The Federal Communications Commission has issued a study which raises numerous concerns about the depth of local journalism.
The FCC Report The Information Needs of Communities begins by noting:
…the independent watchdog function that the Founding Fathers envisioned for journalism — going so far as to call it crucial to a healthy democracy — is in some cases at risk at the local level.
The report was written by Steven Waldman, former journalist for Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report.
On Thursday, Mr. Waldman is to issue a number of recommendations, none binding. Those include making actual in-the-field reporting a part of the curriculum at journalism schools, steering more government advertising money toward local instead of national media and changing the tax code to encourage donations to nonprofit media organizations
The FCC Report goes on to note:
…the media deficits in many communities are consequential. Newspapers are innovating rapidly and reaching new audiences through digital platforms but most are operating with smaller reporting staffs,and as a result are often offering less in-depth coverage of critical topics such as health, education and local government. Many local TV news broadcasts remain excellent, and, on average, they actually produce more hours of news than a few years ago—but too few are investing in more reporting on critical local issues and some have cut back staff. Beyond that, a minority are exhibiting alarming tendencies to allow advertisers to dictate content. In most communities, commercial radio, cable, and satellite play a small role in reporting local news. Public TV does little local programming; public radio makes an effort to contribute but has limited resources. Most important, too few Internet-native local news operations have so far gained sufficient traction financially to make enough of an impact.
ACK! I meant to h/t Jim Romensko on this but managed to use his headline in my post in the process and since I use Drupal and it creates URLs on the headlines and people have RT’d this already I need to leave the headline as is. So, thanks Jim and sorry about using your headline!