TX October 10th 2024. US Local News 2024: On the Front Page Front Line
I produced this documentary with BBC reporter Gary O’Donoghue visiting small town papers in America to hear of the pressures they face during a divisive Presidential election campaign.
Small town papers have lost readers and revenue to digital, their role in local communities has been challenged, and in a divisive Presidential election year, the pressures are even greater.
BBC reporter Gary O’Donoghue visits the Marion County Record, in Kansas, which was raided by police in August last year.
In the documentary the editors of the Marion County Record, Wet Mountain Tribune and the Storm Lake Times talk about their papers and the impact of national political debates at a local level. We also hear from the Knight Foundation and the American Journalism Project about the significance of the decline in local papers and why initiatives to help new digital start-ups are important, including an election hub providing tools to fight disinformation. From Pew Research we hear how Republican and Democrat trust in news has been eroded more at a national level than locally.