“Yes, it costs to have good, aggressive journalism. But it costs even more when you don’t.”
— Leonard Pitts
This quote flitted across my mind as I listened to the brief back-and-fourth between WilCo commissioners Cynthia Long and Terry Cook last Friday.
The two were discussing whether or not some of the federal CARES Act money that landed in the county’s lap last week should be spent buying newspaper ads. After all, as Cook pointed out, newspapers have been beat up as badly by this pandemic as any other small county business and we depend upon them to help us get information out.
Long was dismissive. She said folks could get the word about the county’s new WilCo Forward grant program by other means like social media and, hopefully, Chamber websites (our website had the story Friday afternoon).
“Don’t take it personally, newspaper people, but I don’t think we need to pay for a print advertisement,” she said. “Hopefully they’ll do a story on it.”
Of course we will. That’s what we do.
It’s difficult to tell if Long intended any real snark with her comment. I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
As you likely noticed, our industry had its struggles before this global pandemic. Things have gotten rapidly worse since mid-March.
But, we’ll keep reporting because that’s what we do.
We can’t just close up and wait for the pandemic to sweep by. We are at a point in our history when our community’s need for accurate, local information is critical. We know you consume our stories because our web traffic has nearly doubled in the last six weeks, engagement on our social media posts has never been higher and our membership list grows by the day (thanks, guys!). But, we’re doing it with one hand tied behind our back and one leg shackled to a concrete slab.
But that’s what we do.
Researchers for recent report at Duke University were startled to learn that, while newspapers represent only 25 % of local news outlets, they produce more original local content than all other media outlets combined. Online newsrooms, TV, radio … social media. None of them produce the kind or amount of critical content as a local newspaper.
The study found that, though outnumbered three to one, newspapers cranked out 60% of all those useful stories in circulation, with none of the other newsrooms producing more than 15%.
You, and those researchers, may have been surprised. I wasn’t. It’s what we do.
We’ve had a lot of experience with what happens when a local newspaper folds in this country. More than 1,700 newspapers have shuttered in the last decade or so, and every study shows that it winds up costing taxpayers in real dollars.
You don’t have to look very far to find a local example. Hutto hasn’t had a newspaper regularly report on its activities for at least three years. Oh, sure … that monthly thing has one of its young reporters monitor online meetings from time to time, and our Big Bad Sibling in Austin shows up when council members throw chairs at each other … which happens rather frequently in Hutto, these days. But, no one with any real background with Hutto’s government has darkened the doors of City Hall since the Hutto News folded in early 2017.
And, it shows. I don’t have the room to detail all of the shenanigans, nor is my remembery up to the task of detailing how much money the city has lost since then but it’s in the millions. Many, many millions.
They had to lay off 30 or so employees before Hutto even felt the effects of the pandemic. What city does that in the middle of a budget year?
Hutto is probably an egregious example of what happens when the watchdog can’t afford to keep watch but the studies show time and again that, absent a local newspaper, taxes go up more than necessary, spending is less restrained and overall corruption rises.
Just knowing a newspaper reporter is sitting in the chambers (or, these days, logged on from a kitchen table) keeps elected official honest. Well, for certain values of honest.
So, yes ma’am, Commissioner. We’ll do a story on it, whether you throw us a bone or not.
It’s what we do.
The Ragged Edge 