Episode 3: Public Policy and the Future of Local News
Philanthropy alone can’t solve the challenges facing local news. Advocate Steve Waldman and others argue that public policy is essential to revitalizing the industry and highlights how states across the U.S. are already investing millions to rebuild community reporting from the ground up.
When asked about the current state of local news, Steve Waldman’s answer is blunt and direct: “It’s in crisis.”
Waldman, founder of Rebuild Local News, a coalition that advocates for increasing the number of reporters covering communities across America, continues: “Local news has collapsed, and it’s really severe.”
But contrary to his dire diagnosis of what has happened to the industry, Waldman is optimistic about its future. He said that in the last few years, the forecast for local news has gone from doom and gloom to a proliferation of encouraging examples of effective solutions, including “startups, new entities, creative new storytellers and legacy media that’s transforming itself.”
And Waldman sees public policy as a crucial part of the solution.
“Rebuild Local News was founded on the premise that one of the pieces of the puzzle has to be public policy to help strengthen communities,” Waldman said. “And those policies must work in tandem with business models, new editorial approaches and more philanthropy.”
Undoubtedly, public funding for the news suffered a devastating blow this summer, with the federal government rescinding $1.1 billion for public media, a move that will disproportionately impact small stations in rural and Indigenous communities. However, lawmakers in some states have been more receptive to funding news and in the past few years have passed legislation that supports local news through state-funded reporting fellowships and tax rebates for advertisers or local outlets.
“One of the Pieces of the Puzzle Has to Be Public Policy”
Public policy advocates including Rebuild Local News and Free Press are working to shift the perception of local news from a struggling commercial industry to an essential public good for community cohesion. As Waldman put it: “We try to encourage people to think of it like the library or other institutions in a community that are important to the health of the community.”
That approach has borne fruit, with nearly $100 million going to local news from recent state-level policy efforts, Waldman said. The menu of policy interventions includes refundable tax credits to small businesses that buy advertisements or sponsorships with local news organizations, tax credits for newsrooms to help subsidize the cost of local reporters and state contributions to nonpartisan community-based institutions that offer grants to local newsrooms and other civic information providers. New Mexico, Washington and California also now provide state funding for university fellowship programs for local journalists.
In addition to California’s fellowship, the new California Civic Media Fund aims to give millions to local news in the state. Administered by the California State Library, the fund is a partnership between the state, publishers and major tech companies, though an initial commitment has been scaled back.
“Rebuild Local News was founded on the premise that one of the pieces of the puzzle has to be public policy to help strengthen communities.”
New Jersey created the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium in 2018, a first-in-the-nation effort to ensure that every person in the state has “access to thriving, representative local news and information that enhances their lives and communities.” Launched with state and private funding, the Consortium has awarded more than $10 million to local news initiatives since 2021.
Among its many efforts, the Consortium has funded The Jersey Vindicator, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom launched in 2023 to do investigative and public-service journalism about New Jersey government and other statewide political issues.
And last year, New York State approved $90 million worth of payroll tax credits, to be made available over three years, to support local news. Soon after New York’s bill passed, Illinois State Senator Steve Stadelman helped push through a tax incentive package in that state for local journalism totaling $5 million a year for five years, with the first installment going to outlets this summer.
Stadelman, a former television journalist, was chairman of Illinois’ bipartisan Local Journalism Task Force. He says he formed the task force “to come up with solutions and hear from experts across the country as far as what they thought needed to be done and also what was happening in other states.” Tax credits were one of those solutions.
Waldman says his 10-year goal is to generate over a billion dollars a year in public funding by expanding efforts to other states and eventually passing federal legislation. This funding for public policy is essential, he says, because the problem is too big to be solved by philanthropy alone.
Waldman says the goal should be to hire 25,000 new reporters in communities. Where would the industry find an army of new reporters?
Discover ways to support
Explore our toolkit that provides you with the materials you need to host a successful screening and spark meaningful conversations about the future of local journalism.
“There’s no shortage of people who want to become local reporters,” Waldman said. “The shortage is in jobs that pay a living wage.” That’s where public policy can and must be part of the solution.
“There are always critics who say government should not be involved in this issue at all, and I disagree,” Stadelman said. Both he and Waldman point out that each of these new policy solutions is designed so that individual lawmakers and governmental bodies can’t influence coverage. To the contrary, Stadelman said, “I think there’s a role for state government to make sure there are reporters on the ground in the first place.”
An essay by Charles M. Blow
Learn more:
- Rebuild Local News’ Policy Menu of Solutions for Local News
- Free Press’ Media Power Collective, a place to learn about journalism policy, build community and identify what it takes to expand access to local news.