My last posts have been gloomy, given the seemingly endless stream of dire media developments – deep newsroom layoffs, bad ownership of news outlets giving way to worse ownership, and the relentless horserace coverage of national politics.
Reflecting some of this, my former Washington Post colleague, Paul Farhi, just wrote a piece for the Atlantic, cheerily titled “Is American journalism headed toward an extinction-level event?” I’m a bit more hopeful than — and more so than Politico’s Jack Shafer who wrote about the “death rattle” he’s hearing from the press. I’m heartened by the innovation I see and about the good work that continues to be done at outlets new and old.
Maybe, I wrote last time, I’ll mention some positive things soon. A number of you seemed to welcome that idea, so here it is.
Five things I’m feeling good about:
First, VoteBeat. This is a relatively new site, a nonprofit that provides important coverage of the very core of our democracy – voting rights. Its reporting focuses on access to voting and election administration. I would love it anyway, but the fact that its editorial director, Jessica Huseman, is a former student of mine (years ago when she was at Columbia University’s journalism school) makes it extra sweet. Before VoteBeat, she was the lead elections reporter for ProPublica. The site is small but mighty — it has only eight editorial employees, including four reporters. Some of its best reporting has been done in Arizona and Texas, two hotbeds of election-related problems. Check it out, and give it some love.
Second, an organization called Documenters Network that sends “ordinary citizens” out to coverage government meetings and other events in a growing number of cities in the U.S. That includes Detroit, Philadelphia, Akron, Spokane and San Diego. It pays them — though not enough to make a living — and their coverage can turn into stories by staff reporters. It reminds me a bit of East Lansing Information, which trains retirees, homemakers and others to do journalism in what was a news-starved area of Michigan. We’re in an all-hands-on-deck moment, so this is good to see.
Third, Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Newmark founded Craigslist decades ago, and now he has turned his attention (and his money) to helping journalism survive and thrive in a new era. My appreciation is, to some extent, personal. He funded the center for journalism ethics and security that I’ve just started running at Columbia University. But it goes far beyond that. Last week he donated $10 million to the City University of New York’s journalism school that bears his name; as a result, many students will be able to attend tuition-free. Craig calls journalism the immune system of our democracy.
Fourth, local journalists who do their job, especially when it comes to holding public officials accountable. I’m thinking in particular of Jim DeFede, an investigative reporter with CBS News Miami. DeFede on his weekend show bore down on Republican congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar for running around taking credit for bringing funding to her district when, in fact, she had voted against some of that funding. Specifically, he questioned her — and didn’t back off — on her vote against the Chips and Science Act, the huge workforce development bill that is one of President Biden’s proudest accomplishments. She actually said she couldn’t recall whether she voted against it, which is hard to believe. DeFede never got combative; he just didn’t let her off the hook as she tried to feint and dodge. Watch the video — you’ll enjoy his persistence.
Fifth, the progress made by The National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit funded by philanthropy that is buying legacy newspapers around the U.S. Last year, it bought a group of Maine papers, very possibly keeping them out of the hands of one of the predatory hedge funds that are such a plague on local journalism. I had a chance to chat with its CEO and co-founder Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro this week; I wish her and her team luck.
There’s much more: States Newsroom, the American Journalism Project, Press Forward, Rebuild Local News, the Lenfest Institute in Philadelphia, and Aspen Digital. The latter two put on a local news summit this week in Charleston, where some of these ideas came from, and where participants grappled with all sort of thorny issues, particularly the role of artificial intelligence in news organizations. (A big subject for another day.)
One more thing: I’ll share my most recent Guardian column, in which I urged citizens and the press to start talking more urgently about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.
“The serious scholars of fascism are now saying that the ‘F-word’ is merited,” Jeff Sharlet, a Dartmouth professor and author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, told me in an interview on Wednesday.
Thanks for reading, subscribing and caring about these issues. If you’d like to mention anything in media or politics that you find hopeful, please put your contributions in the comments, or tag @sulliview on Twitter. Maybe I’ll make this kind of report on a more regular basis.
Thank you, Margaret, both for these tiny spring-green shoots of hope, and for showing us the vast, dried-up fields where journalism is being starved and allowed to die off.
More intriguing information to peruse. Thanks much. The drought in local news is a fundamental problem for the survival of democracy.