A friend recently sent me a link to Northwestern University’s “State of Local News.” It was incredibly depressing. It also provides an answer to the question so many of us repeatedly pose: how can people believe X or Y? The answer, it turns out, is simple: they have no access to contrary information–or, for that matter, any contemporary news coverage that can credibly be labeled journalism.
Here is the first paragraph of the report’s Executive Summary: the emphases are mine.
Our first State of Local News report, published in 2016, examined the local news landscape across America over the previous 10 years, taking data from 2005 as its starting point. Now, in the project’s 10th year, we are able to look back through the past two decades and see dramatic transformations in the ecosystem of local news. Almost 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, leaving 50 million Americans with limited or no access to a reliable source of local news. This trend continues to impact the media industry and audiences nationwide. Newspapers are disappearing at the same rate as in 2024; more than 130 papers shut down in the past year alone. Newspaper employment is sliding steadily downward. And although there has been some growth in stand-alone and network digital sites, these startups remain heavily centralized in urban areas, and they have not been appearing fast enough to offset the losses elsewhere. As a result, news deserts – areas with extremely limited access to local news – continue to grow. In 2005, just over 150 counties lacked a source of local news; today, there are more than 210. Meanwhile, the journalism industry faces new and intensified challenges including: shrinking circulation and steep losses of revenue from changes to search and the adoption of AI technologies, while political attacks against public broadcasters threaten to leave large swaths of rural America without local news.
There are many reasons for the urban/rural divide, and access to reliable information is one of them.
According to the report, there has been a steady increase in the number of counties that are “news deserts” – defined as areas that lack consistent local reporting. The project found that 213 U.S. counties lack any local news source, an increase from the 206 such counties it found last year. And you have to wonder just how much “news” is delivered In the 1,524 counties having only a weekly newspaper. As the project reports, that leaves some 50 million Americans who have limited or no access to local journalism.
It isn’t just the rural areas of the country, although the problem is most severe in rural America. The disappearance of local news sources has been especially pronounced in the suburbs of large cities where, the report tells us, “hundreds of papers have merged together. The papers that remain look profoundly different than just a few decades ago, with significantly consolidated ownership and reduced print frequencies.”
One result of rural Americans’ diminished access to information has been an increased dependence on public broadcasting. So in July, Congress rescinded more than $1 billion that a previous Congress had allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
As a direct result, all federal funding to local NPR and PBS member stations vanished. This leaves hundreds of public media stations at risk of having to reduce or suspend operations – at a time when their services are increasingly vital to Americans with limited alternatives for local news, especially in rural areas. In this report, we track 342 public media stations across the country. Collectively, the signals from these stations reach into more than 90% of all U.S. counties, including 82% of news deserts, making them a crucial piece of information infrastructure within the local news ecosystem.
The effort to kill public broadcasting is quite clearly part of MAGA’s effort to control the information environment–to deprive those living in news deserts of access to information inconsistent with GOP propaganda.
There’s much more at the link, but the quoted material goes to the heart of the information problem central to America’s polarization: the consolidation of ownership– of both print news and broadcast–means that the overwhelming majority of news delivery is now in the hands of the billionaires who are part of our governing kakistocracy. Meanwhile, the lack of traditional, reliable local news sources means that millions of Americans no longer have access to credible, vetted journalism.
What’s left is the Wild West of the Internet–filled with sites that provide “news” curated to confirm the bias of the person doing “research.”
No wonder we Americans occupy alternate realities.
I feel that all of this culture-war concerns are superficial distractions from the root of the problem we face today. I have been reflecting on this quote from Dr. King’s “Beyond Viet Nam” speech from 1967:
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more
important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and
present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only
an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and
women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion
is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.” There is much more in the speech, which I highly recommend reading. We are in the place we are now because we could not bring ourselves to the “revolution of values” then, and we are not there yet. But we could be. It is a daily choice.
The question for today is, as always, what are you going to do about it?
Isn’t it ironic that rural areas of our country experienced news deserts first? Now MAGA has cut funding to public news (which was lame anyway), so their constituents will have to rely on MAGA billionaire owners of broadcasting TV services.
It’s kind of like the soybean and beef farmers getting punched in the gut by Trump’s manipulation over Argentina’s election. According to polls, Milieu will lose and the $40 billion loan will vanish. Not to worry, JPMorganChase will take their lithium as collateral for a massive loan.
As I’ve been repeating over and over, if you get your news from the television, you are being manipulated. It’s all propaganda. Former New York Times journalists disclose that they were told by editors what they could and could not write. If you’ve listened to the questions the press is asking the administration, they are the fluffiest questions with zero follow-up when they get lies for answers. They are literally letting the liars have the final word.
All dictators want to control the message, and the billionaire oligarchs happily oblige. We’ve gone beyond fascism with the merger of state and oligarchs. They are shoring up their power, and in April 2026, the military will be in major cities to stop protests or “civil unrest.” They aren’t even hiding it!
The most concerning interview last week was with Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior advisor. He told the interviewers that “Trump will be president in 2028, so you might as well accommodate yourself to it.” They asked about the Constitution, and Steve said, “The plan is already in place and will be revealed when the timing is right.”
I think that confirms many of our projections about the 2026 and 2028 elections.
This is the saddest part of speaking with the other side. They can’t put two and two together because they aren’t ever seeing more than one perspective.
“Elections?” Nothing but leftover artifacts of a bygone era.
One sad thing about MLK’s wonderful speech, is that it probably served to harden the motivation of the oligarchs to resist any hint of the movement MLK was hoping for. 1967, which included “the summer of love,” scared those folks to their boots, and that fright helped to pave the way to where we are now.
That we are a dysfunctional society is without question.
It seems that MLK’s vision of: “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
But that is the reality that was sold to us, day by day, and now we are awash in time-wasting screens, each of us choosing the reality that suits our personality. Some decide to emphasize each of those three, while others prefer to live in an entirely distinct reality—one that harks back to our founders, whose focus was on self-rule, not rule by others for profit.
MLK’s big three came as part of a package deal, and Trump was brought to power to add ruthless authoritarian muscle to them, and at least for now, the oligarchs are in control.
The selling of our Constitution was not about getting the 250-year-old us to accept something new, but rather something as old as we are: our agency. In the end, we are born free and with the obligation to defend it, and now we have to protect ourselves yet again by uniting and taking advantage of our sheer numbers.
We can.
Todd, of course OJ will be President in 2028, if he lives that long. The key question who will be President on January 21, 2029.
i dont do socail media, and look to reliable news journalism. the working class as im in the ditches,(literally) with blue collars. seems that they are to busy or self absorbed to care about news,they get it from ear shot.though they all have the cell,google mentality to look for anything,they spend it looking a vids and stuff for their own immediate needs. they dont care about whos doin what as long as they can counter anything that makes trump look like a cure all. they vote,if they do on total careless info. being im looking thru the fence to hear the echos of news that recent and has merit. i hear nothing outside of reading the news.otherwise its just earshot crap,they are too busy to care and that will distroy America.
Peggy,
The Silicon Valley Broligarchy will choose JD Vance. Miriam wanted Marco Rubio as VP, but Peter Thiel outranked her and insisted on JD. I’m afraid JD will be even worse than Trump.
I find myself daily wondering how do we as a society get away from bad aspects like MLK talked about and build a healthier community especially when so many people are addicted to bad things/habits. I laugh and tell myself maybe I should become a Jane Goodall type and spend my time with another species away from the good old USA. I am barely surviving here anyway and feel what intelligence/creativity I do have is bored and going unused. We are killing life as we know it on this planet… which is so sad considering how beautiful and rare it is in the universe. I don’t understand how entire groups of people don’t care about trashing this planet when it’s the only one that can sustain human life at this point.
The consolidation of power through technology is just well insane!
Kakistocracy … def: government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
Sheila introduced a word I have not read very often. Very appropriate.
Kakistocracy was named ‘word of the year’ by The Economist. Totally missed it. Thanks again, Sheila, for a summon to my curiosity.
Todd, Me, too!