In recent years, our society has unfortunately transitioned from the Age of Information to the Age of Misinformation. Our founding fathers considered a well-informed electorate to be so fundamental to our democracy that they created the U.S. Post Office to assure that our nation’s newspapers could be delivered to even our most rural citizens. But now, much of that primacy of a well-informed electorate has fallen victim to online gossip and hearsay.
It’s hard to overlook the sad reality in recent local and national elections, that many voters are now basing their ballot decisions on what they’ve encountered in their social media feeds. One of the main casualties of the transition from print and broadcast journalism to social media quasi-news sources has been the slow demise of in-depth local news reporting—once the bedrock of an informed community.
We are fortunate here to still have our local newspaper and radio news. But, with the growing degree of misinformation among voters, it’s not enough that our local news media still exist. They must step up now and provide greater in-depth coverage of local issues, if we are to still have a well-informed electorate.
We need them to focus on more coverage of assembly meetings, more investigative reporting, and more stories with input from multiple, diverse sources. So, CVN and KHNS, this is your moment to reclaim the legacy of local news as a vital pillar of American democracy.
George Figdor