Abstract
In reading Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of Democracy, I am reminded of a famous scene from the movie version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s book, All the President’s Men.
A tousled and grumpy Ben Bradlee, played by Hollywood actor Jason Robards, has been rousted from bed and dragged out onto his front lawn by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two young Washington Post reporters who would be partially responsible for bringing down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.
But they aren’t there yet. Woodward and Bernstein come to their editor to drop a bombshell from one hand and seek guidance with the other. Unfazed, Bradlee sends them back into the field with these words of urgency:
“Nothing’s riding on this, (dramatic pause), except the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe, the future of the country.”
Some 50 years later and journalism is at another crossroads—one equally fraught with peril and with the potential for missteps that could change the future of democracy and with it that of the country. As media audiences are further and further fragmented and advertising dollars follow, the fortunes of local journalism continue to swirl the drain.
Washington Post media columnist and long-time journalist Margaret Sullivan has produced in 95 pages a clear statement of events leading up to the rise of news deserts and ghost newsrooms in the United States and globally. Drawing on her professional experience as editor of the Buffalo News and public editor of the New York Times, a thorough survey of news media research and conversations with news media practitioners across the globe, Sullivan joins the voices sounding the alarm of just what is lost when local news falters.
“When local news fails,” Sullivan writes in her introduction, “the foundations of democracy weaken.”
Between 2004 and 2015, the U.S. newspaper industry lost more than 1,400 outlets, a very high percentage of them non-dailies in rural and suburban areas. Hundreds of American communities, Sullivan writes, now have no newspaper or news outlet, creating what we now call, “news deserts.” In addition, many dailies have reduced publication days, a few have moved solely online and all have slashed staffs if they had staffs to slash. These “ghost newspapers” are shadows of what they once were and unable to serve their role in democratic society.
Complicating matters, Sullivan explains, is public perception. A 2019 Pew Center study found that three-quarters of the American public operate in ignorance believing the nation’s newspapers are doing just fine. The result is “a steep climb—with very little time to crest the hill.”
While Sullivan necessarily delivers the dire news about the state of the news industry, she also explores innovative efforts to shore up existing outlets and to create new models for news. Chapter 3 of her short book depicts “Beacons of Hope,” and her Chapter 5, “New Models,” offers respite from the sounding death knell of local news.
Throughout, Sullivan and her sources extol the value of local news in holding power accountable, supporting a sense of community and providing the news and information that allows participation in democratic society.
She cites the work of two Duke University researchers, Philip Napoli and Jessica Mahone, who wanted to know the impact local newspapers have on their communities. The results pack a punch. In studying more than 100 newspapers across the country, the two found that newspapers produced more local reporting than television, radio and online outlets combined. (This was not surprising to observant news consumers or journalists.)
Sullivan’s industry sources also unflinchingly predict the outcome of a failed industry. In a 2019 interview, Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher and owner of WEHCO Media’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and other newspapers and television stations, told Sullivan of his inner fear. “I’m afraid that five or six years out we’re going to end up with no local newspapers,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what: It’s going to be a field day for corruption.”
While it may seem too late to save a house ablaze, Sullivan argues that “for the sake of democracy, in America and around the world, we need to save as much as possible of what remains . . . at the same time we must energetically support and foster the newer models that are forging the local journalism so necessary for today and tomorrow.”
It is not “easy” reading Ghosting the News given the message, but it is “essential.” And in the reading, journalism students, educators and the public they serve may find solutions to assuring the future of local journalism and democracy.