Cost-cutting programs, layoffs, and the discontinuation of newspapers - like other industries, media companies worldwide are suffering the consequences of the worst recession in a hundred years. Local media, whose numbers have been shrinking for a long time, are particularly affected. Where small towns still had several independent local newspapers in the 1990s, there are now often none left. It is on the local level that the important decisions for social coexistence are made: Daycare centers, schools, swimming pools, etc.

The disappearance of local newspapers is accompanied by the disappearance of journalistic standards in local reporting - balanced perspectives for opinion formation, public control of local decision-makers and processes. All this against the backdrop of a digitalization process that, while it promotes innovation and diversity - also in the field of local news - is causing a massive concentration of economic and journalistic power towards digital social platforms.

Will journalists still be able to exercise their function as the fourth power in a democratically constituted state? What new business models for sustaining local news might emerge? And which role can the state and civil society play in strengthening the supply of quality journalism, which is essential for citizens to control political power and for opinion-forming processes?

Watch the recording here. 

Speakers:

• Mary Ellen Klas, Bureau Chef, Miami Herald - Tallahassee

• Gregor Peter Schmitz, Chief Editor, Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung

• Lauren Harris, Journalist, Columbia Journalism Review 

This event is part of Media(R)evolution, a series of three transatlantic online discussions dedicated to the current situation and future of the media in the United States, Europe and globally. It takes place in September and October 2020 and is presented by 1014 – space for ideas and the Institute for Media and Communication Policy (IfM). Curated by Leonard Novy, Director IfM.