Dumbing Down the News...

Whether it's the local TV station or newspaper, getting snapped up by a national conglomerate has deleterious effects on the quality of output.

The Emory and Stanford study dissected both the content and viewership of 743 local news stations over the latter two thirds of 2017, analyzing some 7.41 million 2.5-minute segments. The study found that when Sinclair acquired a local news outlet, it unsurprisingly resulted in a notable spike in nationwide news coverage, and a notable decline in actual local reporting.

Often that’s simply a matter of cost. Covering local town halls, political campaigns, and regional issues often requires a lot of legwork larger companies aren’t keen to pay for at scale. Still, the end result is a public that no longer really understands what’s happening in their own towns and cities, opening the door to less meaningful oversight of local politicians.

In the earliest days of this blog, twenty years ago this August, I remember discussing this with Knoxville newspaper journos.

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