[codyswann]

Agreed. We point the finger at the media all the time, but the media is just a reflection of society. Why is Kim Kardashian on the front page of CNN? Why is "Iconic New York City park, featured in sitcom ‘Friends,’ trashed by urban decay" on the front page of Fox News?

Because they drive clicks.

As soon as gossip and unedited "news" blogs started appearing with rumor and unsubstantiated claims, it was a race to the bottom.

Why? Because the majority of people prefer mindless trash to the idiosyncrasies of a local county commission meeting.

I don't have a good answer because media companies have to make money to stay in business. Making them backed by the state is an even worse idea.

[nobody9999]

>Why? Because the majority of people prefer mindless trash to the idiosyncrasies of a local county commission meeting.

>I don't have a good answer because media companies have to make money to stay in business. Making them backed by the state is an even worse idea.

An excellent point. Local media outlets (in the US at least, not sure about elsewhere) are few and far between these days.

We need local news that focuses on "county commission meetings" and other happenings of local concern.

Unfortunately, unless you're in a big media market (NY, LA, SF, Chicago, Boston, etc.), odds are that your "local" news is written by folks hundreds of miles away, with no real understanding of local issues.

Here in NYC, we have dozens of local papers, blogs, independent news sites and local TV news outlets. As such, coverage of local issues is quite good.

But the days of small towns/counties having their own local newspapers and TV news are long gone in the US.

Anyone not living in a big media market will likely get only the broad-brush, zero nuance reporting that comes from national/regional news outlets.

That's a big problem for small towns, as there's no one with "skin in the game" watching the goings on of local and state government actors.

I don't have a solution (sadly) for this issue, because local news outlets in small media markets had a hard time staying in business long before the Internet, and the loss of classified ads in those small markets killed local journalism.

And so we have big national players like Fox, CNN, WSJ, NYT, USA Today, etc. that provide coverage of national issues and very limited (and inferior to real local reporting) coverage of regional/local issues.

This leads to really poor governance at the state and local levels and a lack of nuance about regional/national issues as they relate to local populations/economies.

More's the pity.

[brigandish]

There's a talk[1] by Anand Ghiridharadas about his book[2] - ironically, given at Google - which has many excellent insights, among them that local news has been hollowed out and destroyed by Google and the bigger fish are struggling, leading to this race to the bottom for clicks.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winners_Take_All:_The_Elite_Ch...

[whocares2345]

Is there a specific reason I should care about the local commission meeting? I honestly care even less about local news than nation wide, which I don’t care about at all.

[nobody9999]

>Is there a specific reason I should care about the local commission meeting? I honestly care even less about local news than nation wide, which I don’t care about at all.

If you don't care about most of the decisions, and the people who make them, that directly impact your life, then no.

But if you care about the legal, civil and societal issues in your local area, like land use, taxes, local services, etc., you might have some interest.

Having answered your question, I'm starting to wonder if it was rhetorical or not. Not sure which I'd prefer it to be.