Damian Radcliffe at The Conversation writes—How local journalism can upend the ‘fake news’ narrative:
First, it’s important to recognize that our national media, just like our politics, has become highly partisan.
Second, it’s necessary to acknowledge that existing media business models fuel this polarization. The drumbeat of an us-versus-them narrative has created what Tim Dixon, co-author of a new study titled “The Hidden Tribes of America,” calls a “cartoonish view of the other side.”
So what can be done to remedy this state of affairs?
Moving forward, I believe that local journalism – a key focus of my research and journalistic background – can play an important role in turning the tide and tackling this media malaise.
Traditionally, the most important function of the Fourth Estate has been seen as watchdog reporting – journalism that holds authority to account.
But, this type of journalism is not exclusive to larger publications.
The impact and potential importance of these efforts at a local level can be seen each week in the “Local Matters” newsletter founded by the journalists Joey Cranney, Alexandra Glorioso and Brett Murphy.
It was also recognized last year when Art Cullen of The Storm Lake Times won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing. The twice-weekly newspaper in Iowa has nine-person staff and covers a town with a population of 10,000. [...]
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QUOTATION
“Every time a newspaper dies, even a bad one, the country moves a little closer to authoritarianism; when a great one goes, like the New York Herald Tribune, history itself is denied a devoted witness.”
~~Richard Kluger, The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune (1986)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2008—EPA Declares Open Season on Mountains:
As threatened, the Bush Environmental Positively-useless Administration has repealed key parts of the Stream Buffer Act. Previously, the EPA had been cooperating with companies to subvert the act, but judges in some districts were still slowing down approval of mountaintop removal operations. Now even that token obstacle has been removed.
Approval by EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget paved the way for Interior Department officials to finalize industry-backed changes in the 25-year-old stream "buffer zone" rule.
Environmental groups had fought the change, because they hoped that either court actions or moves by the incoming Obama administration might use the buffer zone as a tool to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal.
Despite the destruction of more than 400 mountains, and the routine violation of the existing rules, the Bush administration still hustled through this gift to the worst operators in the coal industry. In doing so, they fulfilled one of the dreams Bush has held since coming into office.
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show:
Greg Dworkin wraps up a weekend of Trumpism (very) briefly muted by the passing of George H.W. Bush. A slow-building wave creates slow-emerging fallout. NC-09 gets crazier by the minute. Did a Saud family feud lead to Khashoggi's murder?