There has been a good many thoughtful posts on the prospective demise of the Globe. Its all depressing if you ask me. If saved today, the Globe and the entire newspaper business are still in grave long-term jeopardy. And as others have discussed, it all raises the question about whether the news gap left behind, particularly at the local level, can be filled through other means or whether we sadly will live with a major hole in our civic fabric.
Newspapers are no doubt profit-making (or at least they were at one point a long time ago)businesses. No profit and ultimately no business. But, in a sense, newspapers were a form of “social enterprise” (and newspapermen a type of social entrepreneur) before the term was coined. The great media moguls of yesteryear – like William Randolph Hearst – wanted influence and a political voice as much as profit. And a lot of people involved in the business went into it not to make big money but out of a sense of civic duty and activism. Selling papers mattered but so did contributing to public understanding and the civic commons. Thus, even as we the public are often rightly cynical of journalistic standards, we have benefitted greatly from journalists pursuit of so-called truth.
That pursuit has of course been double-edged. Investigative journalism has often crossed the line into character assasination and in that way contributed to public cynicism. But much of what we know about the workings of our Government and democracy – the stuff beyond the press releases – is due to the diligence of our print press, who shape public dialogue and debate in a way the broadcast media still doesn’t and never can. Even if no one else reads a newspaper, media folks and political leaders (and a few of us political junkies) still like the feel of ink on their fingertips in the morning. It informs their world view and through them our own.
So, even as other news formats grow in significance, not least blogs like this one, the void that will be left behind when our newspaper businesses crash will be hard to bridge. And this will be particularly true at the local level. National politics will likely always have a number of journalistic outlets to cover it, even if not the print dailies. But, local civic politics will no doubt suffer.
Think of the sales tax story in today’s Globe. That was all digging to get that story. None of it was public. So what happens when no one is around to dig? The public won’t know. We won’t know about the issues really being debated, behind the scenes, where the deals get done.
Like many I have been trying to think about how we can fill the gap if the Globe and local press ultimately folds. On the radical side, I thought about ways in which the public sector can create a non-profit civic media. How bout a State-sponsored Corporation for Civic Media funded by a small charge on TV cable bills or cell phones or other telecomms – doesn’t have to be much per unit. The British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) is funded from a TV license fee nearing $200 bucks per TV set, per year and is seen as one of the world’s greatest news outlets. And of course we have public TV and radio through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (even though local outlets are dependent on donations to stay afloat).
A Massachusetts Corporation for Civic Media could focus on covering State and local government and politics as well as other local activities from entertainment to sports. It could be predominately web-based but could also produce a weekly print newsmagazine. It should have regional web editions and desks to ensure that every part of the State had a civic media presence. It could also fund community journalism, school papers and other local non-profit outlets. It could broadcast live action from the State House and other political events (which as we know have recently fallen by the way side) like a State version of C-SPAN. It of course would have to be significantly at arms-length from politics so run by an independent board appointed through a non-partisan process (if such a thing could exist).
Now do I expect its readership or audience to be massive? No, although I hope if it could be of a high quality it would develop a sizeable following. But traffic is not really the point. The point would be that somewhere, someone is still trying to get at the facts, to shine a light on political and civic activity, to help provide the information needed to spark public debate and further media coverage, to give people a needed understanding of what their representatives are up to, etc… Let’s face it folks, as great a site as BMG is, blogging ain’t journalism and we can’t fill this vacuum even as we demonstrate other civic virtues through our discourse.
So what are the chances of forming a publicly funded civic media? Pretty slim I know. Do our political leaders want to fund a civic media that could be a pain in their asses? Not likely their first priority. But, while we have something to lose here, I’d say that local politicians themselves have every bit as much to lose in the demise of our local print media. They might not like the Frank Phillips’ of the world, but they need the media more than we do. Without it, they lose what is still their biggest free outlet to the public. Maybe they will face less scrutiny when the press goes away, but they will also have less ability to tell us the good news or at least see their names in lights once in a while.
In any event, as newspapers go the way of dinosaurs our democracy will no doubt suffer. We need to think of how to fill this emerging gap in our polity and if democracy means anything its worth paying for its enhancement. A publicly funded civic media sounds pretty good when compared with the alternatives.
