The new landscape for local news

A formative meeting of the Neighborhood and Community Media Association
at the Cleveland Public Library, January 2018 [NCMA-Cle/Leo Jeffres]

By R.T. Andrews

If you are going to be scooped on your own story, it’s likely best when a friend does it.

There is so much happening of grisly consequence these days — from the health, economic and civic ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the absolutely horrendous response thereto by so many of our leaders on every level; to what has quickly shaped up to the largest public corruption scheme in Ohio history; to the quiet federal invasion of our city; to the ongoing crises in city administration; to the sense of possibility that exists in this moment of racial recalibration — we might be forgiven for failing to report on a couple of matters right in our back yard.

The first of these neighborhood items is captured in this piece by Jay Miller, longtime Crain’s reporter, and one of a dwindling core of Cleveland journalists possessed of institutional memory. The local daily newspaper, the Plain Dealer, died unceremoniously a few months ago, intentionally deprived by its absentee owner over several years of the resources it needed to sustain and reinvent itself. For the moment, its shell is being inhabited by cleveland.com, a digital news site that currently uses the PD nameplate to imply a false continuity with a bygone era. [It’s reminiscent of when the Modell Browns slunk off to Baltimore; the NFL team’s records and colors stayed behind, but the replacement squad that arrived a few years later still bears no resemblance to the original.]

The media landscape has been changing rapidly all over the globe for the past quarter century, a development that shows no sign of abating. But even as so-called legacy newspapers gasp, shrivel, and vanish, the human and community need for local news and information about our increasingly complex, digitized, discontinuous, and amazing world, is, if anything, only heightened.  Of the seemingly dwindling number of truths that remain undiminished, one is this: nature abhors a vacuum.

And so, as Miller reports, a “local news ecosystem” is taking root in Northeast Ohio. One of the earliest manifestations was the reconstitution of an association of disparate community publications — some old, some new, some ethnic, some territorial, etc. The reborn organization, to which Miller devotes some appreciative space, is the Neighborhood and Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland. Indefatigable media person Rich Weiss, who, in addition to editing  a monthly print publication devoted to Cleveland’s Tremont area, also founded and directs the Neighborhood Media Foundation, has been the driving force behind the newly energized NCMA-CLE.

Association member publications include the Cleveland Street Chronicle, Collinwood Observer, East Side Daily News, Erie Chinese Journal, Euclid Observer, Heights Observer, La Mega Nota, Plain Press, Profile News Ohio, The Neighborhood News, The Real Deal Press, The Tremonster, Ward Seven Observer, and West Park Times.

New officers elected at the group’s June 25 meeting include The Real Deal Press publisher R. T. Andrews, president; Rich Weiss [publisher of The Tremonster], vice president; Jessie Schoonover [West Park Times editor-in-chief], treasurer; Ellen Psenica [Neighborhood News], secretary; and Ulysses Glen [East Side Daily News], parliamentarian.

Local news engages citizens, improves public decision-making and makes political and civic leaders accountable to their communities. ” — a study commissioned by area foundations last year

Miller’s article notes that “news deserts” —  communities where  information about local government and other matters is hard to come by — is not just an area phenomenon. In fact, as profiteers have swooped in and gobbled up legacy publishers’ assets, only to shrink the products and decimate the newsrooms, many foundations and other philanthropies have become alarmed, in part because of research that shows local governments tend to become less scrupulous as watchdog journalism decreases.

A study commissioned by the Cleveland and Knight foundations last year  [I was among those interviewed] concluded in part, Miller writes, that “local news engages citizens, improves public decision-making and makes political and civic leaders accountable to their communities. It also makes contributions to public health and political participation.”

In December, those foundations, along with the George Gund Foundation, the Akron Community Foundation, and the Center for Community Solutions, announced more than $110,000 in journalism grants to address community information needs in Akron and Cleveland.

While The Real Deal Press has not sought such funding, we are excited about several major recent steps to increase our capacity to keep readers informed, including collaborating with several journalistic partners, among them Eye on Ohio, the Ohio Capital Journal, and Your Voice Ohio Media Collaborative. And significantly, the long-promised and long-delayed rollout of our 2.0 website will occur by this Labor Day, just about a month before early voting begins.

• • •• • •

COUNTDOWN TO FEBRUARY: Cleveland to Be Largest US city with no daily paper?

Last month we wrote here about the uncertain future of the Plain Dealer’s daily publishing schedule. 

Speculation about that future is now heating up even as the paper’s employees bask in the support of the nearly 6,000 readers who have signed their online petition in support of the PD's continued daily publication.

The paper's future is the subject of the December 2, Media Decoder column/blog in yesterday’s New York Times, which mentions that the “Save the Paper” campaign will be the subject of a party this Thursday at the Market Garden Brewery.

Last week former Plain Dealer reporter T.C. Brown, writing in the well-respected Columbia Journalism Review, examined the looming reduction of the PD’s footprint from the standpoint of its likely effect on political coverage in Ohio. While he is kindly disposed to the paper as a whole, his discussion of its owner’s track record is not reassuring to anyone who appreciates the value of a robust news organization. He makes a point of contrasting Advance Publications’s corporate preference to cut and slash staff and costs with that of billionaire folk hero Warren Buffett, who has been buying local newspapers with the intent to invest in them. Brown’s connection to the Plain Dealer helped him secure a number of interesting perspectives from the paper’s employees.

The latest publication to weigh in on the implications of the Plain Dealer’s likely shift to a three-day print schedule [Wednesday-Friday-Sunday?] is Crain's Cleveland Business. Our friend Jay Miller's front-page report, out today, considers the PD’s assumed print reduction from the standpoint of its advertisers. The headline of his article, “Ad buyers slowly see importance of daily PD wane”, unfortunately captures the way many readers feel when considering how local news coverage has been steadily diminishing.

Can you imagine the Browns finally winning the Super Bowl and the next day having to go find a copy of the Akron Beacon Journal for a hard-copy account?

Is there a bright spot in any of this? Well, The Real Deal intends to publish at least daily through the end of this year. So check back regularly even if you do not receive an advisory email from us. Of course the best way to keep abreast of our reports is to subscribe to our blog or become a follower, easy non-invasive options at an unbeatable price. See the top right of this page to make your choice.

Hope to see you back here tomorrow, at our oasis of reliable news and reasoned commentary.