Of News Deserts and Ocean Sewage

Local media is the key to important local news and accountability.

It’s probably never occurred to you, but you may be really lucky—or unlucky—depending upon where you live. If you’re lucky, you have a number of local news sources. They range from a decent newspaper to multiple TV stations, to local or regional journalistic websites, to the hyper-local community sources like the weekly newspapers, Facebook Groups, or other online news startups.

If you’re unlucky in this regard, it’s likely that you live in less-densely populated America, where local newspapers, usually the only source of local information for miles around, have gone broke and folded, leaving vast “news deserts” in their wake.

The business case for newspapers changed almost imperceptibly at the dawn of the internet. First, Craig’s List began taking the classified revenue. Then, as the internet grew, so too did instantly accessible, constantly updated news, rendering many print dailies’ reporting outdated by the time the “dead-tree” version landed on doorsteps. Advertisers left, taking lifeblood-revenue with them, but the costs remained. Where electrons are free, newsprint and ink are not. Delivery of internet news bears little cost, but delivery of a daily paper requires an expensive printing press, and a fleet of expensive trucks that in turn require drivers, fuel, maintenance, and insurance.

The diminishing revenue and rising costs have spelled disaster for major dailies, so just imagine how they’ve impacted their smaller weekly and daily cousins. Things lost include the little pieces of daily life like a community calendar, obituaries, high school sports, police reports, and news about local service organizations like Optimists and Rotary. All that is to say nothing about the big things, like the traditional role of the local paper’s disaster reporting, and their function as a watchdog that holds corrupt politicians to account.

To combat the loss, some forward-looking thinkers decided to leverage the one institution nearly all communities have, their local library. The thought that the library can serve as a homebase and clearinghouse for independent journalism is powerful. Libraries are by definition a reliable source of reference materials, and are notably nonpartisan. We love our libraries—they are local gathering places that confer credibility and stability through uncertain times.

With a little luck, there will soon be a journalism effort emanating from local libraries in news desert communities via a web-based template called FactlyNews.org. It will come not a moment too soon.

Here’s an example of what happens when there’s a thriving media landscape. The Southwest corner of the U.S. has suffered for decades from millions of gallons of untreated sewage flowing from insufficient wastewater treatment on both sides of the border. Because there are multiple, hyper-local news sources, a coalition of nonprofits including the Surfrider Foundation, Emerald Keepers, and StopTheSewage.org were able to gain attention for a large public protest on a local beach. The mayors and city council members from impacted communities that are sick and tired of being sick and tired from untreated sewage spoke, demanding the state and federal government get off their hands and finally take meaningful action.

Community speakers counted the days (in the many-hundreds) that some California  beaches have been closed, and reminded us that we’re not trying to create nuclear fusion here: the necessary and effective technologies have existed for years. Tourism suffers, so retail and hospitality suffer. Worse, the Navy trains our fighting forces in those waters. They don’t, for obvious national security reasons, discuss the impact of polluted waters on the health of trainees, but we know they’re at risk, as are lifeguards, first responders, surfers, waders, swimmers, and children.

Concerned citizens leveraged the robust local media, gathered, got loud, and vowed to stay loud and vigilant until they get real action instead of the lip-service they’ve become accustomed to. Public perception and action have been heightened by responsive local media and citizens with the savvy and media literacy to get game-changing focus on a fixable problem. They beat back attempts to politicize what is clearly a public health issue, and focused media attention on the lack of will in Sacramento and Washington to address a continuing crisis.

Now, imagine a similar crisis enveloping a small town in a news desert. There’s no newspaper. There’s no television station. The local radio station was sold years ago to a distant conglomerate that completely automated the station from afar, eschewing a local presence, so there’s no newsroom, and no reporters. There’s no hyperlocal website, and if there are Facebook groups, they are rent asunder by gossip and innuendo because there is no independent voice able to credibly investigate, define problems, and create the dialogue that leads to solutions.

If you’re lucky enough to have a diverse media landscape, great. If you’re not that lucky, keep an eye out for FactlyNews.org.

©2023 Jon Sinton