By Anna Brugmann and Mark Histed
In the hours after WAMU announced the closure of DCist and the layoffs of much of its staff, the D.C. Council had a near-unanimous message: The District needs and deserves high-quality local journalism.
Ten of the council’s 13 members posted statements in support of DCist, expressing sadness for this loss of local journalism in the District. But this was just the latest blow.
In April of 2022, Washington City Paper announced it would no longer be printing its paper, and laid off five staffers. In July 2023, Street Sense, which serves the homeless community of D.C. and reports on the issues affecting it, announced it would be cutting its printing days, laying off an editor and cutting hours for other staffers. Months later, The Washington Post cut a quarter of its metro desk via voluntary buyouts, hitting beats like transportation and education hardest.
D.C.’s elected officials are right to be concerned about these losses. There is also something they can do to help.
Ward 4 Council member Janeese Lewis George introduced the Local News Funding Act at the end of 2023. The first-of-its-kind bill, if passed, would give each District resident a series of news coupons to allocate to the local newsrooms (including newsrooms as large as Washington City Paper and as small as a one-person newsletter) of their choice. As it’s written, the bill would allocate $11.5 million to D.C. local outlets, with the residents deciding exactly who gets what. The bill is waiting for a hearing before the Committee on Business and Economic Development or the Committee of the Whole.
It’s an approach not only in the best interests of local news outlets, but of community members and even the government itself.
Two decades of research have shown that when communities lose local news, taxes go up, government waste sharply increases and elections become less competitive. Community members report feeling less connected to their communities. Further, residents become less likely to know basic facts needed for democracy: studies show loss of local news makes people less likely to be able to name their elected officials. And it’s not just the government that suffers; private sector abuses can also grow. For example, with no one reporting on warning signs, areas without local news are more likely to experience ecological disasters.
In D.C., some council members pointed out, the stakes are particularly high.
“This is a canary in the coal mine,” Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker said on X. “These closures promote misinformation and are a threat to Home Rule itself.”
Conversations about the losses shouldn’t overlook the dedicated cadre of local journalists and publishers serving District residents. The Washington Informer, El Tiempo Latino and Washington City Paper — among many other outlets and community members who work to keep their neighbors informed — are still dedicated to telling the District’s stories. Still, this group is also feeling the financial pressure facing local news across the country.
The idea of the government supporting local journalism may seem contradictory at first. On its face, public funding could jeopardize that since governments would ostensibly be in a position to pick which journalists and news outlets to support. That doesn’t have to be the case, though.
This question — of how to support strong journalism, while keeping journalists independent of government influence — has been around since the beginning of the United States. The Founders debated how to support newspapers, and passed the Postal Act of 1792 as one of the initial acts of the first Congress. That act contained a huge subsidy for newspapers — a postage subsidy. That subsidy would be worth upwards of $60 billion as a share of today’s GDP. The postage subsidy was neutral as to newspapers’ content. It supported news of all sorts, including those that supported opposition parties.
Today, the U.S. is realizing again that public support is an important piece of strong local journalism. Any public subsidy today must keep the government at arms length, away from choosing directly which news to support. Public media has historically been one solution, but the need for local news in the District is bigger than one single news organization could possibly fill. One or even a handful of public news outlets won’t always do a good job covering all the news needed by different communities and diverse audiences.
The DC Local News Funding Act addresses these concerns by putting the choice of what news outlets to fund in the hands of the people of D.C. Under this bill, every D.C. resident would get a set of “News Coupons” and would choose which news sources to give the coupons to. The program is managed by a board of community leaders. This means the government never decides which outlets get money — you do. We do.
Under the bill, a large number of people in D.C., many who now may not have the financial means to pay for news, will be able to support news outlets that serve them. This would be a remarkable step forward, not just for local news, but also for building community.
And public funding via News Coupons would benefit news outlets in another way: strengthening their independence by adding a new source of revenue. Just as we want news outlets to be independent of the government, we also want them to be independent of powerful private entities. The D.C. bill allows news outlets to receive News Coupon funds while also still receiving advertising money and subscription revenue. Diversifying outlet revenue streams means journalists have to depend less on any one funding source. That’s an important thing for a free and independent press.
Council member Lewis George’s bill is what the District needs now, as the national slump in local journalism has squarely hit D.C. As Council member Robert White said on X after the closure of DCist, “D.C. is a home town, not just a federal town, and local coverage shining light on local issues matters.”
The council has the opportunity to support the journalists and newsrooms that tell all kinds of D.C.’s hometown stories, contribute to a better government and build a stronger community.
Anna Brugmann is the policy director at Rebuild Local News, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advances public policies to counter the collapse of local news and revitalize community journalism. Mark Histed is a D.C.-based academic and policy researcher for Democracy Policy Network.
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