The Knight Foundation — an organization that supports journalism, the arts and communities — will invest $300 million over the next five years into local journalism. These funds will help support several local programs in light of the decimation of local newspapers over the past couple of decades.
Almost 1,800 weekly and daily newspapers have closed since 2004, and the number of working journalists has roughly reduced by 50 percent within that period, according to a University of North Carolina study.
In an Associated Press article, Jennifer Preston, vice president for journalism at the Knight Foundation, said ‘‘What this initiative aims to do is really help build a future for local news.’’
Communities that no longer have a local newspaper or have experienced a reduction in local coverage are known as news deserts. These areas tend to be present in poorer, less well-educated and comparatively older communities.
News deserts exist everywhere: inner city neighborhoods, suburbs and in rural areas, including the “flyover,” often neglected, areas of the United States.
In an NPR article, Nyssa Kruse, a news reporting intern at the Hartford Courant, said, “If local journalists aren’t out there telling people, you know, what happened at the city council meeting or where they can go to cool off if you don’t have air conditioning, a lot of people won’t know.”
Local and regional newspapers make up the backbone of journalism, yet there have been thousands of reporters and editors in the past decade who have lost their jobs. This reduces coverage on important local affairs, such as town hall meetings, school board meetings and local legislation. Reporters are public servants who are often underpaid and overworked.
As Pulitzer board co-chair Joyce Dehli wrote in Nieman Reports’ latest issue, “Even the best local newspapers struggle to fully and meaningfully cover their communities on a daily basis — work that, over time, reveals a community and a state to itself and its leaders.”
There is not a large incentive to write for a local paper, even though the stories reporters write for local outlets detail the stories and events that most impact local residents’ lives. The stories small papers publish detail school systems, public works and local crime.
By funding local news organizations, the Knight Foundation is giving a voice to those who are often neglected by major newspapers.
A lack of local coverage can cause mistrust in newspapers. Without a personal relationship with a local news source, citizens may begin to question the reputability of all journalists. With local newspapers, community members are more easily able to contact and talk to the people who cover their news.
The independence and survival of the local paper is vital for our democracy.
