There Is A Policy Solution To The Problem Of American Journalism

There is no good reason every small town, county and state house cannot have a local public broadcaster writing, reporting and investigating.

By Mark Lloyd, ScheerPost

If we can’t figure out a way to pay local reporters then, as a country, we’re only left with that many more blind spots to where the bull is happening. You hear about all these newsrooms getting cuts. That’s every article that Tamara has been sending me the last two months. It’s just the newsroom is getting cut. We’re cutting people. We’re cutting budgets. But you never hear about the multimillion dollar executives reducing their salaries within these organizations. Now, how do we fix this? I don’t know. I’m a comedian.

Roy Wood, Jr. 2023 White House Correspondents Dinner, April 29, 2023

Like many other journalists, past and present, I laughed and nodded at Roy Woods Jr.’s jokes at the 2023 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But, as Mr. Woods and President Joe Biden made clear, the challenge facing American journalists is no joke. And, no, we should not expect comedians to propose solutions to our problems, but we should expect the President and his staff to propose solutions to the serious problems of democratic deliberation in America. We have heard none.

No, banning TikTok is not even close. As important as it is to get the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich out of Russia, that will not come anywhere near to solving the problem.  The Dominion lawsuit against Murdoch’s Fox “News”, the lawsuit against Alex Jones, the firing of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon—none of this, as satisfying as it may seem in the moment, will solve the problem Woods identified.  And he put his finger on what many media scholars have argued for years is the core challenge facing American journalism: the loss of local reporting. Many of us think this is the core challenge facing American democracy.