![]() |
Nick Mathews |
The analysis by Mathews and Benjamin Toff, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, is a new way to examine how and why local news outlets are struggling. Mathews told Fitzgerald: "The economic challenges that these social platforms have created are well understood, so in this piece, we took a different tack. We're looking at the actual content of publications that are being impacted. It's not just an economic crisis — it's an existential one."
![]() |
Benjamin Toff |
"One editor had a very poignant concern," Mathews told Fitzgerald. "They were concerned their newspaper is not telling the full story of their community anymore. People might not understand how important that submitted content is for weekly newspapers. These papers still want to highlight the individual successes and stories of their communities, but community members are posting that content elsewhere." Fitzgerald reports, "Mathews said this loss of a critical component of local news has forced weekly newspapers into a difficult position, in which they see themselves in direct competition with a social media giant and are increasingly forced to fill the gap in local coverage with national and other less-relevant news."
Mathews is also one of the authors working on a new book, which looks at how newspapers are "finding creative ways to repair and strengthen connections with their communities," Fitzgerald writes. Mathews told him: "They do things like monthly mingles, just hosting people in their offices with beer, wine and snacks. These meetings are so phenomenal to meet people, and it's hard to have animosity toward people if you have actually met them. You're not going to turn around and call them 'the lying media' if you just talked to them."
No comments:
Post a Comment