00:00 - The following program is sponsored in part by customers

00:04 - bank.

00:12 - We're here

00:13 - with Steve Waldman, president of Rebuild local News.

00:16 - Can you describe some of the work of your organization?

00:21 - Rebuild Local News is focused

00:23 - on the crisis of community news.

00:26 - There's been a collapse

00:30 - all across the country and the availability of community news

00:33 - and local reporting.

00:35 - There's been a 75% drop in the number of reporters in local

00:40 - communities over the last about two decades.

00:44 - So Rebuild local news is focused on

00:46 - one part of the solution, which is public policy.

00:50 - So we actually work in different states to try to pass laws

00:54 - that will help make local news more economically sustainable.

00:58 - What do you think is leading to this crisis?

01:01 - In local news?

01:05 - Well, the short answer is the internet.

01:07 - It's a little more complicated than that.

01:09 - But basically, you know, the local business models, traditionally

01:14 - had involve a lot of advertising from local and national businesses.

01:19 - Most of that advertising fled and went onto the internet,

01:24 - and that led to

01:27 - an 80% drop in newspaper advertising revenue.

01:30 - So that's like the heart of it.

01:31 - But it's then complicated by social media, basically.

01:35 - You know, a lot of the the audience is in digital formats now.

01:40 - And, and then the next thing that will affect this will be AI,

01:45 - but it is basically a kind of collapse of the business models.

01:50 - It's not so much that the audience disappear.

01:52 - There's still a lot of audience for community news, but the business

01:56 - model broke and we haven't yet, you know, figure out the new one.

02:02 - Can you talk about what impact the lack of local news could have on communities?

02:08 - Oh, it's pretty profound.

02:10 - I mean, you have practical things like people don't know who to vote for.

02:15 - People just literally don't know who the candidates are or anything about them.

02:18 - They don't know about issues in their community.

02:20 - So they can't, you know, work to help address them.

02:25 - There's,

02:28 - kind of economic and fiscal impacts.

02:30 - It's bad for the economies of communities when they don't have good local news.

02:34 - There was a study that showed that communities that had no local news

02:37 - had lower, bond ratings and higher borrowing costs.

02:42 - So literally goes into the bottom line and into the pocketbooks

02:45 - of all the residents and the community.

02:49 - And then the last thing, which is a little harder to quantify,

02:52 - but really important, is that the collapse of local news has fed

02:56 - polarization and misinformation, because what tends to happen is

03:00 - when there's a contraction of local news

03:03 - that that vacuum is filled by social media

03:08 - and national news, switch and nationalist tends to be more polarized.

03:12 - So it's not the only cause of, you know, the divisions in our country,

03:16 - but it's definitely exacerbated subjecting them without local news.

03:20 - How are people, going about getting information?

03:26 - Well, to some degree, they're not.

03:29 - They're just getting national information, like they're getting,

03:33 - you know, their news diets have shifted.

03:36 - It's not like anyone feels like there's not enough news out there, right?

03:39 - I mean, it's

03:40 - kind of a it's a bit of a challenge for us because we talk about the shortage

03:43 - of local news and people that go shortage of news, like I'm drowning in news.

03:48 - But, a lot of it is, you know, is is shoddy.

03:53 - But more importantly, a lot of it's national

03:56 - and the local reporting, original reporting is what's is what's gone away.

04:01 - Now people are trying to get what they can, often from places

04:06 - like Nextdoor or Facebook, local groups

04:09 - or, you know, even just email

04:13 - lists, curves and chains like that to scrape together what they can.

04:18 - And sometimes that's fine. Sometimes you can find out.

04:21 - But oftentimes, as you know, from if you've been on and any of those kinds

04:26 - of groups, it's kind of a mishmash of valid and reliable

04:30 - information, just mixed indiscriminately with rumors and conspiracy theories.

04:36 - So it's, you know, some of the information's out there, but it's quite hard

04:43 - to decipher what's real and what's not, what's true.

04:46 - And you don't have the other thing that you don't have is people turning over

04:50 - rocks like reporters doing investigations, because that requires like,

04:55 - you know, full time people or persist reporters during that.

04:59 - You mentioned earlier that, rebuild local news works

05:03 - with some states to come up with policy to help local community news.

05:08 - Can you give some examples of the work you've done in Pennsylvania?

05:13 - Yeah.

05:14 - So Pennsylvania is a major, sort of goal

05:17 - for our for us in the coming year or two because we think it's,

05:22 - it's it's really ready to take some dramatic action.

05:25 - Not a ton has happened yet, but we're now in the process

05:28 - of gearing up, working with Flint residents to and Heinz Foundation

05:33 - and a lot of local players to pull together the strategy.

05:38 - That makes most sense for Pennsylvania.

05:40 - One of the things we found as we've gone from state to state is there's not,

05:44 - you know, one approach that we're pushing in every state.

05:49 - So I can tell you, you know, what seems to be working in other states.

05:53 - And our initial thoughts on Pennsylvania.

05:55 - But I would be curious, would you all think about this?

05:57 - So one one thing that's happened in New York and Illinois

06:02 - and New Mexico is a kind of a tax policy that provides subsidies

06:08 - to news organizations if they retain or hire local reporters.

06:13 - So it's gone right at that reporting shortage.

06:17 - Another thing is what are called fellowships.

06:20 - And it's basically often with the university

06:23 - where the state will provide the money, and then the university will run a program

06:27 - that puts reporters into local newsrooms for two years

06:32 - and and doing really important, you know, work.

06:36 - So that's something that could certainly work

06:38 - in Pennsylvania, given how many great schools there are,

06:42 - in general and also schools that are working on this issue.

06:46 - Another one is,

06:49 - the idea of getting government

06:52 - to push more of its own advertising spending toward local news.

06:57 - So this was something that was really pioneered in New York

07:00 - City, driven by the Cuny Graduate School of Journalism,

07:04 - where they found out that a lot of the New York City's ads

07:08 - were going to the New York Times and the Daily News and national media,

07:12 - and they have like hundreds of little local publications there.

07:15 - And they said,

07:16 - why don't we commit to putting half of it into the community papers?

07:20 - And they did.

07:20 - It shifted $72 million toward community media

07:24 - over five years without spending a single additional penny.

07:27 - So we're trying to replicate that in other states.

07:30 - Maryland actually just became the first state to require that.

07:33 - So that's something that Pennsylvania could do.

07:35 - And then the last one, which I, in a way, might be the most interesting one of all,

07:40 - in a kind of purplish state like Pennsylvania

07:43 - is something that we're working on in a few states, which is,

07:47 - financial support for

07:49 - small businesses that advertise in local news.

07:53 - So it's an interesting kind of twofer, or almost a bank shot

07:58 - where you're providing like a tax relief for some cases, a grant for restaurants

08:04 - and hardware stores and dry cleaners

08:06 - if they advertise in local news or to use in advertising for local news.

08:12 - So it's helping the small businesses because it's a marketing subsidy

08:15 - and they, you know, get more customers and more revenue.

08:18 - But it's also helping the community news because they're getting the ad contracts.

08:23 - And the hope is also that it has a kind of more permanent benefit

08:28 - of like really strengthening that symbiotic relationship

08:33 - that between local businesses and local media

08:37 - that had been so important for for many, many years.

08:41 - And the reason I say

08:42 - it might be interesting in a, in a more purple or divided state

08:46 - is it's not the government directly funding media outlets.

08:51 - The benefit is literally going to restaurants.

08:54 - And they're the ones who are deciding where to buy the ads, like

08:58 - so they're the ones who are picking, you know, the winners, as it were.

09:02 - And presumably

09:03 - they'll do it based on what they think is going to be effective for them.

09:07 - So that's that's another idea.

09:10 - And, you know, we're a little bit in the early stages of this

09:15 - are kind of starting hypothesis that maybe for Pennsylvania,

09:20 - that small business support idea might be the way to go.

09:24 - But we'll we'll see as we get deeper into it.

09:27 - There's really a lot of support for doing things.

09:30 - There's a great media groups, the Pennsylvania Press Association,

09:34 - a lot of great nonprofits.

09:36 - You now have the Pennsylvania to the two big metropolitan dailies

09:40 - are now owned by nonprofit institutions, which is very unusual.

09:45 - In fact, it's the only state that has that.

09:47 - So it's a it's a there's a lot of very positive things going on in Pennsylvania,

09:52 - in sort of reviving and reinventing

09:55 - community news to make it better than what it was before.

09:59 - Is there any way you would want to see the federal government get involved in,

10:03 - community news at all?

10:07 - Yeah.

10:07 - A lot of these approaches that we're taking on the state level

10:09 - could be done by the federal level, too, like the tax credit for hiring,

10:15 - or retaining local journalists

10:19 - actually started out as a federal bill

10:22 - and passed the US House of Representatives

10:25 - and, actually came within a couple votes of passing in the Senate.

10:29 - So it actually it almost was a federal law.

10:31 - And then when Congress changed over, we started working in the states.

10:35 - So I would say most of these ideas could also be done at the federal level.

10:40 - Lastly, what can the people of Pennsylvania

10:43 - do to support local journalism in their communities?

10:48 - Well, one

10:49 - is to literally support local journalism in their communities by,

10:55 - either, you know, buying a subscription, if there's a,

10:58 - you know, a subscriber based thing, making a donation,

11:01 - if it's a nonprofit news organization or a public radio or something like that.

11:05 - And then the third thing is to let legislators know that you care about this.

11:11 - This is kind of a new, you know, a new,

11:14 - for us to have public policy help with this.

11:17 - But, you know, that this is kind of a form

11:21 - of civic infrastructure, like having libraries in schools.

11:24 - You have to have good local information.

11:26 - And the more people

11:29 - save that

11:30 - and, you know, let legislators know that the more likely we'll get good laws.

11:35 - It can't be thought of as just like this is a private industry

11:38 - and they're looking for a bailout or something.

11:40 - This is something that is all about the health of communities and democracy,

11:44 - in the Commonwealth.

11:45 - And that's only going to happen if people want it and ask for it.

11:50 - So that

11:51 - in addition to be like very direct, you know, support your local media thing,

11:54 - we would encourage people to tell their assembly members

11:59 - and state senators, that this is important to them.

12:04 - We've been speaking with Steve Waldman, president of Rebuild Local News.

12:08 - Thank you for joining us.

12:10 - Thank you so much for having me.