As I return to involvement in local politics, I see a trend that terrifies me. Because it’s making things worse.
Countries, counties and communities with representative governments have always relied on local news media to keep people informed. And sometimes make powerful people squirm. Today, the local news ecosystem is like a forest next to a new Asarco toxic smelter. It’s not doing well.
There have always been those of us who chose willing ignorance. Perhaps, as was my case from 2012 to 2024, we don’t care until something affects us directly. And/or it’s because we’re busy with jobs, family, causes and so forth.
But there used to be a network of local media you could use to learn the basics of what’s going on. I came to Lakewood to edit the Lakewood Journal. Our paper was not perfect, far from it, but it was where you could go to learn what was going on with, say, the proposal for cityhood.
I quickly add that today, we’re blessed to have The Suburban Times because you can use it to keep track of a lot of things. But it doesn’t have reporters or write editorials, so it’s in a different category than what I’m talking about.
The thing that terrifies me today is that so many people don’t want to support a paper or praise a TV station because they don’t agree with political or editorial viewpoints. This seems to be a really common sentiment. And it’s dangerous for the information sources we need for a healthy democracy.
You say to me, Walter, that’s crazy. Why should I support a newspaper or TV station that may sometimes print things I disagree with?
The short answer is, because lately, you don’t have any other options for staying informed other than people who think the same way as you do, and run the risk of being wrong or poorly informed.
So I wanted to write a couple of posts about this. Because when you withdraw support from the only media outlet of its kind in a town, you hurt the one place you could go for a lot of information.
I crack up on Reddit and Facebook about this all the time. Someone posts a News Tribune or Seattle Times story. People complain that there’s a paywall. “I won’t support that paper, they’re dying because they don’t support my political view.”
So then they ask people to post the content – in other words, let’s be honest, steal the content – because even though they hate the paper’s politics, they want to talk about the paper’s content. Gosh, that content must have some value.
There are two important things to know. In my next column, we’ll talk about how the system is broken. Here’s the thing to remember about history: It was never intended that a town have only one newspaper. That was not how newspapers worked. A town with one newspaper is like a library with one book.
Or maybe a better example is that a town with one newspaper is like playing baseball with one base. You can still have a game and fun, but it’s not how the game was designed.
This is why it’s not fair that we’re asking to support just one newspaper in a town. It doesn’t feel natural. I get that. But things have changed.
Next week, I’ll offer a short history of newspapers and media outlets, and why it’s OK to feel like something’s wrong. We’re working with a broken system. It was always intended there would be multiple media outlets in a big town, offering multiple perspectives. Without that, we’re faced with the question of why to support a baseball game with one base.
So here’s my thought today on why it’s OK to support a newspaper if it offers a different perspective than you but you can still learn something – even if it’s not perfect – from its contents.
In three months, we’re going to be celebrating Thanksgiving. I want to predict how you’ll act about something. Tell me if these scenes ever happen:
Host: “You collect stamps!? Don’t you come into my house. You’re not welcome here for Thanksgiving.”
How about this?
Host: “Hey best friend, I love sharing this holiday with you.”
Best friend: “Great, spent the holiday morning studying the positions of my favorite political candidate, Kamala Trump.”
Host: “What, you support Kamala Trump? Don’t come into my house. You’re not welcome for Thanksgiving.”
Now that last example might hit a nerve. We all have family or friends who disagree with us on politics, and I know the current state of affairs means some people might avoid each other on Thanksgiving. More often, there’s a truce – I won’t bring up a political position and rub it into the face of someone I care for – especially on Thanksgiving.
Now I’m not saying you love a newspaper or TV station as much as you love your family or friends. Of course not. But the newspaper is part of your civic life. A radio station can tell you who is proposing what, who voted for what, and sometimes, who did things very wrong.
And cutting out media outlets just because you disagree with them on something is a terrible mistake.
Look, I get it. I’ve had media outlets take cheap shots at me as a person. You’d think I’d never support them. But you’re wrong. I subscribe because I want the news. I want to be informed. And I accept that sometimes I’ll disagree with some things that are written or said.
More recently, you all know I’m a critic of the Washington Legislature’s position that it knows better than cities and citizens when it comes to housing. I keep telling you I’m going to write a series about that. It’s coming, I promise. As I research it, I realize one issue is that the media is 1000 percent behind the idea of “tear down trees and single family homes and, magically, housing will become cheaper and more affordable.”
And I get that too. I’m pretty sure it’s the same now that it was when I was in the media. The average reporter earns like $4 an hour for actual hours worked (Or maybe a little more. But not much). No wonder they’re going to be for anything that promises an easy answer to cheaper housing. It’s also the prevailing position of the political movements that most reporters belong to, consciously or unconsciously.
My research on the housing topic can be maddening, because I’m reading or listening to stories that assume that giving housing developers everything they want will help the impoverished and underrepresented. WTF.
But I’m also getting vital information. If I refused to read media outlets, I could never tell you the complex story of what’s going wrong with housing policy in Washington.
We need local media.
Look, I get that sometimes you’ll find something in a newspaper or on the radio that makes you mad. But that’s just part of civic life.
People will disagree with you. Deal with it.
If you can’t afford a newspaper subscription, then of course don’t subscribe. But if you care about the give and take and information exchange that bring civics to life, please consider subscribing.
Next week: We’ll talk about what put you in this position. Because it’s not a fair position either for you OR the media outlet. There was never meant to be just one source of news in a town.
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