Culture wars fill vacuum left by weakened local journalism

"Weakened local journalism has created space for the modern culture wars," says the Los Angeles Times headline over a piece by Jan-Werner Mueller, a professor of politics at Princeton University and author of the 2021 book Democracy Rules. For his general audience, Muller touches many bases familiar to journalists, but makes some points that are worth repeating:

"For local government to work properly, there must be local journalism to hold politicians and policymakers to account. . . . Social scientists who study the issue have demonstrated clearly that less local journalism results in higher levels of corruption, undermines political competition and reduces citizen engagement. . . . Local problems that could have wider significance go unreported, and many of the on-the-ground effects of national policies are unrecognized. . . . Making matters worse, the vacuum created by the absence of local news is often filled by national culture wars."

Muller says "Experiments in different countries suggest ways to revitalize local reporting," and mentions States Newsroom, which "focuses squarely on state-level policies that affect citizens in ways that are not obvious even to the relatively well-informed," and Report for America, which places young reporters in local newsrooms, often to cover underreported issues. "The Documenters Network trains and pays people to report on local government meetings that otherwise would go unobserved. The BBC, for instance, has partnered with local newspapers to increase the quantity of local reporting, sending a clear signal that decisions on the ground matter."

Muller favors direct government support of local journalism and says "Mechanisms for insulating journalists from political pressures have long been available in public-service broadcasting. There is no reason why they can’t be extended to local journalism as well."