Chris Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race. In 2018, The Buffalo News uncovered that Collins, New York’s 27th District Representative, was engaging in insider trading. Collins declared the reporting was “fake news”. Nevertheless, he was indicted, but continued his campaign and won.

Without the indictment, Collins would have won by a landslide because of the incumbent advantage and Republican gerrymandering. His opponent was Nate McMurray, a Democratic town supervisor, who was significantly less well-known. Because of the legal controversies, many people crossed the aisle. Collins was still re-elected by half of a percentage point.

There’s more to the story. Collins has since been sentenced to prison for two felonies, and this race foreshadows how the local news industry’s deterioration poses a grave threat to democracy. Members of rural communities outside of New York that were largely ignored by the media or whose local newspapers shut down did not even know that the Congressman was indicted. As a result, these areas were less likely to cross the aisle. This is what happens when people are not informed.

Approximately 2,100 newspapers have shut down since 2004, representing a 25 percent decline. Between 1990 and 2016, 60 percent of newspaper jobs disappeared. Some of the papers that closed, such as The Eureka Sentinel in Nevada, The Mineral Wells Index in Texas, and The Morehead News in Kentucky were over a century old. These closures leave communities  “without any independent information about local government, schools, and business,” says David Leonhardt of The New York Times.

Numerous studies have found that losing local newspapers leads to reduced voter turnout, increased political polarization, and local government corruption. Community members are less politically active, and local activism declines. In fact, reading a newspaper can mobilize as many as 13 percent of non-voters to vote. One study even found that newspaper coverage of polluters and emissions producers holds nearby plants accountable for decreasing emissions. Fewer candidates run for municipal and mayoral races, which have far greater impacts on citizen’s daily lives. Congressmen are less attentive to their constituencies because nobody covers their activity. These are among the many consequences of losing local newspapers.

Newspapers rely on advertising and subscriptions for revenue. Both of these channels have become unreliable revenue sources. Fewer than one-sixth of Americans pay for local news. As a result, they rely on local businesses to pay for advertisements, and readers can learn about what is happening in their communities. Businesses still need to advertise, but they are moving to Facebook and Google. Because digital media has taken over people’s attention, many newspapers have moved to digital platforms. However, Facebook not only allows businesses to localize their ads but people can also share posts and expand the reach of advertisers.

Good local reporting requires many specialized staff with ties to their community, so revenue is important. All of the struggling weekly papers in small communities would send journalists to almost all school board meetings, county commissioner meetings, and other planning meetings. Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan, the former editor of The Buffalo News and author of Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy, described local reporting as especially “labor-intensive”. When there are massive staff cuts, newspapers simply cannot get as much reporting done. iPhone videos provide tremendous benefits to democracy and have been vital in exposing racist police practices. But they do not replace journalists who know how to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests or how to sift through city budgets to figure out if there is something sketchy or corrupt happening. When journalists are cut from staff, there are fewer people available to report on, for example, a water line breaking.

The problem is that media sources compete for our attention and reading about a national scandal is far more intriguing than reading about what your neighbor said at a local council meeting. News, politics, and government have become nationalized, which has enabled publications like The New York Times to thrive. More importantly, though, our identities have become nationalized. People are more enraged by incendiary stories that activate their national identities instead of feeling a strong sense of identity in their hometown.

Digital media relies on provoking people. This is not a secret. Facebook profits off of disinformation because provocative theories engage people, which is why they label posts with disinformation instead of banning them. Election week was the most obvious example of this, where blatantly false theories about voter fraud circulated rapidly.

This is why a conservative propaganda network, that was built on capitalizing on the decline in local news, thrived throughout the 2020 election. In October, a New York Times investigation uncovered the inner workings of a network of websites started by Brian Timpone, a former TV reporter. These websites pose as unbiased, local publications in places where local papers have shut down. Clients, which include corporate firms and conservative interests, pay them to publish stories with a conservative bias. The network has expanded to 1,300 websites with several dozen in each state. They have generic names such as The Illinois Valley Times or The Des Moines Sun, aesthetics that mimic a local paper, and find public records like funeral records to appear authentically local.

The outlets publish articles that excessively praise Republican candidates while making misleading accusations about Democratic candidates. They write about other issues, too. One of the websites, called “The Kenosha Reporter,” published a series of articles with information about the criminal backgrounds of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot by the police in Kenosha, and the people protesting police brutality.

Another website worked with a crisis PR firm that was dealing with the image management of hotel magnate and Trump donor Monty Bennett. At the beginning of the pandemic, he was angry that his hotels were losing money. So, he ordered an article that went after China for causing the virus and also to lobby for his company to receive stimulus money. He ended up receiving $70 million from a program meant for small businesses, making him the largest loan recipient. Eventually, Mr. Bennett returned the money. Before, when people criticized him, his PR professionals ordered positive articles about Bennett and articles that criticized his competitors.

Many of the people who write for Timpone were laid off from local news websites and struggled to find available journalism jobs. Working for Timpone is a convenient way to make money. They receive an email with an assignment and write the article.

There are people who argue that we are in desperate times, and local publications should be publicly funded. They point to outlets like PBS, NPR, and the BBC. Although NPR and PBS are national and BBC is international, they provide examples of government-funded news organizations that generate high-quality reporting that contributes valuable information to the public. Perhaps journalism is a good that is simply not fit for markets.

Others are worried about censorship and the extensive bureaucratic process for attaining public funding. If papers are dependent on the government for funding, they might face political pressure that limits free press. This censorship can manifest even in subtle ways, such as removing a small bit of undesirable information a piece. Philanthropy has become more popular as a potential solution to the funding dilemma faced by newspapers.

Historically, journalists were respected for their vested interest in democracy. Now, discourse about journalists has become increasingly unfavorable. Donald Trump popularized the term “fake news” to demonize journalists. He portrays them as biased sources posing as independent messengers, a perfect description of Timpone’s operation. He set out to capitalize on the erosion of the local newspaper industry, just like Donald Trump exploited our nation’s divisions for his own personal gain.

There are multiple reasons that many people do not trust national media. They are tired of hearing from coastal elites and Ivy League graduates and should be able to turn to their own communities for unbiased information from people they know and trust.

There is hope. Davey Alba and Jack Nicas learned about Brian Timpone through a local newspaper in Michigan. Journalists are still doing excellent work within their communities, and nonprofit organizations like The Texas Tribune are filling in some of the holes left by newspaper shutdowns. We can help repair democracy by supporting organizations like The American Journalism Project, which works with nonprofit local publications and provides them with grants. Information should not be a privilege. It should be a right granted to every citizen, no matter where they live. Our democracy depends on it.

Charlotte Kramon ‘24 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at c.e.kramon@wustl.edu.