Losing Newspapers - Losing Democracy

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
This is National Newspaper Week in America. It is a week to focus on what newspapers bring to their communities and what happens to our democracy without them.
Since 2005, America has lost one-fourth of its local newspapers – more than 2,000 community weekly newspapers gone. Reliable news has disappeared in these communities leaving them news deserts.
Starting in 2018, staff at the Democracy Fund began following research into what happens when communities lose their newspaper. The results show the very real dangers to our representative democracy piling up, eroding a foundation requiring an educated electorate.
Democracy Fund writers Josh Stearns and Christine Schmidt gave a detailed report on the consequences of lost newspapers this past month, warning signs of a darker future for America.
 
Newspapers Support Democracy
Multiple studies have shown that there is a direct relationship between local coverage of political campaigns, the candidates, and what they stand for or against, influencing voter turnout.
They have also shown an informed electorate doesn’t just vote for a president, governor, or U.S. senators; they also vote for more down-ballot candidates.
Through the strong connections citizens build with their communities through the regular reporting of local newspapers, they are more motivated to vote regularly in local elections.
Local elections decide who will lead our communities as they face the challenges of funding housing to attract new workers and providing daycare to support families. They influence the quality of the education offered to our kids, the quality of our local healthcare, funding for mental health services, and our law enforcement. They set the direction for the community as it tries to improve its appeal to young families looking at what it offers them after work.
Young people vote more often when they are informed and engaged through their local newspaper, the Democracy Fund report said.
Rather than divide us, local reporting reduces polarization created on the internet that drives us apart. Rather than create fear and anger, local reporting establishes the common ground upon which we work to make our communities better places to live. 
 
Losing Newspapers & Democracy
Just as the benefits of having a local newspaper have deep and lasting positive impacts on our communities, losing the local newspaper degrades it in many ways.
Research has repeatedly found that citizens are less likely to vote when they have no way of assessing the candidates running for office and what they stand for. 
As we lose reporting by regional daily newspapers, as they cut staff, a greater burden falls on the local community newspaper to provide information about the actions of our state legislators and members of Congress. With our very sparse staff, we are also challenged to provide this coverage essential for our readers.
In communities without a newspaper, studies reviewed by the Democracy Fund found a “’significant’ drop in civic engagement.” Other studies have found that fewer people volunteer to serve on boards, commissions, and volunteer community organizations when we lose local reporting. We see our local community celebrations weaken and eventually end when citizens stop volunteering.
A loss of a sense of communal responsibility leads increasingly to the creation of a caretaker society. It is made up of a few engaged citizens, along with some whose motivation to serve is influenced by how they might benefit from directing local policy. Trust in local government suffers.
Studies have shown that when election reporting disappears, fewer people run for office, and more incumbents get reelected. People, now more often following polarizing national news, vote along straight party lines rather than choosing a candidate of an opposing party in some races.
Election turnout falls when there is no local newspaper.
Corruption increasingly seeps into local government when no one is watching how public dollars are spent and who is benefiting from those expenditures. 
Investors know that with a lack of oversight, corruption endangering a municipality’s ability to make its bond payments is more likely. As a result, studies have shown bond interest rates are higher in communities without a newspaper.
Government corruption is costly. “Every dollar spent on local news produces hundreds of dollars in public benefit by exposing corruption and keeping an eye on government spending,” the Democracy Fund report says.
Members of Congress not covered by their local press spend less time on the problems of their constituents.
“Community members can experience increased loneliness, disconnection, and diminished local pride when a local paper closes,” the study says.
Without the community newspaper, how would citizens know the discussions their local city, county, and school districts have about levy increases? How would they know if there are excessive fund balances or dangerous deficits? Are they taxed too much, or are taxes so low that roads aren’t repaired, buildings allowed to fall into disrepair, water systems fail, and important classes in our schools cut?
 
What Slithers In
When a newspaper disappears, a void is created in the news needs of a community. Too often, what fills the void has no interest in fairness or accuracy. Instead, it pushes a self-serving agenda masked as news.
In Texas, Chevron stepped in with its “Permian Proud” website. It carries legitimate news stories but is interspersed with propaganda supporting oil company’s agenda.
Political parties and their supporters create publications pretending to be legitimate news organizations only to slant everything to support their points of view.
 “They are filling the void of local coverage in a very sinister way—they’re not getting the full story, they use misleading headlines, they insert opinions and biased stories,” Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise at the Poynter Institute, told Jim Bartholomew of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. “They’re filling this information vacuum with garbage.”
That is the future of democracy in a community without a newspaper.