American Deadline ... reporting from four news-starved towns

AMERICAN DEADLINE by Greg Glassner, Charles Richardson, Sandra Sanchez, and Jason Togyer is a timely text about “Reporting from Four News-Starved Towns in the Trump Era.” Here, four journalists have collaborated with Columbia Journalism School to document their thoughts throughout much of 2020. The initial idea was that the election would be a major story and that this text could perhaps provide insight about smaller towns and cities in a way that seemed lacking in 2016. Well, the main story of 2020 turned into COVID and this project evolved. It is interesting to see the reflections from such a diverse group of places, the first two of which have lost their local papers while the other two have shrunk: McKeesport, Pennsylvania, is near Pittsburgh having lost many manufacturing jobs; Bowling Green, Virginia, largely rural and estranged from the state’s blue cities; McAllen, Texas, dealing with the border crisis; and Macon, Georgia, still dealing with “America’s troubled reckoning with race.” Glassner et al. provide some insights, but a more thorough summary of patterns (and possible next steps?) would have been a helpful addition.

The loss of local journalism is a dire situation. A few years ago, Art Cullen told an impressive story in Storm Lake while the University of North Carolina, in conjunction with The Knight Foundation, developed a comprehensive database on The Expanding News Desert which is itself referenced in AMERICAN DEADLINE. The News Literacy Project also attempts to fill a gap with some excellent Resources for Educators. If we do not have an educated citizenry who can agree on basic facts, then attempts at compromise and governance will become even more fraught.

Added note: Only recently, The New York Times published “It’s Not a Good Sign When People Who Don’t Pay for News Have So Little to Choose From.” Equally worrisome may be the attempts by attorney generals from Missouri and Louisiana to quell efforts to combat disinformation campaigns: see articles in New York Times and Wall Street Journal.