Local news does not always get the same attention as presidential elections, Congress, or major political controversies. Many people can name national news organizations, but they may not know the name of their local newspaper or the journalists who cover their city council. This may seem like a small problem, but it is not. Local journalism plays an important role in helping people understand what their local governments are doing and how political decisions affect their everyday lives.

The United States has experienced a major decline in local news organizations. Newspapers have closed, newsrooms have become smaller, and many communities have fewer journalists covering local government. The problem is especially serious in communities where there are few alternative sources of reliable local information. When fewer journalists are available to investigate local officials, attend public meetings, and explain complicated issues, citizens have less information with which to make political decisions.

This is not only a problem for journalism. It is a democratic problem.

Local government still matters

National politics receives enormous amounts of attention because presidential elections and major congressional debates can affect millions of people. However, many decisions that directly affect someone’s daily life happen at the local level.

City councils make decisions about zoning, public transportation, housing development, policing, parks, and other community services. School boards make decisions about education. County governments can influence public services and infrastructure. Local governments also make decisions about how public money is spent.

A person does not need to follow national politics every day to be affected by government. A new apartment building, a change to a bus route, a property-tax decision, or the closing of a public facility can have a much more immediate effect on someone’s life than something happening hundreds of miles away in Washington.

Local journalists can connect these decisions to the people who are affected by them.

That is one reason the decline of local journalism should concern progressives. A democratic society depends on people having access to information, not simply access to elections.

The market does not always provide the information people need

One problem with relying entirely on the private market to support journalism is that journalism is not always profitable in the same way as other businesses.

A newspaper may spend several days investigating how a local government spends taxpayer money. That investigation might be extremely valuable to the public, but it does not necessarily produce a large amount of advertising revenue.

At the same time, digital platforms have changed the economics of the news business. Newspapers have lost much of the advertising revenue that once helped support large newsrooms. This has contributed to layoffs, newspaper closures, and reductions in local reporting.

From a social-democratic perspective, this raises an important question: Should something as important to democracy as access to reliable information depend completely on whether it produces enough profit?

There is a reasonable argument that it should not.

Social democracy generally accepts the role of markets while also recognizing that some institutions provide important public benefits that markets alone may not adequately protect. Public education is one example. Libraries are another. Public broadcasting can be another. Local journalism can be considered through a similar lens.

This does not mean that government should control what journalists write. In fact, protecting journalistic independence would be essential. Public support for journalism would need strong protections against political interference.

A progressive solution does not have to mean government-controlled media

Critics of public support for journalism might argue that government funding could turn newspapers into propaganda organizations. That concern should be taken seriously.

A democratic society should not replace private media ownership with direct government control over news coverage. Journalists should be able to investigate elected officials, including the officials whose governments help fund public programs.

There are other possibilities.

Governments and nonprofit organizations could support journalism through independent institutions that have legal protections from political interference. Communities could establish nonprofit news organizations. Universities could help train and employ journalists who cover local government. Public-interest grants could support investigative reporting in areas that have lost newspapers.

The goal should not be to create a government newspaper.

The goal should be to make sure communities have journalists.

That distinction matters.

Local journalism can also make politics more equal

The decline of local news does not affect every person equally.

People with more money and education may have more opportunities to find information through professional networks, specialized publications, political organizations, or paid news services. Someone who does not have those resources may have fewer ways to learn what their local government is doing.

This creates a democratic inequality.

Progressive politics has traditionally been concerned with political participation and economic inequality. Those two issues are connected here. If some citizens have many ways to obtain high-quality political information while others have almost none, then people technically have the same right to vote but do not necessarily have the same ability to understand the choices before them.

Democracy is more than giving people a ballot.

People also need meaningful information with which to use that ballot.

Social media is not a complete replacement

Some people may respond that local journalism is no longer necessary because people can find information on social media.

Social media can certainly help communities communicate. A resident can post about a city council meeting, a local problem, or a government decision and potentially reach thousands of people.

But there is an important difference between someone posting information online and a journalist investigating a story.

Professional reporting involves checking facts, interviewing multiple people, examining public records, attending meetings, and asking questions that officials may not want to answer. Social media can spread useful information, but it can also spread rumors and incomplete information.

A healthy local information system could use both. Community members can provide firsthand information, while professional journalists can investigate and verify important claims.

The two do not have to be enemies.

Democratic socialism adds another question

A democratic-socialist perspective can take the argument one step further.

If democracy depends partly on public access to information, then journalism can be viewed as part of the social infrastructure necessary for a democratic society.

Democratic socialists often argue that certain institutions should serve human needs rather than being organized primarily around profit. That does not mean every newspaper needs to become publicly owned. Instead, it raises the possibility that communities should have more control over the institutions that provide essential information.

Imagine a nonprofit local news organization where journalists are paid fairly, the organization is supported by a combination of subscriptions, donations, grants, and public-interest funding, and its editorial decisions are protected from politicians and wealthy donors.

That model would not eliminate every problem in journalism. However, it could create a system in which the survival of local reporting does not depend entirely on maximizing profit.

The public deserves to know what its government is doing

One of the most basic ideas behind democracy is that government is supposed to be accountable to the people.

Accountability becomes harder when nobody is watching.

A city council meeting can technically be open to the public, but that does not mean everyone has the time to attend it. A government document can technically be available online, but that does not mean everyone has the time or knowledge to understand it. A public budget can contain hundreds of pages, but most residents cannot spend their evenings studying every line.

Journalists help bridge that gap.

They turn complicated government activity into information that ordinary people can understand.

That is an important public service.

A stronger democracy needs stronger local information

The decline of local journalism should not simply be treated as another unfortunate consequence of the internet. It is connected to a larger question about what kind of democracy Americans want.

Do we want communities where citizens only hear about politics when something becomes a national controversy?

Or do we want communities where people can regularly learn what their local government is doing, question officials, investigate problems, and participate in public life?

A progressive approach would argue for the second.

Protecting local journalism does not require believing that every journalist is correct or that every newspaper is politically neutral. Journalists can make mistakes, newspapers can have biases, and media organizations can make poor decisions. A democratic society should allow criticism of the press.

But criticism of journalism is different from allowing journalism itself to disappear.

A community without reliable local reporting loses more than a newspaper. It loses one of the institutions that helps residents understand their own government.

If democracy is supposed to belong to ordinary people, then ordinary people need access to information about the institutions that govern them. Supporting independent local journalism, creating new nonprofit news organizations, and developing public-interest models for funding journalism could help rebuild that part of American democracy.

The future of democracy is not only decided during presidential elections.

Sometimes it is decided in a city council meeting, a school board meeting, or a local newsroom where a journalist decides that an important story is worth investigating.

That is why local journalism matters.

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