New directions for community media

Benjamin Franklin’s business involved both news and community media services.

The digital revolution has had a gigantic impact on the media.  Traditional local and regional newspapers are in sharp decline, according to the Pew Research Center.  Many newspapers have gone bankrupt; television news is up in the air with MMJ (multi-media journalism); and all have become far less relevant to daily life.  Today, only a handful of journalists are keeping a public eye on local and state government, and the small amount of local news has meant measurably more polarization and less civic engagement.

The Roanoke Times, for example, had a newsroom of about 120 reporters and editors in the 1990s. Now it has less than a dozen.

The reasons for the modern decline are fairly straightforward.  Display and classified (personal) advertising was the mainstay of the press since the 1830s.  In the early 21st century,  search engines like Google have allowed shoppers to zero in on the best prices; Google also charges marketers for the privilege of coming  up high in the search rankings.  So the Internet made the market more efficient, and let Google rack up billions in profits, but it also meant that it was less efficient to advertise in traditional media, and news deserts began springing up all over the country.

In light of all this, it’s important to recall that advertising isn’t the only way that  community information systems used to work, and it isn’t the only approach that we can take in the 21st century.  

Let’s  take a page from the “Ben Franklin” community publishing model.   This is the business model that came before the penny press model, and was used between the 1700s to the 1830s.  Franklin’s community publishing model had two elements:

• A profitable printing services operation that churned out  books, legal notices,  accounting ledgers, minutes of local organizations, wills and deeds and a thousand other essential record-keeping tools for the public and private business; and

• A not-so-profitable newspaper that provided a public service, and also helped the main printing operation stand out from its competitors.

Of course, these days, we dont need so many books, legal notices, accounting ledgers and so on. Most of that gets done electronically.  But every person, and every community, has information needs.

Proposals to fix the traditional media don’t go deep enough

In the near-vacuum of community news, we have seen a surge of new media functions, but they often have serious problems.  Facebook moderators have  editing styles that are not informed by a tolerance for open debate or any knowledge of where the actual limits of debate are (or should be) according to US tradition and law. Craigslist has no social responsibility, and using it can be risky. Fake news is endemic at the national level and promoted by people with all kinds of motives.  “Cheap speech” has eroded trust in the news.

The responses have not been encouraging.  If we use an aviation analogy, we might say that a lot of the new non-profit journalism ventures amount to a “better pilot” model. If we could just have better pilots flying better routes, we’d have more people paying for air travel.  Often  these “better pilot” news models are non-profit organizations that depend on public generosity and have no real hope for long-term financial success.

To extend the analogy, we need to envision not only new kinds of pilots and airplanes, but also an entirely different approach to aircraft design. We need to think about new kinds of  community airplane hangers that can encourage new kinds of pilots. Maybe we need to rethink  what it means to fly, and what airframes and engines and new theories can help us achieve more, and what it is we’re hoping to achieve in the first place.

Media services could replace advertising revenues 

Let’s start with the self-evident proposition that every person and community has information needs, whether its just the humble bulletin board at the local library or the most elaborate community press organizations, or a variety of functions in between.

If we consider community information and media needs in light of the Ben Franklin business model, we might want to think about how community media services can be delivered by community media editors  with the help of volunteers.

A list of those services might include:

  • Platforms for web, social media and free radio;
  • Video production / live streaming units for community meetings, school events, sports and other community needs with high quality switching and live streaming;
  • Video and photographic equipment rentals for sports or theater or school events or film projects or large family get-togethers;
  • VHS and digital tape to digital transfer, for family heritage preservation work
  • Photocopying, scanning and document handling for business and  family records
  • A variety of  imaging equipment for home and business, such as thermal cameras for energy audits,  time-lapse photography, ground penetrating radar, drone video, and other advanced digital imaging services.

Since well-trained media services experts are in short supply,  additional low-cost services could be delivered by community media volunteers. These kinds of services might include:

  • Elderly podcasting support for free audio books, in connection with local libraries  (Hoopla, Libby, Librivox.org) and Audible.  This is especially important public service outreach for nursing homes and vision impaired.
  • Teen’s educational animation software & studio space (eg Dragonframe or other animation application);
  • Computer video editing equipment at a media center or available for home use;
  • E-sports such as video gaming contests and drone races (ideally including training of parents to also participate in video games);
  • Small business marketing and web design consulting and support that empowers the small business owner;
  • Individual, family and community book publishing assistance and local market pooling for low-cost online books and books-on-demand.
  • Assistance with community blogging for additional information outreach from church, ag extension, small business development and other local civic improvement groups.

Community news and public agenda setting would help serve a community.  This could (and should) be a democratic news environment, where readers and viewers would not only vote for the most important stories and set the agenda, but would also have a voice in the way information is developed in the first place.

In this instance, members of the community would know in advance about topics coming up in the news and would have an opportunity to comment or  contribute.  Similarly, if a critical mass of readers wanted a trained journalist  to look into a public situation and report back, the readers should be able to initiate reporting efforts. At the same time, professional and citizen reporters could propose these kinds of projects and gauge public interest.  So a transparent   public agenda would help develop community-oriented approach to public issues.

Overall, we need to move in the direction of MORE, rather than less, democracy in our information systems. We need MORE, rather than less, citizen involvement.

We need to face the technological revolution fearlessly, and make the best of it, rather than allow it to make the worst of us.

As Henry David Thoreau said in Walden, over 150 years ago:     “Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers … to select our reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his culture, genius, learning, [or] wit … so let the village. Do not stop short at a pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a parish library, and three selectmen, because our Pilgrim forefathers got through a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these. To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions …”