A former newsman's powerful artwork about ghost newspapers
Tim Atseff, once a ranking editor at the Syracuse Herald-Journal, mourns the decline of local newspapers
One of the themes of my work in recent years has been the decline of local newspapers and the damage that has done to democracy. I lived that story in my three-decade career at my hometown paper, The Buffalo News, where the newsroom staff is about a third of what it was during my 12 years as top editor.
My 2020 book, “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy,” tells the tale.
It’s incredibly sad and worrisome, although there are some bright spots in the local news picture, too, with the growth of digital sites and quite a bit of philanthropic support coming the way of local journalism.
Tim Atseff, who was a high ranking editor at the Syracuse Herald-Journal (which was absorbed into the city’s Post-Standard many years ago), retired from the news business in 2011.
He reset his life and returned to his roots as a visual artist. Atseff got in touch with me recently and sent me some of his artwork that illustrates the demise of local newspapers. I found it powerful and wanted to share some of it here; Tim — who has had solo exhibitions of his work and has participated in juried shows — kindly agreed.
Let us know what you think. And tell me what your sources of local news are, and how satisfied you are with those sources. Thanks for subscribing and caring about these issues!
In my small, rural Illinois hometown, the local paper was never very good. It's been absorbed by a bigger nearby town, so there is even less coverage of city hall. The county has moved further and further to the right because, I think, there is no journalist to hold officials accountable. A few months after Covid hit, the county sheriff put out a statement on Facebook that he would not enforce the governor's Covid guidelines because people should be able to have graduation parties and picnics. Who would question him? Only Facebook commenters. Last year, the mayor of my hometown hired his buddy to do PR/grant writing for the city in a nine month position for $85k. This guy already worked a full time job and had no experience in PR/grant writing. I did a FOIA request for the meeting notes where the position was approved, the salary/benefits and anything else related. They claimed it was an emergency, so they didn't go through the normal process. When I was a public library director, I learned a lot about how local governments work, especially budgets. People would be shocked to see what goes on, particularly by people they know and like.
I think local news might need to reinvent itself. I have no idea what that might look like, though. I still prefer hard copy books to digital, but I can't remember the last time I bought a hard copy newspaper.