Like a hurricane: Local news crisis is a relentless and destructive force

The crisis in local news keeps gathering strength, like a hurricane taking shape in more and more ominous ways. Its destructive force is being felt nationally and globally, steadily undercutting a free press, washing away guardrails for accountability, and eroding the very foundation of democracy. 

This is an issue I have been focusing on for more than a decade, and it feels like this hurricane has reached Category 5, the highest level on the threat matrix. While the problem is a global one, the center of this gathering storm now seems to be right here in America. 

It is hard to see the peril from our shores here on Martha’s Vineyard, where the Island is fortunate to have two relatively stable, local newspapers that seem to complement each other in their approaches to covering our community. We are also lucky to have two local public radio stations, including WCAI in Woods Hole and the Island’s own WMVY, which both offer outstanding public affairs programming that keeps us informed. But all of these local news-gathering organizations, including The MV Times, are struggling against a mighty tide. 

For the newspapers, the tide is driven by a decline in traditional print advertising, and the reality that digital advertising, while on the rise, does not alone produce the level of revenue required to sustain a strong, independent local news-gathering operation. This decline of print journalism has brought the rise of digital-only news organizations, which can be a fantastic and efficient way to report local news, and many digital-first local news operations are doing outstanding work. Even those of us who still love the feel of a print edition in our hands can see there is an exciting and thriving future for digital news.

But other developments are worrisome. Some local, digital websites are only offering the appearance of local news, while actually offering something more akin to “pink slime,” that cheap, synthetic filler used as an additive to real beef. This “pink slime” virus of websites was documented by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University as driven by clickbait and AI-generated content, all packaged with extreme partisan politics often backed by shadowy political organizations. These sites have popped up on Cape Cod and in dozens of towns across New England, according to an exposé last month by the Boston Globe. 

For our two local public radio stations, the crisis is largely a political one, with the Trump administration taking the unprecedented step of pulling all federal funding for public radio and television. The stations are both confident they will survive this, but they are suddenly witnessing a new and treacherous current working against them. According to leaders at each institution, the federal government funds about 30 percent of each station’s budget.

No matter how great the challenges are for local news here on the Island, the pockets of America tht have already developed into what we call “news deserts” are decimated by a barren landscape for trusted, local information. 

A definitive report out this month found that more than 1,000 counties across the country — one in three across the nation — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist. Using new approaches to assess the data and to establish the first-ever “Local Journalist Index,” the journalism advocacy organization Rebuild Local News and the tech platform Muck Rack joined forces and announced, “We now know just how severe this local journalist shortage has become.”

“The shortages of reporters are more severe, and I would say more widespread than we thought,” said Steve Waldman, now the president of Rebuild Local News, who joined me in co-founding Report for America, which seeks to address the crisis by placing a new generation of reporters in local newsrooms that serve undercovered corners of America.

And this week, as part of a broad Trump administration clawback on funding to public broadcasting and foreign aid, the U.S. Senate approved a $1.1 billion cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which disburses some $500 million a year to a network of public radio and television stations across the country. That network serves 53 million people, an audience that is predominantly living in rural America or in vulnerable coastal communities like the South Coast, and Cape and Islands. So this cut to public broadcasting delivers a devastating blow to an already ravaged local news ecosystem. 

This distressing reality hits close to home for me as the publisher of The MV Times, and the co-founder of Report for America. And in the spirit of transparency, I should say that The GroundTruth Project, which launched Report for America, had a home for the first 12 years of its existence at GBH, a national flagship for public broadcasting and the parent company to CAI. We have worked closely together with GBH and CAI through the years to produce awardwinning journalism that told important stories locally and globally, like ‘The Last Generation,’ “100 Years of the Vote,” and “Tahrir Revisited.” 

I am proud to contribute to the vital work being done by public media stations to provide trusted, in-depth journalism that covers local, national, and global issues. That said, PBS is also far from perfect. There is legitimate criticism from conservatives who question what they feel is a liberal leaning in its editorial judgment. PBS executives say they are reflecting on those criticisms, and they may even find themselves to be a better news organization as a result. It is also important to note that these cuts will not completely destroy the good work of PBS, as the government funding to PBS is under 15 percent of its total. But there is no question the cuts are significant; they will chip away at PBS, and almost inevitably undercut its ability to provide the same robust and confident news and public affairs programming it has always done, and that we have all come to rely on to understand the world around us. 

There are examples across the country of independent local news organizations finding their place in communities that need them and have grown to rely on them. Some combine traditional print publications with digital news operations, as we do here at The MV Times. There is an exciting trend across the country of new, nonprofit, digital news organizations, such as the robust and successful Texas Tribune. Two particularly strong examples of this national trend in our coastal region are the New Bedford Light and the Plymouth Independent, both digital news organizations and both nonprofit. 

Another trend in business models seeking to sustain local news coverage, and one where I am proud to say GroundTruth was a pioneering force, is a “hybrid” model which combines the traditional revenue of print and digital advertising to support the costs of the work we do covering news, arts, and sports, and a nonprofit arm that supports events and coverage areas that we would otherwise not be able to afford. Our nonprofit arm works through our Islanders Write initiative, which for more than a decade has gathered and celebrated local writers and which also now sustains public service journalism by recruiting year-round Islanders to tell their own stories, with a focus on training the next generation of Islanders. We announced this new initiative at the Islanders Write gathering in mid-March, along with the first staff position funded through the initiative, and we are expanding this effort in the months ahead. 

Another important part of the solution to solving the crisis in local news will be for news organizations to reach out directly to the communities they serve, and ask readers to support local news and to see it as a public service. This community-supported approach is at the heart of The MV Times’ new approach to subscribers, a “membership model.” That invites our readers not to think of their subscription to The MV Times as a purely transactional relationship, but as a form of civic engagement, to ensure that we all have a shared set of facts on what is happening in our community. Simply put, membership is more aspirational than a subscription. Membership invites you to join our mission to try to cover all of our Island.

We want our readers and our advertisers to understand that when they pay for the news, they help us sustain community coverage, and the public service role of a news organization like ours: to cover the whole story of our community by holding public officials accountable, and celebrating local artists, musicians, and craftsmen, and making sure we hear all of the stories on an Island that is increasingly diverse, and that is facing real challenges around immigration, housing, climate change, and more. We want to tell all of those stories, and we can’t do it without your support. 

On August 5 at Katharine Cornell Theater in Vineyard Haven, I will be discussing this national crisis in local news, and why we need to know about it, even right here on Martha’s Vineyard, where it can feel like a distant problem. At this event, I will share more about our new membership model, and would like to hear your thoughts on it. We will be there listening and discussing how you can get involved in helping us find ways to get our community more involved in telling its own story. Please come and join us at this event, and please come with feedback and good ideas on how we can come together as a community to support local news during these challenging times. 

Charles M. Sennott is the publisher of The MV Times. He also writes the GroundTruth newsletter on Substack, where he covers the frontlines of the struggle in which a free press is under attack locally and globally. A version of this essay was originally featured on GroundTruth on Substack, which publishes weekly, and which you can join for free at charlessennott.substack.com.