Video Fridays: For The Record & The Plight of Local News

“What happens if no one is doing this?” asks Laurie Ezzell Brown, reporter/editor/owner of the community newspaper, The Canadian Record. Wednesday evening the discussion on the struggles of local newspapers began with a 30-minute documentary, For the Record, by Heather Courtney, followed by a panel discussion hosted by The Nevada Independent at the Beverly Theater in Downtown Las Vegas.

Attending local community board meetings, driving to news events, shooting images of high school sports, I’d forgotten all the leg work involved in covering local news. Then designing the beautiful full-page color layouts of that week’s stories, there is something about a physical newspaper with a huge cover image shouting out the news of the week that doesn’t quite happen with online publications. I’m a firm believer that we’ve got to find a way to make the online versions work, but there’s something about those full-page spreads that is just better. For the Record did a wonderful job reminding me of my own brief experiences covering the news locally and also of the unsustainability of the business model, especially in small communities. The documentary is a perfect snapshot showing a community that trusts the news it gets from its newspaper, because they personally know the owner/reporter of the newspaper, even though they don’t agree with her politics or her family’s politics.

For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney
For the Record by Heather Courtney

The hour long panel and audience discussion was hosted by Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston, with questions and comments from Texas Tribune co-founder and senior advisor, Evan Smith, filmmaker Heather Courtney and Canadian Record owner, Laurie Brown. The documentary centered on the question faced by Brown and the Canadian Record, how does one fund a news gathering enterprise when the sources of ones revenues, advertising, has all but disappeared? This is hardly a new dilemma. Large urban papers have seen their revenues disappear since the late 1990s when Craigslist started gaining traction and only accelerated in the wrong direction with the explosive growth of social media juggernauts like FaceBook and Twitter.

Ralston and Smith discussed the non-profit model of journalism, coupled with abandoning the physical printed newspaper (primarily because of the costs to print and distribute a printed paper). That’s working for the entirely online Nevada Independent and Texas Tribune, but part of the perceived value of the Canadian Report, as expressed by one person in the documentary, is that community members know Brown and her staff in a face-to-face way that garners trust. They have a connection to the paper, their newspaper, when they pluck down their $1.50 and grab their copy. But then the reality has always been that their $1.50 has never covered the expenses of doing the news.

The documentary began with Brown showing the ancient typesetting blocks used to produce the newspaper when her father purchased the paper in the 1940s. It would seem that the technology that’s eliminated the manual labor part of producing a physical newspaper and tremendously reduced the cost, has also made it possible for anyone with a computer but no other credential or ethics to claim an equal voice in the marketplace of news. Businesses who have no core objective to promote verified information have crowded out traditional journalism.

During the discussion a question about whether Brown and others have reached out to tutor or intern students interested in journalism. Brown shared a story about a high school student who became her graphics expert and sports reporter but then eventually left to go to a larger market. In a way, the health of local journalism (or lack thereof), is another indicator of the devaluation of small communities and unhealthy commodification of media and news media. Brown ended the evening with the concerning question, “Who will do this when we’re gone?”

2023-09-13 IndyTalks – The Plight of Local News – Beverly Theater Lobby
2023-09-13 IndyTalks – The Plight of Local News – Selfie in the Lobby
2023-09-13 IndyTalks – The Plight of Local News – Panel Discussion with Jon Ralston, Laurie Brown, Evan Smith and Heather Courtney (L-R)
2023-09-13 IndyTalks – The Plight of Local News – Panel Discussion with Jon Ralston, Laurie Brown, Evan Smith and Heather Courtney (L-R)
2023-09-13 IndyTalks – The Plight of Local News – Post-Panel Discussion with Jon Ralston, Laurie Brown

My challenge to my readers is for you to please find your local news outlet (preferably online or print, ‘cause TV is just terrifying) and find a way to financially support their work. In Nevada we have the aforementioned Nevada Independent and for those in Las Vegas I’ve recently enjoyed City Cast Las Vegas . Finally, my preferred mode of information interaction has been listening to (and sometimes watching), podcasts. I’m subscribed to the Nevada Independent and NY Times, but I rarely visit their websites. But I listen to their podcasts daily. I think that and maybe video shorts are the venue for news distribution. This is an ongoing an developing story.

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