With more and more local papers closing their doors, the Conversation featured a timely piece by a communications professor. She argues that local papers are central to a healthy democracy and more must be done to ‘bring them out of crisis’.
The professor proposes a range of ideas to help, most of which involve more government funding or tax breaks. However, she acknowledges that systemic changes need to be made to local news revenue models and government funding offers only short-term, but desperately needed relief. It should be noted that local papers have already been receiving government support for several years.
And this is the core of the question: Would you rather the government spend more in the short term to keep these papers afloat, which would (we hope) allow them more time to figure out a sustainable model. Or would you rather let them close and allow market forces to run their course?
Source: [https://theconversation.com/local-papers-are-central-to-our-democracy-we-must-do-more-to-bring-them-out-of-crisis-237987](https://theconversation.com/local-papers-are-central-to-our-democracy-we-must-do-more-to-bring-them-out-of-crisis-237987)
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3 Comments
We shouldn’t be subsidising a product no one wants.Â
Fund the ABC properly so it has local and regional news. That way you don’t need a local rag that is 90% adverts from the people you know in town and 10% news that is either disguised RW crap, or local gossip.
So who actually reads them?