Isn’t it deeply depressing to write something that feels like a dirge? . "I was depressed before. I already knew the big picture I painted in the book before I started, but when researching, I was actually finding hopeful signs. It gave me some sense there are answers. After all, it doesn’t matter if we save local newspapers, if we save local journalism. . ."
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In the simplest form, what happened to local newspapers was the internet. Your MesaZona blogger never for one moment he wanted to be "a journalist", but even as a kid wrote what was going on - turning it out on a mimeograph machine way-back-when.
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FLASH FORWARD TO TODAY HERE AND NOW - Quite a fast transition to publishing this site MesaZona: Table of Contents that's attracted close to 370,000 Page Views Watchdog Q&A
I make sure to feature posts on topics like this
Published — July 31, 2020
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Ghosting the News , out now, in which Sullivan sounds an alarm about dying outlets and the “news deserts” they leave behind, and the cost to democracy when there are no local reporters to help keep communities honest. As The Atlantic recently put it in an admiring review
, Sullivan’s book “is an ink-bound alarm bell. The threat Americans face, she argues, is not just the news that lies. It is also the news that will never exist in the first place.
Local Journalism Is Dying, and Margaret Sullivan Is Sounding the Alarm in Ghosting the News
"As the media columnist at the Washington Post and the former public editor of the New York Times, Margaret Sullivan has established herself as a one-woman journalism watchdog. . .
Author Margaret Sullivan thought it would be important to show people the connection between the decline of local news and what's happening in our society at large. And it's - it means less political engagement, less voting across party lines, the possibility of more corruption at the local government level and, I think, the weakening of community ties in which we all kind of relate to each other based on a shared, you know, group of facts that we may want to do different things with - interpret in different ways. But we all can sort of agree on what's happening. So I see it as a real crisis. And I wanted to let people know what the price of it is before it's entirely too late. . . 'Ghosting The News' Author Says Local Journalism 'Freefall' Is Accelerating
More than 2,000 newspapers have shut down in recent years, and some regions have become news deserts. Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan says the collapse of local news undermines democracy. . .
In the simplest form, what happened to local newspapers was the internet. Your MesaZona blogger never for one moment he wanted to be "a journalist", but even as a kid wrote what was going on - turning it out on a mimeograph machine way-back-when.
________________________________________________________________________
FLASH FORWARD TO TODAY HERE AND NOW - Quite a fast transition to publishing this site MesaZona: Table of Contents that's attracted close to 370,000 Page Views Watchdog Q&A
I make sure to feature posts on topics like this
Published — July 31, 2020
Q&A: Margaret Sullivan on the death of local news
Read more in Inside Public Integrity
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, Sullivan’s book “is an ink-bound alarm bell. The threat Americans face, she argues, is not just the news that lies. It is also the news that will never exist in the first place.
Local Journalism Is Dying, and Margaret Sullivan Is Sounding the Alarm in Ghosting the News
"As the media columnist at the Washington Post and the former public editor of the New York Times, Margaret Sullivan has established herself as a one-woman journalism watchdog. . .
You started out as a summer intern at a local newspaper, the Buffalo News.
What did you learn there about the power of local journalism?
I always wanted to be a journalist. I was the editor in chief of my high-school paper. I’ve always really loved the fact that you could do something worthy in this world and also have a great time doing it. I did a lot of different jobs in Buffalo. I was a business reporter, a government reporter. I was the features editor. It gave me a really good grounding in the core values of journalism, that we really have to think in terms of being fair, being honest, and transparent as much as we can with the public and to have that bond between the readership and the people in the newsroom. When I was editor of the Buffalo News, I wrote an editor’s column, and I would just try to explain some controversial story or take on complaints, and people really appreciated it. . . ."
What did you learn there about the power of local journalism?
I always wanted to be a journalist. I was the editor in chief of my high-school paper. I’ve always really loved the fact that you could do something worthy in this world and also have a great time doing it. I did a lot of different jobs in Buffalo. I was a business reporter, a government reporter. I was the features editor. It gave me a really good grounding in the core values of journalism, that we really have to think in terms of being fair, being honest, and transparent as much as we can with the public and to have that bond between the readership and the people in the newsroom. When I was editor of the Buffalo News, I wrote an editor’s column, and I would just try to explain some controversial story or take on complaints, and people really appreciated it. . . ."
“I always wanted to be a journalist," says Sullivan. “I've always really loved the fact that you could do something worthy in this world and also have a great time doing it.”
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Heard on Fresh Air
[Excerpt] >
DAVIES:
Hedge funds and private equity groups sometimes buy newspapers.
Why do they do this?
And can you give us an example of what happens when that occurs?
SULLIVAN: When hedge funds buy newspaper chains, which is what's tended to happen, they apply what I guess they would call economies of scale so that they try to sort of wring the last profits out of these once very profitable newspaper companies which are arguably on their last legs. So it's a kind of - you know, they're called vulture capitalists. They're kind of swooping in for the last profits. And in doing so, they've tended to deeply cut the newsrooms of these news organizations.
DAVIES:
As newspapers and newspaper chains are bought and sold in this - you know, this turmoil, are you seeing more ideological influence on newspapers?
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TIM MELLO: Here's a good local example >
The Times Media Group
You can see their première issue with Hizzoner Mesa Mayor John Giles as their " Good News."
Giles was, he claims, a newspaper boy . . . posed in front of a vacant building here in Mesa on Main Street
Readers of this blog might like to know that hard copies are a bundle enclosing advertising . . . and take a look on-the-wall for what else they publish!
_________________________________________________________________________
RELATED CONTENT > Use the Search Box on this site: type in Steve Strichbine or Times Media Group - or any of the articles about Mesa published on The East Valley Tribune
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DAVIES:
Hedge funds and private equity groups sometimes buy newspapers.
Why do they do this?
And can you give us an example of what happens when that occurs?
SULLIVAN: When hedge funds buy newspaper chains, which is what's tended to happen, they apply what I guess they would call economies of scale so that they try to sort of wring the last profits out of these once very profitable newspaper companies which are arguably on their last legs. So it's a kind of - you know, they're called vulture capitalists. They're kind of swooping in for the last profits. And in doing so, they've tended to deeply cut the newsrooms of these news organizations.
As newspapers and newspaper chains are bought and sold in this - you know, this turmoil, are you seeing more ideological influence on newspapers?
___________________________
TIM MELLO: Here's a good local example >
The Times Media Group
You can see their première issue with Hizzoner Mesa Mayor John Giles as their " Good News."
Giles was, he claims, a newspaper boy . . . posed in front of a vacant building here in Mesa on Main Street
Readers of this blog might like to know that hard copies are a bundle enclosing advertising . . . and take a look on-the-wall for what else they publish!
_________________________________________________________________________
RELATED CONTENT > Use the Search Box on this site: type in Steve Strichbine or Times Media Group - or any of the articles about Mesa published on The East Valley Tribune
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Ghosting the News · Columbia Global Reports
globalreports.columbia.edu › books › ghosting-the-news
globalreports.columbia.edu › books › ghosting-the-news
Ghosting the News Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. An Epidemic of News Deserts and Ghost Papers. Ghosting the News tells the most ...
'Ghosting The News' Author Says Local Journalism 'Freefall' Is ...
www.npr.org › 2020/08/03 › ghosting-the-news-author-s...
www.npr.org › 2020/08/03 › ghosting-the-news-author-s...
'Ghosting The News' Author Says Local Journalism 'Freefall' Is ...
www.npr.org › 2020/08/03 › ghosting-the-news-author-s...
www.npr.org › 2020/08/03 › ghosting-the-news-author-s...
Aug 3, 2020 - Margaret Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post. Her new book is "Ghosting The News: Local Journalism And The Crisis Of ...
'Ghosting the News': Margaret Sullivan's Alarm Bell - The Atlantic
www.theatlantic.com › culture › archive › 2020/07 › g...
www.theatlantic.com › culture › archive › 2020/07 › g...
'Ghosting the News': Margaret Sullivan's Alarm Bell - The Atlantic
www.theatlantic.com › culture › archive › 2020/07 › g...
www.theatlantic.com › culture › archive › 2020/07 › g...
Jul 11, 2020 - Ghosting the News, as the bearer of very bad news about the news itself, adopts an aptly funereal feel. But Sullivan—a media columnist at The ...
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