With newspapers experiencing declining ad revenues, 19 senators proposed including relief to local newsrooms in the next stimulus bill. A local newspaper in midtown Manhattan, New York on March 31, 2020.
Day in and day out, local newsrooms are doing heroic work in the face of the coronavirus. On-the-ground coverage has been crucial for communities looking to stymie outbreaks and for hospital workers who lack critical protective gear. Journalists have been declared “essential” workers in states that are on lockdown. And as online outlets drop their paywalls, more Americans than ever are relying on reporters to get them vital information. No surprise, then, that traffic to news websites is surging, with some local outlets seeing 100% gains in readership.
Yet the coronavirus is ravaging the local news industry to the point where it might never recover.
The list of newspapers and media outlets laying off employees is so long and varied that it’s hard to keep track. On Poynter’s ever-updating blog listing all the layoffs, pay cuts, and furloughs in the news industry, it takes more than a half-dozen scrolls of the mouse to reach the bottom of the list.
Despite the spike in readership, advertising to newspapers has vanished almost overnight—a 30% to 50% drop or more across the industry. “Virtually all entertainment advertising is gone, restaurants gone. Automobile advertising is starting to get impacted,” Alan Frisco, CEO of the Seattle Times, told BuzzFeed two weeks ago.
Those advertisers still buying ads are “blacklisting” their brands from appearing on coronavirus stories, despite the fact it’s the only subject anyone cares about right now. And while national outlets like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal are increasingly relying on paying subscribers, local outlets need the advertising to stay afloat.
“It’s a mess,” news industry analyst Ken Doctor told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “We could be approaching an extinction event for some publishers. It will depend on the condition of those businesses before the virus and how long this whole thing lasts.”
With the local news industry on the verge of being wiped out, it’s time for Congress to step in.
On Wednesday, more than 50 civil society organizations, led by Free Press and PEN America, called on Congress to explicitly include funding for devastated local news outlets in its next stimulus bill. Their pressure campaign might already be bearing fruit. Nineteen Democratic senators sent a letter to the leaders in both houses of Congress later the same day, imploring them to include relief to local news outlets in the next stimulus bill.
“Reliable local news and information has been critically important during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet it has become more scarce,” states the letter from the senators, including former presidential candidates Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar. “Any future stimulus package must contain funding to support this important industry at such a critical time. Such a provision should be tailored to benefit aid recipients who make a long-term commitment to high quality local news.”
Free Press CEO Craig Aaron, who sparked talk of a journalism stimulus with his op-ed in the Columbia Journalism Review a few weeks ago and led the civil society coalition pushing for this, told me shortly after the senators’ letter was released, “It’s great to see these legislators recognizing how essential journalists are in this moment. We need immediate and direct action — meaning billions going to the journalists on the front lines — if we have any hope of keeping people informed about what’s happening where they live. This is a chance to actually invest in community needs, keep reporters watching officials, and serve the neighborhoods that have never gotten the focus they should from the media.”
The help can’t come soon enough. Virtually every industry is facing scores of layoffs, but the news business, after years of suffering from the rise of the tech giants, is cratering right before our eyes.
Those in the news industry who aren’t getting laid off have been hit with significant salary cuts — and it’s not just digital startup publications like BuzzFeed and Vice. A slew of alternative weeklies, including Denver Westword, Phoenix New Times, Houston Press, Dallas Observer, Miami New Times, and Broward New Times, have already slashed their reporters’ salaries by 25%.
“Losing a quarter of your salary is devastating,” Jerry Iannelli, a staff reporter with the alternative weekly Miami New Times told HuffPost in late March. “I wouldn’t say it was a large salary to begin with… I’m sitting here wondering if I have to move apartments. I immediately will have to rebudget my entire life.”
Other layoffs come courtesy of the hedge funds that have for years been purchasing newspapers and laying off reporters in the name of more profits. Alden Global, which has come under fire for its dismantling of newspapers under its ownership, demanded layoffs at a group of newspapers it owns in California. (Alden may not be making cuts strictly out of necessity — the papers reportedly turn a profit — but because it can use the crisis to the advantage of its bottom line.)
The plea for a journalism lifeboat has been gaining traction for weeks. The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan called for a journalism stimulus package. An editorial in The Atlantic proposed the federal government buy massive amounts of advertising focused on public health to keep news organizations afloat. Ben Smith at the New York Times talked through a few different options to save local news, even if big newspaper chains go under.
Politicians are also starting to pay attention at the local level. Kionne McGhee, Florida’s House minority leader in the state’s legislature, proposed a state funded endowment for news organizations. (Florida’s news outlets have been among the hardest hit: The Tampa Bay Times laid off reporters and cut its print edition to only two days per week. The Miami Herald’s parent company, McClatchy, announced its bankruptcy in February, just before the coronavirus crisis hit its inflection point.)
Newspapers have understandably been reticent about taking government money. It’s their job to cover officials; accepting bureaucratic handouts would create a natural conflict of interest. But this is not a regular grant or a subject-based funding mechanism — it’s an emergency the entire world is facing at the same time. We need to protect local reporters. If there’s ever been an exception, it’s now.