Local Media Left Behind

June 28th, 2006

The Nation has a post focusing on local and community media being over-run by media consolidation chasing ad dollars and the middle class

Etan Michaeli believes

Media consolidation has exacerbated the information gap across race and class lines. For some, it has produced an immense bounty. Those who can afford it can purchase access to a wide range of news sources tailored to their political tastes, from cable television networks to Internet sites to periodicals. Independent media sources that appeal to left-leaning, middle-class consumers have been carried along by their readers’ swelling bank accounts. Likewise for the corporate-owned news sources like The New Yorker that target “independent” market niches.
But media consolidation has doomed the community news sources most consumed by low-income audiences. Local newspapers, radio and TV are left behind as middle-class readers choose other media and advertisers follow.

In a way, this point of view prompts me to think of the post about young people disengaging from politics I made yesterday

and Michaeli is referring to what is described as the digital divide. The “digital haves” and the “digital have nots”

This is of critical importance for all communities. To have access to information and also to have a voice. Strong communities exist through powerful flows of information and dialogue. Giving people their voice means they have significance, and personal value within the community, this brings I would suggest greater social accountability and responsibility.

The local community needs to be engaged.

I am sure there are a great many more positives than just these.

But through the tools that we have today surely there is no need to have a digital divide?

Today’s media universe allows those who can’t afford access to slip into a separate and unequal world of second-class information. The poor are watching their media options shrink – both in terms of the number of local sources available to them and in the narrowing content of those national sources that still try to reach them. Calls for media democracy should demand socioeconomic diversity in staff, content and audience among the major sources, as well as a diverse array of news sources at the local level. Access must be guaranteed through universal Internet connectivity and taxpayer subsidies for community-based media through grassroots versions of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We must amplify the voices of the voiceless, both as subjects and as authors.

Ethan Michaeli is the founder and publisher of Residents’ Journal a national-award-winning magazine written entirely by Chicago public housing tenants and residents of other low-income communities.

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