Ever since the 2016 Presidential election, most Americans who follow the news have been fixated on Washington, D.C., and the antics of our increasingly surreal federal government. That’s entirely understandable–but while we’ve been tuning in to the national soap-opera, we have continued to lose track of equally important matters closer to home.
Americans depend upon local news sources–newspapers, broadcast news organizations–to tell us what is happening in our communities. How is local government responding to challenges from potholes to policing? How is the local school board addressing deficits in civics education? Is the Secretary of State purging voter rolls, and if so, is that process being handled properly or with partisan intent?
The measures taken by our state legislatures and City Councils affect us more dramatically and immediately than even Trump’s disasters (assuming he doesn’t blow up the world). Recently, the Shorenstein Center held a symposium exploring the continued loss of local news and the consequences of that loss.
When Setti Warren first took office as mayor of Newton, Massachusetts in 2010, the local paper, the Newton Tab, had an editor, a publisher and two reporters dedicated to covering the mayor’s office. When he left office after his second term in 2018, the paper had lost its editor; its one remaining reporter covered multiple cities. Also during this time, the Boston Globe eliminated its regional editions, including the Globe West, which covered Newton and other parts of the MetroWest region.
The problem isn’t limited to Newton, Massachusetts.
Nationwide, many local news outlets have shuttered entirely – a March 2018 study published in the Newspaper Research Journal finds that from 2004 to 2015, the U.S. newspaper industry lost over 1,800 print outlets as a result of closures and mergers. As Warren suggested, this portends danger — studies show that areas with fewer local news outlets and declining coverage also have lower levels of civic engagement and voter turnout.
Lack of local news can occur without the complete shuttering of a local newspaper; here in Indianapolis, the Star now devotes its (dwindling) column inches primarily to sports and “the bar beat.” Coverage of city hall and the statehouse is sporadic and woefully inadequate.
As I noted in a previous blog, lack of local journalism doesn’t simply frustrate accountability; it even translates into higher costs for taxpayers. “Due diligence” by institutions that purchase municipal bonds includes investigation of the fiscal probity of the issuer. When no local journalists are covering city hall, buyers demand a higher interest rate to offset the increased risk of the unknown.
At the symposium, Mayor Warren was blunt:
I am gravely concerned about the fact that we don’t have journalists covering city hall, policy decisions, political decisions in an in-depth way, because the citizenry of my own hometown, Newton, Mass., as well as the citizens of the Commonwealth, if they don’t have the facts, they can’t make sound decisions on what directions they want their politicians to go in. So if there’s an absence of good investigative journalism, and there’s a vacuum of having data and facts and reporting, what could get filled into that vacuum is information that is not accurate. Misinformation, disinformation and opinions, not straight reporting. So we are in danger, at the local level, at the state level, and certainly at the national level if we don’t have journalists on the ground doing the interviews, double, triple checking sources. We’re not going to make sound decisions on our policy, whether it’s housing, education, transportation or the ability to protect.
In the absence of good information, a dangerous combination of social media, special interests and people who simply have an ax to grind will fill the void, making it nearly impossible to deliver genuinely responsive governance.
Without legitimate journalism–what has been called the “journalism of verification”–we can’t hold elected or appointed officials accountable.
When no one is watching the store, it’s easy to rob.
When no one is watching government, taxpayers, too, can be robbed. Even under the “best case” scenario, however, if no one is watching, it won’t function properly.
local journalism,bismarck trib,center right,boring,has local comments that keep the trumpers happy,and the less fortunate,(native americans)in a culdron of hate. but what would you expect from the news they provide.. as a note,prairie public,our npr statewide provider,center and recieves momey from energy companies,and so is likewise in promoting its agenda. seems during the oil boom,both enities avoided writing about oil issues,spills,deaths on the job,injuries were non existent,even workforce our osha,avoided any content,unless it was visable from the roadway.even when the accidents and blowouts were publicized,it was immediatly snubbed..kinda like a republican washington report,eh?
id like to thank dave bardon for his piece,huffpost,about trumps mississippi rant,whereas
we see ,,and have seen,women standing with this BOS, (ill let ya figure that one out) when his rant was about women and kavenaugh. my point, and ive seen this for decades in my field, where the typical trumper teaches his children hate. this again is from someone they elected,and has to posture himself as our leader,, we know this is happening,maybe some realtime flak against parents teaching what is undeniable,hate,and from this,,BOS….vote,and help,some one,to get the regisration,and a ride,take a co worker,buy a coffee,and discuss where we are going..vote,like our country depends on this one time..
The mergers and acquisitions are just one factor of many. As an independent journalist, there is digital revenue vs. advertisers. Digital revenue is driven by hits and visits which now drives website operators. This led to “click-bait”.
And, guess what?
Subscribers vanished. Depending on your market, Fox Noise viewers expect to hear the same thing from local journalism.
In Indiana, it’s no coincidence that Gannett owns most the newspapers. Even though it’s bland conservative, it’s too liberal for the rabid new GOP fans.
My local Gannett owned property is trash but it fits the market. The most read section of the paper are OBITs and Busted. Go figure!
When I think of local journalism, I think of the free press. We don’t have that in the United States any longer. If we did have independent journalism our country wouldn’t be such a shithole today.
Einstein pointed this out in the early 50’s…”if they don’t have the facts, they can’t make sound decisions on what directions they want their politicians to go in.”
ALMOST VERBATIM.
However, as Noam Chomsky has already noted many times, you can’t hold government accountable without also holding special interests, billionaires and large corporations accountable.
And, guess what?
They are the advertisers and owners of the newspaper. They also serve on the boards where editorial decisions are made.
You can be independent and tell the truth, but you better be very rich or have a rich benefactor. Otherwise, you cannot survive. The “media filters” Chomsky has defined eliminates all truth tellers.
What remains is filtered propaganda tailored to fit a market. You’ll not find Gannett owned properties in progressive markets. They are noticeably absent in Ft. Wayne where the Journal-Courier thrives with a more progressive take on local and state government.
The Fourth Estate is a casualty of capitalism with its required propaganda.
In Indianapolis, I recently saw a local “news” anchor read one of the Orange Mans TWEETS. Totally moronic drivel. No other side presented. Just the Orange Madness. YAY local news in Indy.
I see the Newton, MA Tab has “made it” with the Indianapolis Star, a state-wide right-wing rag. After much groaning, I discontinued my subscription about 15 years ago. The Star mounted a sales campaign at the time. If you didn’t want “daily”, you could subscribe for Thursday through Sunday issues which would deliver to your door mountains of waste newsprint sans news. Those are the days of supermarket adverts, auto sales, and Menard-clones. There would be a front section of stale news and, in Indiana, and op-ed page for syndicated rightwing mindlessness and obits. You could turn to the easiest of all crossword puzzles for a quick fix.
Isn’t it amazing! A country that prides itself on communications. A nation of celphone addicts who are always connected and yet we are so uninformed! That is nothing more than the product of those that conceived of the idea of focusing sound at a frequency that would grab your attention.., (look it up, broadcasters have been using it since the late 1940’s!) Whether or not it is all a grand conspiracy or just the end product of all their power hunger and greed; we are the tools that got USED. Face it most kids or for that matter younger folk – don’t want to take the time to sit and read, they want it now and as short as possible – sound bytes! (yes it is spelled correctly… in this case.) This is not ‘small town America’ any more this is not the idyllic Dream state we aspired to – never was really! – it is a nation in decline. A nation filling more and more with chaos. Face it no democracy on the face of the Earth since democracy was conceived has lasted more than 200 years: Jerry Ford wasn’t elected. Remember him? Well actually if we realize it, we were warned in 1958 by Dwight D. Eisenhower, so the true democratic institution was probably well under way to decline by then. And our local news… WHO CARES? (even though WE do!) And by the way, the chaos will continue only until we stop it- or it stops us(.)
Gary Varvel, faux christian, does double duty as cartoonist and columnist, thereby further diminishing quality and pleasing trumpers.
Much of the demise of journalism in this country began when William Paley sold out the news division of CBS to the highest bidder /advertiser. What once was considered to be a public service of the highest kind has now descended into the entertainment crap masquerading as news that only the likes of the Indianapolis Star and Fox News provide.
Local news is basically a lost cause for me; as others here have also noted, the Indianapolis Star leaves much to be desired – what is desired is simply the local news. Since Gannett, Inc., bought USA Today; there is been a 4-6 page insert which contains little national or international news so we are at a loss on all counts. For some reason, the Star has changed its obituary print format; large obits in easy to read print for one and all. I believe it is used as a “filler”; to add quantity to the size of Section A; this does NOT improve the quality.
Local broadcast journalism here is even worse, but we do have more options. Being deaf – yes, I’m sure you are all sick “hearing” that I am deaf – I and all hearing impaired residents must depend on closed captioning. On all news channels here it is sometimes non-existent, always start-and-stop so you have no idea what – or if – you missed something important. Somehow; the extremely poor closed captioning on all regular MSNBC programs ends when shootings or hearings such as we witnessed regarding Kavanaugh begin and the captioning is verbatim. The FCC required process to report these infractions of FCC law; is difficult, time consuming to complete and send to the local channels, maintain their response which comes from their legal divisions in other states and months later the response from FCC arrives – there was of course no violation by any of the channels.
Yesterday I mailed my first Absentee Ballot for the November 6th election; included on the ballot was “yes or no” options to retain or not, for a long list of local judges. None of whom have I seen any information regarding their decisions other than an occasional trial that warranted news coverage. I chose NOT to make an option on any of them.
“The measures taken by our state legislatures and City Councils affect us more dramatically and immediately than even Trump’s disasters (assuming he doesn’t blow up the world).”
I had no idea of the extent of our City-County Council’s responsibilities and powers regarding all local issues until recently. My City Councilor, David Ray, posted a plea for votes on Facebook weeks ago; I replied by asking where had he been since I voted for him the last time. Sadly, he now sits in the seat once occupied by our very active Councilor Mary Moriarty-Adams. He asked for my E-mail to contact me which I provided; I received a self-serving message with no specifics as to what good he has done, one reason is “he is not good a using social media”. Also said he had no list for his voting record but wold try to find one and send me a copy. I’m still waiting. I responded to his message with a long list of problems in this area, the responsibility for all is in the hands of the city and county. Warren Township used to be one of the finest areas in this city but it is declining except for a few pockets of higher-income areas. I also sent an E-mail to our Democratic City-Council President, Vop Osili, but received no response. After mailing my Absentee Ballot Application there was the article in the Star “Faulty ballot forms sent out”; following instructions to check my status given in the article took me to a blank page. So; I contacted Sheila who contacted the Vice President of the Council who forwarded my E-mail to the proper authority for the answer. One old political cliche still holds true…”It’s who you know!” Thanks, Sheila!
VOTE BLUE!
OMG; other than the few benefits listed yesterday which I reap from the Indianapolis Star, I read about a benefit not previously considered. Due to use of electronic news media in all its forms, there is an increasing shortage of newspapers to recycle. My copies go into the recycle bin so they are not a total waste.
VOTE BLUE!
In my neighborhood, I note that only retired people even subscribe to the local paper. It, too, is Gannett owned and what passes for front page news is a joke, unless the VA has been found to do something wrong. It’s too bad the people who get so upset about the shortcomings of the VA aren’t as upset about the shortcomings of the VA appropriation each year. But, then again, the appropriation doesn’t get reported on.
VOTE BLUE!
The journalism business is one that I don’t know a great deal about but intuitively it would seem that there are business models out there that would be flourishing today. The old days where the costs were in the distribution of the news, paper and printing and paperboys of both genders, seemed pretty expensive to me. Also in the wake of our Constitutional Crises of late it seems that the demand for news is increasing and the demand for entertainment based fake news may be on the wane.
The problem is how to get people now used to getting whatever they do for free to pay for it. That problem will grow as the next depression takes hold and more and more people are forced to confront the reality that we already have too much stuff and lightening our load on Mother Earth is necessary. That has and will continue to eat into advertising revenue.
BTW I had a friend in the TV business in Florida and he said that by far their biggest revenue stream was from the grotesque system that grew around us for auto retailing. That adds virtually no value to consumers and will soon be replaced by shared autonomous electric vehicles, Uber from your phone, sans drivers. The auto business will be obsoleted by the personal transportation business.
One opportunity is to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear of syndicated news. If you have ever been at the site of a major story you’ll know that hundreds or thousands of reporters show up and compete for something of interest for their market. What waste.
Of course these MBA days that insist on make more money regardless of the impact on others as the only rule of business are also in conflict with the functional days when reporters did what they did because that’s what they loved to do rather than that was what made the more money.
So, expect change. Our biggest political challenge today is to get a majority to expect and accept change as both inevitable and much more out of than in our control. Authoritarians hate that because it threatens the past that they need to protect their turf and power.
To have a viable future our society has to grow in libralism. If it doesn’t we don’t have much to look forward to.
I have been wondering what is going on regarding the investigation of our AG, Curtis Hill.
This is a serious issue for Indiana and there has been no news at all about what is taking place or what already has taken place. Was the investigation finished and then the powers that be were able to sweep it under the rug?
Sheila, have you heard anything about this investigation?
Check out MinnPost.com–a reader-supported nonprofit and excellent news outlet for Minnesota. Local news is suffering, but it will come around again!
The decline of local newspapers is not synonymous with the decline of local journalism. Local blogs have sprung up everywhere to cover the machinations of city halls and state capitals. Increasingly they have become more refined sources of information. And, I should add, their reach is far greater.
For example, while living in Virginia, I know far more about Indianapolis and Indiana following Ms. Kennedy and comments by many of you than I would have otherwise known.
Occasionally I reread some of Malcolm X’s writings and each time I come away with new understandings and thoughts that generalize across all demographic labels in a timeless manner.
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” ~~Malcolm X
Many years ago when Market Square Arena was deemed inadequate for the Pacers, the drum beat to build a new stadium for them became loud. At the heart of it was Corporate Welfare, that is food-beverage, hotel and car rental taxes would be used to build the new stadium.
A group of us decided to picket city hall to protest this Corporate Welfare Scheme. We picketed several times. The TV outlets gave us good coverage. Even though we sent letters, and press releases, not once did The Star contact anyone in our Group. The Star’s slant in favor of Corporate Welfare for the Pacers was evident throughout the process. This was during the Pulliam Years.
A friend of mine and I were able to review the documents. It was a one-sided deal totally in favor of the Pacers. Facts concerning the scheme with the Pacers were glossed over by The Star.
Nuvo, printed our fact sheet concerning the scheme.
What you have now with The Star, is sports, sports, and more sports or some new bar or restaurant opening up.
Up here in NW iowa, amongst some of the most productive, highest price per acre farmland ever, the attention is mainly focused on Putin’s Puppet in the Kremlin Access and his unnecessary trade wars that are going to be the ruination of many hard working, wingnut supporting farmers.
That and all the rain that has fallen in the past month. At least two bridges have washed out on county blacktops in the past weeks making it a bit harder to move crops from fields to elevator or on farm storage waiting for better prices.
…Brings to mind the most innocent “guilties” these days, Donald and Bret or Bart:
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” ~~Malcolm X
Reporters cost money and people are perfectly happy to throw cash at you to read about some pointless celebrity drivel – bonus, that drivel costs almost nothing to produce. More complicated news takes time and money to provide while bringing in much less revenue.
You don’t keep being a billionaire by wasting money. I don’t know how you fix the problem of people not being willing to pay for information they need (but don’t know it).
Monotonous; Market Square Arena was too small for the Pacers, the steps were too steep, all due to being constructed on a too small downtown lot. This was during Mayor Lugar’s administration; the property was purchased by the City of Indianapolis from Mrs. Caldwell, Mayor Richard Lugar’s mother. Caldwell was her 2nd husband’s name; her step-son and Mayor Lugar’s step-brother was Howard Caldwell, one of the best newscasters this city ever saw.
The Market Square Parking Garage with not well lit; there were attacks and rapers there from time to time due to the lack of safe lighting and lack of security…and it was directly across Alabama Street from Indianapolis Police Department.
VOTE BLUE!
Todd:
One minor correction: The name of the Ft. Wayne paper is the Journal-Gazette, but you are correct to point out that the paper has maintained what I would call “news integrity;” I hear from a friend that they are contemplating giving him an opportunity to write a column on labor issues. Bravo Journal Gazette.
The gradual deterioration of our print journalism has been underway for a long time. It began, not with the internet, but with the FCC relaxation of rules which allowed syndicates to begin buying up papers–and radio and TV stations–en mass and stripping them of individuality and content and turning them into a profitized arm of a right-leaning political agenda.
The Economic Policy Institute published a book, The FCC’s Newspaper/Broadcast Cross Ownership Rule: An Analysis, by Douglas Gomey as early as 2002 which is worth noting. A summary of the book is available online at https://www.epi.org/publication/books_cross-ownership/
Among the many good points are three of note:
1. Since 1975 the number of media outlets has indeed increased, but at the same time, ownership has become more concentrated, and today there is less diversity of opinion – and less diversity of news sources – than in 1975.
2. The increased market power of a sharply declining number of corporate voices has led to negative externalities as well, with media conglomerates stressing profit maximization over concerns of localism and diversity.
3. There are synergies between broadcast television and newspaper ownership that are not in the public interest. A local television station owned by a newspaper can simply televise a summary of the paper’s content, offering no benefits to the consumer, yet it will still be able to dominate the local political and cultural discourse.
Of course the situation has worsened since the book was first published.
When coupled with the right-wing engineered demise of the Fairness Doctrine (1987) while it remained technically “on the books” it was not enforced before the Obama administration eliminated it entirely in 2011(?) and right-wing radio became dominant in the ’90’s forward.
When I was a boy my parents subscribed to the Post, one of Cincinnati’s three newspapers, The Post, The Enquirer and the Times-Star. Today only the Enquirer remains, although there is a once-weekly publication, The Cincinnati Herald published to support the black community. The Enquirer is a conservative, right-leaning publication, supporting EVERY Republican nominated presidential candidate since the early 1900’s. The Cincinnati Post was a labor friendly publication until its merger with the Times-Star (now defunct as well) when it also became part of the conservative right-wing fold.
I write all this to illustrate what I think is the nexus of our problem. Labor and liberal’s voice has been lost–buried in an avalanche of media buying in print, television and radio by right-wingers across the land. And there is no longer any attempt to reign-in the bias they present. Even the cable companies are owned mostly if not completely by conglomerates.
This must be changed by the hoped for incoming “blue wave.” Will it? I don’t know. I suspect it will simply be lost amongs other more profitable issues.
I mourn the loss of a liberal voice.
From Pete:
“The problem is how to get people now used to getting whatever they do for free to pay for it. That problem will grow as the next depression takes hold and more and more people are forced to confront the reality that we already have too much stuff and lightening our load on Mother Earth is necessary. That has and will continue to eat into advertising revenue. ”
**The NEXT Depression**, Pete? Like me, you must have lived through the “Great” one and, like me, you deplore the need of people to spend wildly on shopping for “stuff” that will end up in the recycle bin. Maybe you welcome the next depression as a needed correction of attitudes, a wake-up call like the one of the 1930s when those who couldn’t cope leaped from tall buildings.
JoAnn @ 10:10 am, your comments on MSA are fine. My objection then and now to building a new stadium for the Pacers was the use of tax dollars to do so. If owners of the Pacers wanted a new stadium they should have used their own money.
November 10, 2017 by Neil deMause – The Indiana Pacers revealed they brought in a record $13.2 million in revenues from non-sports events last year. “We’re trying to be a good steward for this venue,” said Rick Fuson, president of the team that is getting paid $16 million a year by the city to run its arena without sharing any of its revenues with taxpayers and also may ask for more public money for arena upgrades soon. “This is about an investment into the economic vitality of our city and our state.”
I really shouldn’t be surprised by this, since Indianapolis, as noted, has been paying the Pacers $33 million over the past three years just to keep playing in their taxpayer-provided arena. Stretching out the annual operating subsidy over another ten years, though — and upping the ante in the process — solidifies the city as a rare winner of the sad trifecta of supplying 100% of arena construction costs, collecting no rent or other revenues, and then paying the team to play in its free arena. Indianapolis doesn’t so much host an NBA team as lease one.
Neil deMause is a co-author of Field of Schemes.
The Star had a much different take on all this corporate welfare:
Tony Cook April 11, 2014:
Experts say a $160 million deal to keep the Pacers in Indianapolis for at least another decade is a good one as far as NBA deals go. Still, the new deal appears to be more costly for the city than the current agreement with the team. Subsidies under the new deal amount to an average of $16 million a year. That’s higher than the $11.2 million average annual subsidy under the current three-year deal. That agreement called for an initial $3.5 million in upgrades and $10 million a year in operating costs.
********************
“Experts say” is the lead, but who these “Experts” are we do not know. So if your streets are falling apart, police protection and public transportation is wretched, well the Pacers have a new stadium. The Potemkin Village is here.
I worked for The Muncie Star before it was acquired by Gannett, for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette and for The Marion Chronicle-Tribune and Gannett News Service, as a government and political reporter
The family owned papers weren’t perfect. There were sometimes disagreements between the business end of it and the journalistic end. Reporters stood their ground against letting advertisers influence content. But we had good coverage. Typically, there were beat reporters for city government, county government, politics, courts, police and schools, and we had staff photographers. We kept an eye on government, reviewed spending claims, investigated, covered their meetings and enforced sunshine laws. We sued governmental bodies for having closed meetings illegally.
I don’t know how it is at Fort Wayne now, but I know that has all changed in Muncie. Gannett is concerned about the bottom line, and not about good community journalism. They are working with a skeleton staff at The StarPress (the morning and evening papers are now combined into a single edition). The result of this is rampant corruption in government and sadly uninformed voters.
We also lost our printing press, as have many other communities. Gannett shut down our press and the paper is now printed in Indianapolis. I assume they have done so with many other of their smaller properties as well.
Fortunately, the FBI is in here now and they have arrested the building commissioner and their investigation continues. The reporters are having to rely on the FBI and report their findings instead of doing their own investigations. It is unfortunate that many in the public no longer recognize the press as the Fourth Estate, necessary for an informed electorate.
And BTW, “the liberal media” is a myth.
What Wray said.
OMG, I missed the Great one and it’s possible I will miss the next one too but not is more probable, at least not the beginning of it.
If you thought that I am in any way a fan of economic dislocations you are wrong. I just see that the next one is inevitable and relatively soon and unavoidable. The pile of dysfunction that we are buried in to me cannot be denied.
Here’s a more professional explanation.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qtPG-QH3q-A
We have defaulted to an economic catastrophe by irresponsible behavior that will make coincident high taxes and insurance costs for recovery of more hostile climate and sea level, high taxes and personal and business costs for continuously adapting our civilization as means to control those recovery costs, re-sourcing energy from dwindling reserves of economically recoverable fuel reserves, the transition from capitalism to whatever we find works better to slow down the rate of depletion of natural resources, while the population heads towards 5X the world we were born into, topped off with whatever damage Trump leaves behind.
I would hate to be in our shoes.
Nancy,
I’ve been wondering the same thing.
There are journalists working at the Indianapolis Star who have brought about real change:
“The team of IndyStar journalists who exposed the crimes of former USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar and helped him get a 175 year prison sentence took home a top journalism award for their efforts.
The American Society of News Editors on Thursday announced the winners of the 2018 ASNE Awards for distinguished writing, digital storytelling and photography. Among the honorees were IndyStar reporters Marisa Kwiatkowski, Mark Alesia and Tim Evans who won the O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism.
The O’Brien Award award “recognizes public service work that helps solve community or societal issues and leads to changes in laws, regulations or other demonstrated results,” according to officials. The winners will receive $2,500 for winning the award, sponsored by the fellowship at Marquette University in Milwaukee. “
We are evidently also losing national journalism; what happened to Trump’s announcement that he and Kim Jong Un have fallen in love? Just askin’
VOTE BLUE!
The NYT it seems has cracked the eggshell of President Agent Orange’s claim to be a self made man. The NYT has revealed the financial shell game President Agent Orange and his family has engaged in for decades. Manafort and Michael Cohen are parts of the financial fraud of President Agent Orange.
Bombshell Report Details Tax Evasion and ‘Outright Fraud’ Through Which Trump Accumulated His Wealth From Daddy
“There you have it: Donald Trump is no self-made man, he was a millionaire at age eight and only survived on his daddy’s money.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/02/bombshell-report-details-tax-evasion-and-outright-fraud-through-which-trump
I suspect this financial fraud is where the foreign Oligarchs will come in, they propped up President Agent Orange.
The McMega-Media will focus on the “Bad Apples” but will ignore the complicity of our Elected Officials in passing laws that protect the 1% at the expense of us Proles. I have to wonder given the obscene levels of corruption in the USA how many times our Criminal Justice System has been waved off or simply not had the tools to prosecute White Collar Crime.
This corruption is beyond the normal Binaries of Republicans and Democrats. Both parties are infected with corruption given the vast amounts of money funneled into PACs, Super PACs, and Lobbyists with few exceptions.
Up here in Fort Wayne, the mindlessly conservative evening paper, the News-Sentinel, basically folded into the Journal-Gazette, the morning paper. All that is left is the drivel that appears on the NS editorial page, which is separate from the JG editorial page (and sometimes separate from reality.) The editorial sections are separate but I believe the reporting is combined.