Local journalism is more than headlines—it’s your right to know, your voice in action, and your protection against secrecy
By Gene Policinski
When your town, city or county has a local news outlet, the benefit ripples through the entire community.
You have a defender who cares about where you live and work, from reports about the content of school lunches to the latest proposal to raise taxes or increase your monthly water bill.
There’s a reliable friend who stands ready to help when a natural disaster hits. A dependable neighbor from whom you can learn and with whom you can chat about the events of the day.
Moreover, you have a place to distribute your letter, to amplify your online comment or to just join a group conversation.
In short, whether you like the news media or not – and yes, there is chatter both ways -- there is no challenging the value to you of having all of those things with a local focus.
Starting Sept. 17, Constitution Day, the “Know Your News” initiative– a region-wide press freedom and local news education project produced by the Granite State News Collaborative and the New England Newspaper and Press Association–will invite you to explore the local free press you have – or in a few places, are missing.
A 2024 report by the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University said 204 counties across the U.S. are now “new deserts” –not a single local news source. Overall, there were “nearly 55 million people with limited or no access to local news,’ the report said. Only one New England area was named in that report, “Somerset.”
About a year ago – after years of calling for the reinvigoration of local news media – I got an opportunity to put that call to the test. Some 56 years after my first newspaper reporting job, in Indiana, I am now a civics issue writer for The Reston Letter, the local news source for my current hometown, Reston, Va.
As The Letter proclaims each issue, it “seeks to inform the Reston community of local events, highlight local group and individual accomplishments, and, secondarily, to provide a platform for residents to weigh in on local topics relevant to the majority of readers.”
Those are goals most local news operations and journalists strive for each day – even as they are painfully aware that both supporting economic models and public trust have eroded in many places over the last 30 years.
Take the time to read in the Know Your News campaign about your right through Freedom of Information laws to know what the government is doing. Participate when your local news outlets invite you to talk about your concerns about bias, misinformation, or lack of news coverage on something you see as important.
In the Know Your News initiative, explore the differences between news, opinion and “sponsored content” – distinctions made all the fuzzier by the torrent of online data and information that now pours into our homes.
And do not miss the good news as news initiatives of all kinds rescue news operations facing financial death across New England and other areas of the U.S. – staving off new “news deserts.” Print and digital news startups, both traditional and nonprofit, are restoring or replacing some local news starved areas.
Admittedly, most news operations have a way to go to restore the staffing, reach and trust that the free press had just a few decades ago. The 2024 “State of Local News,” a project at Northwestern University, showed that since 2005, newsroom positions – editors and reporters – saw a loss of more than 45,000 jobs, a decline of more than 60%.
“Absence may make the heart grow fonder,” but the lack of a regular, reliable reminder of the value of a local news outlet can result in indifference and distrust.
Still, multiple surveys show strong public support for a free press as a “watchdog on government.” Most journalists are on a mission to ask the questions you would ask if you had time, to attend the long civic meeting that family or work obligations prevent you from attending and, at times, pry loose the information you need from a less-than-transparent government or private entity.
Yes, a free press makes mistakes – or even, in your view or mine, sometimes just has the wrong perspective. Look for items in the Know Your News campaign discussing “why some local communities don’t trust the media – and what local news outlets are doing about it” and other articles on how news decisions are made, how to correct mistakes and how to spot trustworthy news.
New England has a long and historic tradition of civic engagement and self-governance – from town gatherings to protest movements to what is still one of the nation's most vigorous local news media areas.
The nation’s founders believed that government alone will not give us the full measure of information we need when entering the voting booth – or just surveying the events of the day. So, they made a free press the only occupation protected by name in the Constitution, via the Bill of Rights.
Consider that endorsement and legacy during GSNC and NENPA’s four-week invitation to explore your news media – how it works, what it does and why it is worth using and defending.
Gene Policinski began his journalism career in 1969 at the Greenfield (Ind.), Daily Reporter and was among the founding editors of USA TODAY He is Senior Fellow for the First Amendment at the nonpartisan education foundation Freedom Forum, and author of “From the Village Green to the Village Screen,” the First Amendment in the 21st Century,” available at no charge as an e-book, PDF, audiobook or in paperback, at www.media.freedomforum.org.
This story is part of Know Your News — a Granite State News Collaborative and NENPA Press Freedom Committee initiative on why the First Amendment, press freedom, and local news matter. Don’t just read this. Share it with one person who doesn’t usually follow local news — that’s how we make an impact.
