More Community News is Good News

An article in the New York Times in the last few days reported that newspapers will be carrying less foreign news because of cuts in staff and budgets. Citing a new Pew Research Center study, the article describes what is happening in news rooms across the country. This is bad news in the sense that we don't need to rely on just filtered news or wire stories. I like the fact that big papers have bureaus around the globe and reporters see things first-hand. However there is an upside--more community news. The Poynter Institute and others think that is a good thing. A group of people gathered in DC last month to discuss just that. Community news leads to engagement--for this purpose defined as a connection, awareness to your community. This is particularly important as communities struggle to fill the gaps left by economic downturn. While people often complain about their local paper, it is the one place that citizens can find information about the state of the local economy, new development projects, and an occasional good news story. About 15 years ago, the Kettering Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts pioneered an idea called "community or public journalism." There was a hue and cry from some journalists that this concept violated the principle of objectivity but at its core it was about bringing the community back into the community though news. We still need that and more. J-Lab and the Poynter Institute's Teaching Newspaper are great places to learn more.

Comments

[Jon Butzon]

On the other hand, our local paper's reporting on the community is becoming more like the supermarket tabloids than quality reporting on issuesa dn items that really matter.