This morning my friend Scott Detrow shared news out of Pennsylvania: A Lancaster family is giving away their daily newspaper and other media properties to WITF, the local public radio station.
This follows a recent development in Chicago: WBEZ, a public station, bought an ancient tabloid, the Chicago Sun-Times.
In each case an old-school local newspaper joins forces with a public radio newsroom. In Washington and Los Angeles, public stations have absorbed alternative news sites. Each merger addresses the decline in local news coverage.
Mergers address a math problem that stands in the way of good journalism: you need the right number of people and hours. Newsrooms used to be large; a single big daily paper might have hundreds of reporters. Dozens just for the sports section! Now they’re hollowed out or closed. The math doesn’t work. Local news outlets risk missing stories, covering them superficially, or getting them wrong. As David Folkenflik has reported, dubious partisan sites fill the opening.
Public media try to fill that gap more credibly. But even a big public radio newsroom will have dozens of people, not hundreds. Merging with a paper (or the remnants of a paper) makes the problem less bad.
Fact-based journalism helps to cross divides. If your neighbor (or your mayor) is reported on fully and fairly, you understand better what they do right or wrong. They’re not a caricature.
But merging public media with newspapers requires crossing divides, too. Public radio sometimes talks to an elite audience. Old-time newspapers, especially tabloids, may reach a different audience, a bit more blue-collar. They take a different tone and attitude.
I won’t mind if the newspapers influence the radio. My formative experiences include reading paper copies of the Daily News while standing in a crowded subway in New York. It dug for stories. It printed big headlines. It crusaded for causes, and held my attention. Public media could use a touch of old newspapering, just as a hearty meal may need salt.
Thanks for reading Differ We Must. It’s the title of my forthcoming biography of Lincoln, who wrote to his friend from a slaveowning family: “If for this we differ, differ we must.” Those three words state a problem of democracy.
I aim to keep these posts under 400 words, and respect your time. If you like them, share them! And if you differ with me, let me know.
Thank you for respecting my time on the most informative way possible :)