You asked for 'action steps' for this troubling moment
Here are a few for your consideration. (And have a great holiday!)
Readers, as this holiday week begins, I want first to express my gratitude to all for supporting the American Crisis newsletter — whether you do that through a subscription, or simply by reading it when it comes your way on social media or elsewhere. I’m especially grateful to those who participate in the comments section, offering responses or ideas. Be assured I read them, even if I don’t respond to each one.
And I want to report that — even after I removed the paywall here as a small gesture of community support after the election — the newsletter has grown. It now lands in more than 20,000 inboxes; paid subscriptions (a small fraction of that whole) have continued to rise as well. All of that encourages me to continue with this project, which began as an experimental 10-part podcast last year asking the question “can journalism save democracy?”
So thank you very much, and I hope you have a good week and year ahead. Keep the faith that America will come through this moment with our principles intact.
Toward that end, I heard from a reader recently who asked for (well, sort of demanded) what she called action steps — ways that regular citizens can go forward at a time when democratic norms are being threatened daily and the dangers of a second Trump administration haven’t even begun in earnest.
So, as a start, here are a few. Please let me know what you are doing that may also be helpful to others.
— Know the importance of local news and support it. Consider this: Texas congresswoman Kay Granger, 81, hasn’t cast any votes since July. The Dallas Express, a small news site, reported a couple of days ago that the former chairwoman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee — she stepped down from that powerful position in March and did not run for re-election — is now in a memory-care and assisted-living facility. I haven’t seen major news organizations picking up on the story, and the whole thing is pretty strange. The Washington Examiner reported that Granger was last seen on Capitol Hill a month ago, as a portrait in her honor was unveiled, but she hasn’t voted in many months. “She did note vote on the pivotal spending bill to keep the government open, and citizens in her district wondered why that is.”
“It’s pretty shocking for something like this to go unnoticed for months,” posted the ProPublica journalist Alec MacGillis. “But we can expect more such situations, given the steep decline in regional reporters assigned to cover Congress. There are a lot of such trees falling in the forest, unseen.”
The number of newsroom employees has dropped more than 60 percent in the past 20 years, creating a far-reaching crisis especially in local news. One example of this is at my alma mater, the Buffalo News, where the newsroom staff for decades numbered 200 reporters, editors, photographers, etc. Now it’s more like 50.
What you can do: Follow local news with interest and stay engaged in your community. Subscribe to a local paper or news web site, contribute to a local radio station, and — particularly — support the newer, nonprofit news organizations that are cropping up all around the country. One success story is The Baltimore Banner, only a couple of years old, where revenue is up 37 percent year over year, according to Adweek, and seems on track to become profitable. It gets the largest chunk of its revenue from paying subscribers.
If you want to learn more, check out RebuildLocalNews.org, which works toward nonpartisan policies to increase reporting in communities everywhere.
— Support organizations that give legal help to journalists, often on a pro-bono basis. Among them: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; the Student Press Law Center; the Vance Center’s Lawyers for Reporters initiative.
This is going to be increasingly important in the new era as Trump continues his crusade against the press. I talked about this last week on Dahlia Lithwick’s Amicus podcast. Dahlia, whose knowledge and perspective I admire, and I were joined by a prominent First Amendment lawyer and scholar, Sonja West of the University of Georgia. We discussed ABC’s appalling decision to settle a defamation case with Trump (the subject of my post here last week), and Trump’s suit against the Des Moines Register over an Iowa poll by the famed pollster Ann Selzer.
Check out the podcast here. We all expressed the fear of a chilling effect on the courageous journalism we’re going to need in the years ahead. In fact, that is definitely happening already.
— Seek out voices — both in politics and media — that you trust. And follow their lead. It’s easy to become discouraged but when people speak with clarity and strength, it helps. This week, I interviewed Ben Meiselas, one of the founders of Meidas Touch, a fast-growing independent media organization. He had just completed a West Wing interview with Joe Biden that seemed to push back against the reports of the president’s senility or even dementia. Check it out and make your own judgment. In my Guardian column, I described the interview as tactful but substantive. Meidas Touch on Substack is worth your look.
On Greg Sargent’s podcast, listen to the clarion call of Chris Murphy, the Connecticut senator who is calling for reforming democracy to save it. “The only way that we are credible in attacking Trump’s attempts to deconstruct democracy is to make it clear that we want to reform democracy. Not in marginal ways. Like get private money completely out of politics through a constitutional amendment if it’s necessary; close the revolving door in and out of government, make sure nobody can trade on their influence to make money; actually make government more efficient and faster, like build a permanent road in six months instead of six years.” His admiration for union leader Dan Osborn in Nebraska is notable: “Who ran further ahead of Kamala Harris than any other Senate candidate in the country? Dan Osborn in Nebraska. Independent; not Democrat. … He is a reformer of democracy, along with an economic populist, somebody who talked about workers all the time.”
I hope, in some small way, you’ll find me one of these trusted voices, or at least someone who can point to people and ideas that are worth your consideration. Have a great holiday season and I’ll see you on the other side — whatever that looks like. I’m not going away and hope that’s true for you, too. Thank you.
I’d add to the list of worthy organizations working to defend journalists the Committee to Protect Journalists, whose founding honorary chairman was Walter Cronkite. CPJ fights for the right of journalists to report the news openly and independently without fear of retribution. Obviously critical in the age of Trump.
I'd add the States Newsroom to the list of locally focused news organizations. Their outlet here is the Missouri Independent, whose coverage of events primarily in the state capital is outstanding and often embarrassing to those holding power.
You can count on at least one ongoing subscriber because your work is excellent too.