As their fundamental journalistic service, legacy local news organizations, most of which are struggling, help stop the spread of disinformation.
Happy Monday, and happy belated Cesar Chavez Day. Before moving on to this week’s featured news, I would like to take a moment to honor the man who tried to bring economic justice and dignity to California’s farmworkers and their families.
That work remains unfinished, and I invite you to remember that la lucha continua.
Journalism as a Force Against BS
We editors are generally happy when a news story breaks that aligns with a project we're already working on. Such a story broke this week, but it did not make me happy.
California Local contributor Graham Womack spoke this week to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, author of a bill that would help fund the state's local news media, which is in serious trouble. The day before that story came in, we read a piece in the LA Times headlined ‘The California newspaper that has no reporters left.’
The story of the Salinas Californian, which lost its last reporter in December, was made more poignant by the floods that the region experienced in January, which went unreported. Sadly, cities throughout California and the rest of the nation find themselves in similar circumstances as their main news sources essentially disappear.
You probably already know that the internet effectively killed the newspaper industry, as most local news outlets were slow to figure out how to publish effectively online. You may also know that advertisers who once supported their local paper sent most of their money online.
You might not know that two companies—Google and Meta (Facebook)—suck up fully half of the total dollars spent on online advertising. Much of that revenue is built on content generated by legacy media outlets.
