Neighborhood Watch

When, exactly, was it when the public determined that it was not interested in local news?

Oh, right, we don't know that they aren't interested. In fact, there's evidence to the contrary, if you look at local groups on Facebook or, forgive me, Nextdoor. Every single day, people are on there posting things like "Anybody know why there are police cars blocking Woolbright at Military Trail?" or "What are they building on the lot next to Chick-fil-A?" or "I heard they're going to build workforce housing out near 441 -- who approved that and when?"

Ask them point blank whether they want local news from their local radio stations, and, well, it doesn't matter what the answer is. People will say they don't want it, but then they DO want it if it's something that affects them. They want to know, but there aren't a lot of places to get that information. Local newspapers have cut back to the point where many are close to useless, and the reporters, pressed to cover larger and larger areas and unable to build the kind of institutional knowledge that old-time "city hall reporters" gained over generations, can't really expose the wrongdoing that happens in local government. You can see it in the current wave of school board takeovers; most of the reporting fails to note that some of the "aggrieved parents" demanding that books and curricula be banned appear to just go from town to town claiming to have children in each school system. Old-school reporters would dig in on that. Today, a lot of reporters are basically transcribing press releases or grabbing the most superficial details from the web and aggregating or summarizing them.

What does this mean for radio and podcasting? Opportunity and frustration. First, the opportunity: There is value in being the trusted and perhaps the only source for local news, the kind newspapers used to provide. Clearly, there's a void, and clearly, there's an audience, people who turn to social media and may or may not be getting accurate information ("I heard they're building a Louis Vuitton store and a Wawa on that lot"). There are radio stations doing good local journalism, a lot of them being public radio stations, some major market commercial stations as well, but there's a need for more, and competition, too -- if you have multiple stations in a market vying for news supremacy, there's a better chance that stories will air that might not otherwise be covered. And podcasts can be a great option, too: coverage that doesn't apply to the entire market can be included in station-branded podcasts tailored to individual cities or regions.

Frustration? Money. Money, money, money. Money to hire adequate staff. Money to promote the station or podcast. Money to be made on news and podcasts, or the lack thereof. Explaining to private equity investors or shareholders that you're spending all this money on reviving local news will fall on deaf or hostile ears. "It will serve our audience, build trust in our brand, and have long term positive effects on our business" is not what they want to hear. They do not care. Thus, it has to be directly financed one way or another. Advertising is, well, you know how tough that is right now. Selling sponsorships is hard enough, and selling them for what might be controversial or politically-charged material in an age when there are organized groups ready to pounce with boycotts of products for the flimsiest reasons is probably a fool's errand. Subscriptions? Good luck with that. Maybe you could put local news behind a reasonably-priced paywall online and promote it on the air and on social media. Donors? Okay, that's one possibility, something some public stations have done, partnerships with nonprofit journalistic organizations. But. yeah, financing local news is tough. Ask newspapers. Once the lifeline of classified advertising went away, things got ugly fast.

I don't know if there's any solution. I don't know if radio is part of any solution that exists, nor do I know if there will ever be a way that podcasts could fill the void in a sustainable way. I do know that there's a need for local news coverage that is more than just today's car accidents and crime reports, I do know that our democracy may depend on the kind of investigative reporting that's become endangered, I do know that newspapers in many markets have largely abdicated that role, I do know that TV news is, um, TV news, I do know that it's very hard for online-only new entrants to do it well, and I do know that there's a wide open opportunity that could be what radio does when playing music and old-guy talk aren't enough.

I don't have a lot of faith that anything will happen. It's probably a pipe dream. I get that. But sometimes you gotta dream anyway, and maybe someone else with more resources will have that dream, too, and try something audacious and make it work. Shrugging your shoulders and saying there's nothing we can do about it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. At least, dreaming beats giving up.

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Heads up: I have a vacation coming up, not this week but the next, July 4th week. As you can tell, I really, really, REALLY need a vacation. Really.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon
Mastodon @pmsimon@c.im