"Forty years of toxic media policy, the libertarian ethos of big tech, the collapse of the 20th-century business model, the paranoia and extremism of online life, the rise of the far right: when stirred together, these nutrients do not constitute the soil for a healthy free press. This is certainly not the first time people have found themselves with a dearth of formal news structures. Besides most of human history, one could point to present-day Hungary or Turkey or Saudi Arabia."
"In these pages, I have written previously about informal news networks - the ways people everywhere, all through history, have developed ways of collecting and sharing reliable news and information in their communities, with or without the support of formal news organizations. There's nothing new about this. What is new is that increasing numbers of Americans are relying on these systems - whether to get realtime information about a wildfire or a teachers strike, to ensure that community history is not lost,"
Forty years of harmful media policy, a libertarian big-tech ethos, the collapse of the 20th-century news business model, online paranoia and extremism, and the rise of the far right have hollowed out the conditions for a healthy free press. Historical and global examples show that formal news structures often do not reach many communities. Informal news networks have long enabled people to collect and share reliable information within their communities, with or without formal institutions. Increasing numbers of Americans now rely on these systems for realtime alerts, preserving community history, or preparing for local threats. A resilient news ecology requires more than top-down newsroom models.
Read at Nieman Lab
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