Imagine, for a moment, local elections in which social media is the primary source of news.
Your Aunt Gertrude might share an article on Facebook claiming that a city council candidate is a Ku Klux Klan member. Or that a school board candidate has a side job as a drag queen.
You might or might not share those articles with your friends or link to them on X, but it is likely that few of us would examine the source of the information or take the necessary time to confirm its veracity.
After all, we can trust Aunt Gertrude, right?
As local newspapers continue to decline, the American voter becomes less informed and more susceptible to misinformation. This is particularly problematic as elections take place this year throughout the nation.
In the presidential election, misinformation can be a concern but not an existential threat. Hundreds of news outlets produce independent reporting about the election, and the candidates’ every move is chronicled and analyzed by national pundits from all angles.
But other elections rely on local reporting and a populace that is informed by reliable sources. Let’s face it, The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are not going to show any interest in a contest for, say, a legislative race in Washington.
All of which makes recent events at The (Everett) Herald and other newspapers particularly concerning. Carpenter Media Group, which acquired several Washington papers in January, has announced that it plans to lay off 62 people at Sound Publishing outlets, including more than half the unionized newsroom employees at The Herald.
Obviously, The Columbian has a vested interest in supporting local journalism. We also are grateful that The Columbian remains locally owned, having been in the Campbell family for more than a century. Local ownership carries with it an inherent interest in seeing our community thrive and in producing in-depth news that impacts that community.
Other communities are not so fortunate. According to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, more than one-third of the nation’s newspapers have closed since 2005. That creates news deserts, particularly in rural areas that also receive scant attention from broadcast outlets. For the papers still in operation, most of them have experienced severe staffing cuts, leaving fewer people to report on issues of local interest.
Critics might claim that the decline is simply a result of changing media and market forces in the digital age, but it’s not so simple. Local news outlets produce stories that then draw readers to social media, but the tech companies reap the bulk of advertising revenue that results from the online traffic that is generated.
Congress has considered a handful of bills designed to bolster local journalism, and those efforts warrant support. More than 130 newspapers closed in the United States last year, serving as a direct threat to democracy. That threat can be seen in a recent report from misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, which says that fake news sites now outnumber legitimate news sites on the internet. “The number of these sites have increased in size and scope and sophistication,” one expert said.
Such sophistication can provide fodder for social media, but it diminishes our elections. When local news declines, it creates a vacuum that is filled by fake news designed to sway public opinion and, ultimately, elections. We are saddened that the people of Everett might soon see the impact of this trend.
