Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. When you're trying
Speaker 1: to do journalism, then you have to kind of run
Speaker 1: out and make sure you can pay your reporters that
Speaker 1: week or next month. That's a tough thing. For some
Speaker 1: years now, local news organizations have been feeling the pinch.
Speaker 1: Their audiences have moved online, and advertising revenue, which used
Speaker 1: to pay most of the costs of the journalism, has
Speaker 1: gone elsewhere. A lot of those times are going to
Speaker 1: the so called duopoly of Facebook and Google. Bell kightening
Speaker 1: and budget cutting have reduced the quantity and quality of
Speaker 1: local reporting, and all over the country news operations have
Speaker 1: been closing up shop. This isn't just a problem for
Speaker 1: journalists themselves. Margaret Sullivan thinks there's something much larger at
Speaker 1: risk when reporters who expose wrongdoing by government and business
Speaker 1: don't have the backing of successful news organizations. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to ignore a gadfly citizen, as
Speaker 1: these folks might be seen, rather than a big institution
Speaker 1: that's powerful. Democracy depends on citizens paying attention. Strong local
Speaker 1: news operations help citizens stay in form and hold officials accountable.
Speaker 1: Without good local journalism, corruption flourishes and citizens become more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Margaret Sullivan is ringing alarm bells, and she's hopeful. I
Speaker 1: think that the decline of local news is solvable. Margaret
Speaker 1: Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post and
Speaker 1: formerly the public editor of The New York Times. Her
Speaker 1: new book is called Ghosting the News, Local Journalism and
Speaker 1: the Crisis of American Democracy. I talked with her about
Speaker 1: the scale and serious the collapse of local news and
Speaker 1: what can be done to fix it. Well, Margaret, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Unsolvable and let's talk first about the
Speaker 1: dimensions of this problem. There's no question that we are
Speaker 1: losing local newspapers. I think something close to two thousand
Speaker 1: if I read that right in your book, have gone
Speaker 1: out of business in the past fifteen years. And the
Speaker 1: ones that remain aren't exactly thriving. And of course that
Speaker 1: matters a lot to us journalists. Those are our friends.
Speaker 1: That's the system we came up in. But why does
Speaker 1: this matter so much? As you say in the title
Speaker 1: of your book, to American democracy? It matters because while
Speaker 1: newspapers are certainly not the only way that people are
Speaker 1: informed about their communities and their public officials they have
Speaker 1: been over time, perhaps the key way that people get
Speaker 1: information about how their local governments are functioning and how
Speaker 1: communities have a base of facts from which to operate.
Speaker 1: They may disagree on the facts or what to do
Speaker 1: about them, but they sort of have this shared substance
Speaker 1: that makes sense to everybody. As that has dwindled away
Speaker 1: largely because of the dissolution of the underlying business model
Speaker 1: based on print advertising, largely, people are less informed, people
Speaker 1: are less civically engaged, and it hurts the underlying the
Speaker 1: underpinnings of the way our society and our government is
Speaker 1: supposed to function. So it's primarily an accountability problem, right
Speaker 1: If simply put, if the press isn't watching government officials
Speaker 1: can get away with more corruption, more mismanagement. I think
Speaker 1: you said it exactly right, Jacob. It is primarily an
Speaker 1: accountability problem. But I see another aspect to a two
Speaker 1: which I just like to mention, which is has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with really watchdog journalism or that accountability, which
Speaker 1: is that newspapers have traditionally been a way that communities
Speaker 1: helped knit themselves together, whether it's about coverage of concerts
Speaker 1: or restaurants or theater or interesting people or obituaries. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a village square for the community. That has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with whether the town council or the
Speaker 1: city council is mismanaging your tax dollars. But it does
Speaker 1: have to do with sort of cohesion within the community.
Speaker 1: So it's both of those things and probably a bunch
Speaker 1: of others too. But why is it important that it's
Speaker 1: news organizations versus you know, bloggers or people posting smartphone
Speaker 1: videos or tweeting about what's going on in their town
Speaker 1: or community. Why isn't citizen journalism the replacement for all this?
Speaker 1: Citizen journalism, if that's what we want to call it,
Speaker 1: is part of the solution. One of the things it
Speaker 1: can't do very well, though, is publicized to the same
Speaker 1: degree that a front page headline or a big homepage
Speaker 1: treatment can from the Chicago Tribune or the Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to ignore a gadfly citizen, as
Speaker 1: these folks might be seen, rather than a big institution
Speaker 1: that's powerful. This has now become a problem of democracy,
Speaker 1: and not just in the United States, of course, It's
Speaker 1: going on around the world. So the question is why
Speaker 1: is it happening? Is it mainly just that the ad
Speaker 1: dollars that used to support local news now go mainly
Speaker 1: to Google and Facebook. That's a huge part of it.
Speaker 1: It is, I would say, if you had to identify
Speaker 1: one reason for this, it does have to do with advertising.
Speaker 1: So you know, in the old days, which aren't that
Speaker 1: long ago, the way newspapers supported themselves and their staffs
Speaker 1: was sort of two thirds advertising and one third subscriptions. Now, interestingly,
Speaker 1: at places like the New York Times, which are doing
Speaker 1: well and are going to make it, they are able
Speaker 1: to get enough digital subscribers to you know, really support
Speaker 1: the business. But for local newspapers, including the big regionals,
Speaker 1: there isn't enough, you know, there may not be enough
Speaker 1: audience there to buy those subscriptions to make up for
Speaker 1: the loss of ad dollars. And the ad dollars went
Speaker 1: away in part because print faded so much and digital
Speaker 1: advertising never measured up in the way that we hoped
Speaker 1: it would. You know, people talked about eventually when they
Speaker 1: figured it out, they started talking about print dollars and
Speaker 1: digital dimes. And that's the case. And also a lot
Speaker 1: of those dimes are going to the so called duopoly
Speaker 1: of Facebook and Google, as you say so, Margaret. The
Speaker 1: top national news organizations seemed to be doing pretty well,
Speaker 1: the New York Times where it used to be the
Speaker 1: public editor, or the Washington Post where you're the media
Speaker 1: critic now, but a few years ago things look pretty
Speaker 1: bleak for them too. So what can the next level
Speaker 1: of metropolitan news organizations learn from their turnaround? Their success?
Speaker 1: Because the Times in the Post are adding journalists and
Speaker 1: increasing their journalistic footprint even as the papers and cities
Speaker 1: a little smaller than that are drastically shrinking. Absolutely right.
Speaker 1: And these are both interesting examples because both the New
Speaker 1: York Times and the Washington Post had some pretty rough
Speaker 1: years and not so long ago, but they have started
Speaker 1: concentrating on something new, not entirely new, but concentrating more
Speaker 1: deeply on digital subscribers, people who are going to pay
Speaker 1: money to get their journalism. And so rather than concentrate
Speaker 1: on you know, sort of this is the lay person's
Speaker 1: way to say it, but clicks. Rather than concentrate on clicks,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit more oriented towards the advertising
Speaker 1: end of things, now the emphasis is on really deepening
Speaker 1: a loyalty to the audience, the readership, the view or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it so that there's this
Speaker 1: sense of, Yes, I really appreciate this work, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to put it on a renewable thing on my
Speaker 1: credit card so that I keep getting the New York
Speaker 1: Times of the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal. It
Speaker 1: is more challenging for the local and the regional outlets
Speaker 1: because they have a smaller, you know, sort of universe
Speaker 1: to appeal to. The Times in the Post and the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal can you know, be marketing themselves really globally.
Speaker 1: The Buffalo News, the Chicago Tribune and sometimes probably aren't
Speaker 1: going to be able to do that because the content
Speaker 1: that they have that's that's different, that makes them indispensable
Speaker 1: is going to be local. Um. You know, So there's
Speaker 1: just you know, there's a there's a smaller sort of um,
Speaker 1: there's a smaller universe of possible subscribers out there. But
Speaker 1: you know, the Boston Globe has made real progress on this,
Speaker 1: The La Times has made real progress on this, and
Speaker 1: there is reason to hope. Don't they all just need
Speaker 1: to get together in some way. I mean, on a a
Speaker 1: given day, I may want to read a story in
Speaker 1: Cleveland or in Buffalo, or in LA in Chicago, but
Speaker 1: I don't go to those sites often enough that it
Speaker 1: would make sense for me, living in New York to
Speaker 1: subscribe to any of them. But I'd gladly pay for
Speaker 1: a speed pass that let me gave me access to
Speaker 1: all newspapers in the country and shared the shared the
Speaker 1: revenue with all of them. That seems like a good idea.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that developed, but I think it has promise,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people would feel the
Speaker 1: same way. It's like, I don't really want to subscribe to,
Speaker 1: you know, the Toledo Blade, but there's this story I
Speaker 1: really want to read, so I'll use my past, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's worth exploring, and maybe it
Speaker 1: has been explored. I have seen sort of the system
Speaker 1: of micropayments, you know, you pay a tiny amount for
Speaker 1: this one story you want to read, sort of like
Speaker 1: you would with a music app that has not seemed
Speaker 1: to do well or be very helpful. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the other solutions and things you talk about
Speaker 1: in the book. One that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: very interested in is nonprofit models and philanthropic support. I
Speaker 1: think one of the most successful new news organizations in
Speaker 1: the country is a Texas Tribune, which is based in
Speaker 1: Austin and probably covers government and politics in Texas better
Speaker 1: than the newspapers ever did in their heyday. And that's
Speaker 1: a nonprofit. So is that kind of model the solution
Speaker 1: to it. It's a solution without a doubt. The Texas Tribune,
Speaker 1: and now the Texas Tribune is working with pro Publica,
Speaker 1: which is another great digital investigative site that has more
Speaker 1: of a national point of view. And we do see
Speaker 1: them in many other communities. There's the Voice of San Diego,
Speaker 1: there's Minpost in Minneapolis, the one I mentioned in Buffalo.
Speaker 1: It is, you know, it is difficult to make them
Speaker 1: scale to the point that newspapers were able to, you know,
Speaker 1: to that level. I don't think that there probably will
Speaker 1: be the opportunity to put a nonprofit based on philanthropic
Speaker 1: or membership dollars in every small town that's lost a weekly.
Speaker 1: So scale is a real problem and a real issue there.
Speaker 1: But where they do work, they're great, and they also
Speaker 1: tend to be more nimble and sometimes more aggressive, less
Speaker 1: hide bound, less willing to sort of cowtow to the
Speaker 1: local powers that be. They can really do some great work,
Speaker 1: and they do it's good not to be dependent on advertising,
Speaker 1: right You don't have to think what the big local
Speaker 1: advertiser is going to think about your story. I mean,
Speaker 1: the money has to come from somewhere, but if it
Speaker 1: comes from donors and foundations who care about the community,
Speaker 1: it's less likely that any one of them is going
Speaker 1: to try to exert a lot of control. Maybe. I mean,
Speaker 1: donors are human beings as well, and and sometimes in
Speaker 1: a community, the big donors are the same people that
Speaker 1: you might want to write a big investigative piece about. So,
Speaker 1: you know, and are you going to pull your punches
Speaker 1: because you don't want to mess with your you know,
Speaker 1: your biggest contributor. It did. It certainly was the case
Speaker 1: at newspapers and may still be that, you know, you
Speaker 1: didn't really want to get the biggest car dealership in
Speaker 1: town very mad at you because they were, you know,
Speaker 1: they were contributing so much to the bottom line. But
Speaker 1: there always was a real separation between advertising and editorial
Speaker 1: in Buffalo. We never saw an you know, for a
Speaker 1: long time, it would be unheard of for an advertising
Speaker 1: salesman to you know, even be in the newsroom. Now
Speaker 1: I think there's you know, there's less of a separation
Speaker 1: between the money side and the journalism side. And I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting that there's an integrity problem in these news organizations.
Speaker 1: I don't know of one, but I you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's something that has to be thought about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what I've observed about the best of the nonprofits,
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune and as you say, nationally ProPublica is
Speaker 1: that they're really entrepreneurial. So they managed to be both
Speaker 1: nonprofit and be able to raise money and tax deductible money,
Speaker 1: but they also actually think like entrepreneurial businesses. That's great
Speaker 1: solution in a few cases, but that's very hard to scale.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to have and as you say, compounded
Speaker 1: by the problem of smallness with these really local sites,
Speaker 1: you know, how can they be enterprising businesses and raise
Speaker 1: philanthropic money and do their primary job of covering government
Speaker 1: and covering the news, right? I mean, I have talked
Speaker 1: with one founder of a nonprofit who told me that
Speaker 1: they have had to fundraise to meet payroll at times,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty scary when you're trying to do journalism.
Speaker 1: Then you have to kind of run out and make
Speaker 1: sure you can pay your reporters. That week or next month.
Speaker 1: That's a tough thing. But you know, speaking of the
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial spirit that you mentioned, absolutely true. The other thing
Speaker 1: that is happening more of necessity is collaboration between news organizations.
Speaker 1: You know. So now with state house coverage on the decline,
Speaker 1: there's an outfit in Pennsylvania called Spotlight PA that has
Speaker 1: gotten a bunch of different news organizations, not just newspapers,
Speaker 1: but broadcast and radio together to combine and produce state
Speaker 1: house coverage that they can all use. These are places
Speaker 1: that probably would have been you know, scoop happy with
Speaker 1: each other trying to come pete in the past, and
Speaker 1: now they're trying to collaborate. It goes a little bit
Speaker 1: against the journalistic DNA I think should be so nice
Speaker 1: to the guy that used to be your competitor. But
Speaker 1: I think that's really an important part of what has
Speaker 1: to happen, Margaret. People talk about the idea of giving
Speaker 1: news organizations an antitrust exemption, which I understand to mean
Speaker 1: that they'd be allowed to all get together or make
Speaker 1: a deal among themselves and then say to Google and Facebook,
Speaker 1: here's the deal with all of us, or you get
Speaker 1: a deal with none of us. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: a union sort of for organizations in a way baseball
Speaker 1: has an antitrust exemption. There are lots of examples of
Speaker 1: antitrust exemptions. Does that make sense to you, Yes, it does.
Speaker 1: I mean it actually has to do with sort of
Speaker 1: the power in numbers. Instead of just this little organization
Speaker 1: trying to go up against these massive social media platforms
Speaker 1: or search engines, huge companies worldwide. It gives them some
Speaker 1: some solidarity and some ability to get together. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google are always making all this noise about
Speaker 1: how they want to support local journalism, and they're you know,
Speaker 1: they seem to feel kind of guilty about accidentally destroying it.
Speaker 1: They didn't destroy it on purpose, it was it was
Speaker 1: a side effect of building their businesses. But did they
Speaker 1: And thinking again about philanthropic solutions, I mean, as they're
Speaker 1: separate from the idea of an antitrust exemption, you know,
Speaker 1: is there a way that they can be prevailed upon
Speaker 1: to support all this journalism which they really need to exist.
Speaker 1: Google is a lot worse if all the newspapers go
Speaker 1: out of business, if they are forced to, they will
Speaker 1: you know, the things that they've done that have been voluntary,
Speaker 1: which I think are useful, good and relatively small scale,
Speaker 1: you know, have happened, you know, out of a sense
Speaker 1: of you know, kind of managing the pr around it,
Speaker 1: I think, and maybe wanting to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: The Google News initiative has helped a bunch of different
Speaker 1: newspapers figure out how to get digital subscriptions, and that's
Speaker 1: very positive. Facebook has changed its algorithms so that it
Speaker 1: features local news more and does reimburse some of them more.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think it's at the point that's
Speaker 1: going to save anything right now, Margaret, What about the
Speaker 1: idea of direct government support. I mean, that's an idea
Speaker 1: that we journalist sort have just hated, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of decades ago, but there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: a great alternative to it now. So the idea of
Speaker 1: direct government support is one that, as you say, you know,
Speaker 1: has been sort of a third rail for journalists. We
Speaker 1: just don't want to ever compromise our independence or our
Speaker 1: idea of our own independence by taking money directly from
Speaker 1: the government. But you know, I think and others are
Speaker 1: beginning to think, because we're in a more desperate straits
Speaker 1: now that this is something that bears a closer and
Speaker 1: a deeper look. Nicholas Lemon, they Columbia Journalism School former
Speaker 1: dean who is the CEO of the publishing house that
Speaker 1: published my book, Columbia Global Reports, is farther along on
Speaker 1: this spectrum than i am. And he really believes that
Speaker 1: safeguards and guardrails can be built in so that independence
Speaker 1: would be preserved. It has to do with how it
Speaker 1: is set up and the extent to which there is
Speaker 1: true independence built in. At the Voice of America, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration has really intruded there. It is worrisome. I
Speaker 1: mean there, you know, there's a political pointee who's just
Speaker 1: been put in charge, replacing a woman named Amanda Bennett,
Speaker 1: who was the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, had a
Speaker 1: distinguished news career. You know, these are the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that can happen when there's government control. You go,
Speaker 1: you go, in a blink of an eye from journalism
Speaker 1: to propaganda. Looks like it's what's going to happen at
Speaker 1: Voice of America. Yes, so that's a real worry, and
Speaker 1: that's something that clearly needs to be foreseen and prevented. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: which of these solutions do you really want to place
Speaker 1: your bets on. I mean, this is an urgent problem.
Speaker 1: We're losing local news organizations every week. So I'm well
Speaker 1: aware that this is a solutions oriented effort we're doing here,
Speaker 1: But I cannot say that I think there's one one
Speaker 1: most promising solution. I think whatever happens, and it has
Speaker 1: to be a combination of things, and they don't really
Speaker 1: go together. It's got to be kind of a patchwork
Speaker 1: in which we encourage and support the nonprofits, in which
Speaker 1: people in communities recognize that they've got to support their
Speaker 1: newspaper if they wanted to continue public policy answers. So,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of different things, and certainly the
Speaker 1: nurturing of nonprofits, both as these digital startups and also
Speaker 1: as newspapers begin in a very small way to start
Speaker 1: turning themselves into nonprofits, as the Salt Lake Tribune just
Speaker 1: did you know, that has to be fostered and encouraged
Speaker 1: as well. So a bunch of different things and a
Speaker 1: lot of crossed fingers, and maybe some prayers to Saint
Speaker 1: Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists. Well beyond prayers,
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder what people listening who are concerned
Speaker 1: about this problem, as I very much am can do.
Speaker 1: I think you're probably going to say that the first
Speaker 1: thing is to support your local news organization, But how
Speaker 1: can people do that, and what else can they do? Well?
Speaker 1: They can support their local news organization, most simply by subscribing,
Speaker 1: by saying, yeah, I wish it was better, it used
Speaker 1: to be thicker. I liked it more when ex columnist
Speaker 1: was there. But I'm still going to subscribe. So that's
Speaker 1: a really basic thing. And then I think to engage
Speaker 1: with it, to write a letter to the editor, to
Speaker 1: call the city editor and say, hey, you know, when
Speaker 1: you covered my town board meeting, you got this wrong.
Speaker 1: And then you similarly, to be in touch with your
Speaker 1: local representatives in Congress and possibly at the state level,
Speaker 1: to say, hey, local journalism really matters a lot to me,
Speaker 1: what are you doing about it? So I think all
Speaker 1: those things can be helpful. Margaret, thanks for joining us Unsolvable.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. That was Margaret Sullivan.
Speaker 1: Her new book is Ghosting the News, Local Journalism, and
Speaker 1: the Crisis of American Democracy. Remember to check out our
Speaker 1: show notes for links to the suggestions our guests make
Speaker 1: about ways that you can get involved. Next week, my
Speaker 1: co host Ann Applebaum talks with the linguist John mcwarter.
Speaker 1: He's someone who is attentive to the complexities of the
Speaker 1: spoken word, and he has some straightforward ideas about how
Speaker 1: to solve cancel culture. Please join us. Solvable is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Pushkin Industries. Our show is produced by
Speaker 1: Camille Baptista, Senior producer Jocelyn Frank. Catherine Girardou is our
Speaker 1: managing producer, and our executive producer is Mia Lobell. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Heather Fame, Eric Sandler, Carley Mgmuiori, and Kadija Holland.
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Weisberg.