The Future of Media Report
Journalism Sunday, August 7th, 2011In June 2011 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released it’s Future of Media Report, noting the shortage of local, professional, accountable journalism in many American communities. This loss of accountability and less in-depth coverage poses dangers of under reporting local government waste, local corruption, less effective schools, and other serious community problems.
Among their conclusions was that “Hyperlocal information is better than ever. Technology has allowed citizens to help create and share news on a very local level – by town, neighborhood and even block. These sites do not operate as profitable businesses, but they do not need to. This is journalism as volunteerism – a thousand points of news.”
Commercial radio, cable and satellite play a small role in reporting local news. Public TV does little local programming; public radio makes an effort to contribute, but has limited resources. Most important, too new Internet-native local news operations have so far gained sufcient traction fnancially to make enough of an impact.
On close inspection, some aspects of the modern media landscape may seem surprising:
- An abundance of media outlets does not translate into media reporting. In many communities there are more media outlets, but less local accountability reporting.
- While digital technology has empowered people in many ways, the concurrent decline in local reporting has, in many cases shifted power away from citizens to government and to other powerful institutions, which can more often set the news agenda.
- The non-profit media sector has become far more varied, and important than ever before. It now includes state public affairs networks, wikis, local news websites, organizations producing investigative reporting, and journalism schools as low -power, FM stations, traditional public radio and television, educational shows on satellite TV, and public access channels. Most of these players neither seek nor receive government funds.
- Rather than seeing themselves as competitors, commercial and non-profit media are now finding it increasinginly useful to collaborate.
Short URL: http://hyperlocalvoices.com/?p=69
Posted by RickBonetti
on Aug 7 2011. Filed under Journalism.
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