Go Small, Rebuild the Press
To recover trust in the press, we need a revolution of the small and the focused
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Littleton Tazewell in 1805, once remarked that he “looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.”1
It is a commonly accepted refrain, since before even our national founding, that the only peaceful safeguard for keeping political leadership accountable to the people, and avoiding political corruption (assuming a well-functioning government) is accurate news coverage, disseminated broadly and equitably.
Without reliable, accurate, and well-sourced news, we find ourselves in the dark on the actions of our leaders, and unable to check them. It is unrealistic to expect the people to ourselves keep constant observation, and so we rightly delegate that responsibility to the press. Unfortunately, the conglomerated media of the modern age, largely national and international in focus, and backed by either billionaires or multi-billion dollar multinational corporates, has largely lost the trust of the public. While the individual journalists that compose these institutions may be trying their best to maintain some integrity, the forces at top are hard to stem.
Recall that billionaire Jeff Bezos, who acquired the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million, used his newfound influence to prevent the editorial board from supporting any Presidential candidate in the 2024 election.2 And then, in January 2025, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Ann Telnaes, would resign over the paper refusing to run a piece lambasting the wealth class in the wake of the election.3 In spite of his prior insistence that he would never interfere in matters of the paper, as could be easily predicted, he couldn’t help himself when his interests were on the line.
This same phenomenon was repeated by the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong;4 and the same underlying issue would appear in another form in the acquisition of CNN by Warner Bros. and the subsequent pressure from billionaire John Malone to remake the network with a more partisan slant.5
The wealthy have long held the media as a crucial component of their influence, but it has reached a fever pitch not seen since the days of Pulitzer and Hearst.
As a result of this clear and naked corruption, people have increasingly turned to social media as their primary source of news, ostensibly vetted by peers; and yet, while no media source is unbiased, social media represents a particularly egregious form of potential owner and algorithmic bias, from bottom-up and top-down.6
Elon Musk spent a near-comical $44 billion to acquire twitter in 20227, seemingly without clear purpose; until, shy of two years later, he would use the platform to pressure the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election, and secure for himself a significant position of government influence. It would seem, in hindsight, that the acquisition was a clear (tragically successful) purchase of public opinion.
On a long enough time scale, this situation is untenable.
Somehow recovering trust in the press, while also depressing reliance on social media for news, will be an essential step in recovering our national identity and common cause, which has been brutally battered in recent years.
One solution: a revolution of the small.
One of the more devastating evolutions of the media landscape in my lifetime has been the loss of local news. More than half of all counties in the country now have limited or no access to a local news option, and “another 228 counties are at high risk of losing local news.”8 As local newspapers and local broadcast outfits are gobbled up by private equity, to either be homogenized into a partisan slant (as is the case for, for example, Sinclair Broadcast) or stripped for parts and shut down, more Americans are increasingly reliant on just a small handful of non-local news sources.
In the naive optimism of the 1990’s, the world thought the internet would help widen the landscape of media access; and yet, it has seemingly only streamlined the landscape and forced an intense and destructive consolidation.
However, the outcome is not yet final…
In February 2022, a new digital media initiative, called Bolts, was launched. Founded by Daniel Nichanian as a non-profit, this publication aims to focus on local politics and “…obscure institutions that shape public policy but are dangerously overlooked…” In less than two years, they have published numerous stories on criminal justice issues, voting rights, and local elections.9
In 2019, the American Journalism Project was launched by John Thornton and Elizabeth Green to “make grants to nonprofit news organizations, partner with communities to launch new organizations, and coach leaders as they grow and sustain their newsrooms.”10 In just the last five years, they have supported dozens of new local media outfits in multiple states throughout the country.
Here in Massachusetts, the Local Journalism Project was recently formed to investigate and promote ways to make local journalism sustainable. In partnership with the Provincetown Independent, they are directly investing in the development and growth of aspiring journalists, and working to bring a resurgence of local media to the state. Meanwhile, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism is working to achieve the same by “providing organizational support to community publications; running reporting collaborations and civic engagement initiatives; training promising journalists; and producing bold independent journalism.”11
And there are now an increasing number of independent, non-profit, local media outfits taking root in Massachusetts, including CommonWealth Beacon, Horizon Mass, Brookline.news, Belmont Voice, and many more.
In a paper on the essential need of a free press from 1737, Boston-born Benjamin Franklin would remark that “Republics… derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.” If we do not keep and support local news organizations, then we cannot expect to have a government that represents and defends the interests of the people.
One can only hope that we are on the precipice of a new dawn in local news.
National Archives: From Thomas Jefferson to Littleton W. Tazewell, 5 January 1805
Washington Post: Washington Post closes sale to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
Pew Research: More Americans… are regularly getting news on TikTok
New York Times: Elon Musk Completes $44 Billion Deal to Own Twitter
Northwestern: More than half of U.S. counties have no access…
Thanks for recognizing the work of the Local Journalism Project. Much appreciated.