.in/g8Sf2Zmm #DC #LocalNews #PublicPolicy #Coupons #Journalism #Government

Happy to have this piece out. Anna Brugmann and I talk about funding local news with public dollars, and how this can help improve democratic function, and save money. (And we take on a few common objections, like - What prevents government interference? Answer: individual coupons; gov't doesn't decide.) In the US we fund basic science with public money, because basic science is something that the private sector doesn't have incentive to fund — the benefit is too far in the future. We should fund journalism with public money, because journalism is also hard to fund via the private sector — we all benefit from local news in better democracy, but individual consumers don't look at that when they pay for news. #localnews #science #governance #democracy

There seems to be a panic in the the local news reporting business. From print to broadcast there is a profit problem. It is simple, if people like your reporting, if you are telling the truth and not telling what corporate tells you to report readers and viewers will most likely be more interested in buying your newspaper and watching your news casts. And, you will sell enough advertising to justify your business. The Biden regime is subsidizing 'news' in blue run cities, I wonder why? And, as for PBS, if viewers want to watch they will. Then go SELL advertising to pay your bills and quit having the regime pay you with tax dollars to promote their propaganda. Government supported propaganda is against the principles of this great nation. Freedom of the press should not be supported by tax dollars.https://https://lnkd.in/gfF8YY6d https://lnkd.in/gfF8YY6d

The Community News and Small Business Support Act (H.R. 4756) was introduced in congress this week as a means to supporting local newsrooms and small papers across the country. This is an important step in saving an essential part of our democracy (the fourth estate). #localmedia #press #journalism #fourthestate #government https://lnkd.in/eYE3VSme

📣 Big news out of California: Thanks to the tireless efforts led by local journalists, community publishers, public-interest groups, labor unions and grassroots advocates, the CA state Senate passed SB 1327, which would impose a “data extraction mitigation fee” on major tech platforms to help subsidize local journalism. The revenue this fee would generate, estimated to be roughly $500 million, would spur the hiring and retention of journalists at a time when newsroom job losses are reaching crisis levels. In addition, the legislation would provide support to pay freelancers, a category of workers that smaller and ethnic media publications rely on. It would also support UC Berkeley’s California Local News Fellowship program, creating an important path to sustainability for a vital initiative in the state. This is a huge step forward, but there's work ahead too. As it moves to the Assembly, the legislation must ensure that support is directed to outlets most in need, especially those community publishers, nonprofit newsrooms and ethnic-media outlets that serve populations that traditional media have long neglected. Read more from Free Press Action here: https://lnkd.in/eN_9rKCr

This is victory for: Transparency (yeah, journalism) Democratic process (how about we don't ram through important legislation without actual discussing it) https://lnkd.in/etBxbN7t

By Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal (Here's an Excerpt from Noonan's Column) Many in media are reflecting on how exactly to cover the 2024 presidential election - a question seemingly made more urgent by the decisions of MSNBC and CNN to forgo live coverage of Donald Trump’s victory speech in Iowa. That deprived viewers of legitimate information while reinforcing the networks’ reputation for anti-Trump bias. Here we take a stab at what kind of coverage might help the country. THE FIRST GUIDING PRICIPLE: The temperature will be high throughout 2024; some fear actual political violence. So if you can’t make things cooler, don’t deliberately make them hotter. This will require a new and heavier emphasis on evenhanded coverage. Will everyone in America appreciate it? No. People are so used to seeing bias that they imagine it when it isn’t there. But it would be a boon to the country and the profession to do it, and some will notice. So do it. SECOND, know where you are. Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron told NPR in December that journalists must earn back public trust. “Make the assumption that people won’t believe a word we say, and then say, OK, here’s the evidence.” Much of the 2024 news cycle will revolve around court cases. “We need to lay out the evidence,” Baron said. “If we’re talking about a court document, we need to show that court document.” THIRD, he who fact-checks A must fact-check B. A fact-check that persuades is NOT “Trump here is lying because he’s a lying liar who lies.” Both candidates lie, or at least mislead. You might say Trump lies more. Fine, his fact check will be longer. But when Joe Biden says his policy on illegal immigration hasn’t contributed to the border problem, that needs a serious, detailed, nonpartisan fact check. KERSMARKI'S TAKE: It's not complicated ... BE FAIR AND ACCURATE. So, journalism is either completely dead or not. 2024 will be the Fourth Estate's LAST CHANCE. And I'm not very optimistic, especially if Biden is forced to drop out and most of the media falls all over itself to anoint a new Democrat presidential nominee. Only time will tell ... https://lnkd.in/ehWNKQU5

We sometimes take for granted that our local newspaper will always be there when we need it. But the stark reality is that one-quarter (2,500) of the country’s newspapers have shuttered since 2005, and another third are expected to close by 2025 if we don’t do something to reverse this startling trend. The Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA) is a bipartisan bill that would allow local news companies to negotiate with Big Tech to ensure they are treated fairly and compensated justly, helping to sustain this critical function in our society. If Congress doesn’t pass the JCPA now, communities across America will continue to lose quality local, fact-based news coverage. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e7gsvYAT

https://lnkd.in/ekT3EbHS Why Local Media Has Failed Us My first question is: do local reporters verify the statements made by politicians and bureaucrats? I’ll answer no, because we don’t see such verification in the stories. Verification requires reporters to actually ask questions, to look up data, assess it, and in some cases challenge the information given, and to publish those questions and answers.

The ‘fake news’-ification of local news—and what to do about it Doron Taussig “Journalism is, broadly speaking, a profession that attracts liberal-leaning people, and newsrooms tend to have a liberal-leaning culture, including in more right-leaning parts of the country. In recent years many liberals have become less willing to treat right-wing ideas as acceptable discourse, and less willing to use language that might feel politically ‘neutral’—though it is difficult to separate this development from the fact that… The Trump era has made it more difficult to give respectful coverage to right-wing ideas while adhering to standards of decency and accuracy, and it is wrong to give ‘both sides’ coverage to bigotry or lies. Right-wing leaders have long found it useful to demonize the press, and now that they are less reliant on the media to reach their constituents, many have more interest in using journalists as foils than in honest engagement. The net effect of these developments is that local news, like national news before it, has acquired a liberal reputation in conservative communities, and reporters who cover local crime and zoning-board hearings have joined their national counterparts as villains in the right-wing narrative of American life.” H/T Jay Rosen https://lnkd.in/erC9ZTX5