Even as more people than ever are turning to local media for reliable information during the COVID-19 crisis, many local outlets are actually laying off staff because of a collapse in the advertising market.
As a guest host for “Civic,” Gina Baleria, assistant professor of communication and media studies at Sonoma State University, and host of “News in Context,” led a panel discussion on this topic and the future of local media.
Advertising once supported a thriving newspaper and broadcasting industry, but that business model has been in decline for decades as advertising has moved online.
The reliance on advertising to support print and broadcast news, “created an environment where any kind of shock really can destabilize the whole thing,” said San Francisco Public Press Executive Director Michael Stoll. “So, in the last six weeks, you’ve been seeing scores of local publications furloughing, laying off staff. It’s the trouble you get into when you are a publicly traded company looking for the next quarterly earnings statement.”
Martin Reynolds, co-executive director of the Maynard Institute, said the traditional business model for news fails to support the local journalism people count on.
“The Oakland Tribune won a Pulitzer for their coverage of the Ghost Ship fire and subsequently had a bunch of layoffs after that,” he said. “So it has nothing to do with the quality of people. It has to do with the ownership — owned by a hedge fund, which spent years cutting capacity to remain profitable rather than thinking innovatively about how to approach building an audience, new communities and the like.”
Their discussion was part of a live webinar hosted by the Public Press as one in a series of discussions looking at the work of journalists during the pandemic.
A segment from our radio show, “Civic.” Listen daily at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on 102.5 FM in San Francisco.
