My "Nextdoor" Obsession and Journalism for America...

I will admit that I am a dedicated reader of my neighborhood’s Nextdoor.com page. In fact, the notification of a new posting sets off a sort of Pavlovian response akin to an involuntary giggle wrapped in a mini rush of anticipation. My fascination (my wife Neva calls it more of an obsession) and the pure joy they bring is, well, most of them are just so darn entertaining. For example:

“I found this bug in my kitchen and I don’t know what it is….help!”

“There’s a Leopard in my backyard, watch your children and pets!”

“A mysterious stranger in a white van is driving slowly down my street…lock your doors!”

Lately they’re almost always accompanied by a fuzzy, grainy picture which, like a Rorschach blob or snapshot of Bigfoot in the forest, could be whatever your imagination is inclined to see.

Of course, the posts themselves are just the buildup. The real joy for me comes in the comments and the updates that follow when we find out the exotic bug was, in fact, a piece of lint attached to a leaf blown in from outside. The Leopard, the neighbor’s chubby kitty who happened to cast an ominous shadow, and the mysterious stranger in the white van a legit delivery person looking for a specific address on the street. Whew! What a day in the neighborhood.

What’s interesting, albeit far less entertaining, is that of late I’ve been seeing another kind of posting pop up with increasing regularity. Things like…

“When did the city council increase our property taxes?”

“When did the school board do away with Veteran’s Day and Columbus Day school holidays?”

“How come my electric bill just doubled? Who approved that?”

While some of this can be attributed to our general obliviousness to things until we personally experience the impact, I think this trend corresponds with something far more alarming: The rapid decline in the coverage of local news. Most of us do not, by definition, reside in a news desert, yet in just the past few years we’ve seen the coverage of local issues decline precipitously as several small papers have folded and local TV stations are operating at diminished capacity due to cutbacks. The danger of this new reality is far greater than just the frustration of being blindsided by an inflated tax bill.

“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.” Louis Brandeis (Harper’s Weekly/1913)

I think what Brandeis was saying is that if our actions are on display, we’re far less inclined to give in to the bad angels that otherwise might motivate our behavior. Since the beginning of time, it’s the fear of being caught and embarrassed that has provided the strongest deterrent against evil deeds and blatant acts of self-interest, even more so than any actual punishment. It’s the presence of witnesses that has motivated many to provide disclosure and choose a more righteous path.

About one-fifth of Americans live in a news desert. And by news desert I mean they don’t have significant access, or in some cases, any access at all, to local news. That’s more than 70 million people spread across some 200 counties. If current trends continue, and sadly there’s no reason to think they won’t, those numbers will become even more alarming in the near-term. Consider that by 2025 we will have lost fully one-third of the newspapers that were up and running in this country in 2005. On average, two more newspapers shut down their presses for good each and every week. Those are the organizations that covered city council and school board meetings, examined budgets, shined a light.

Local television news is in no position to fill the gaps. The broadcast economy, already battered and bruised, is being redefined again and whatever emerges will, no doubt, include further downsizing and restrictions. What this means is that for many of us, our daily lives are being impacted by institutions, elected officials, and bureaucrats who are now able to function with impunity. No broad light of day. No disinfectant. I’m not at all comfortable with that. History is chock full of examples of how this scenario almost always turns out badly. Democracy DOES die in the dark. So… what to do?

Wendy Kopp, White Courtesy Telephone Please!

In 1989, Wendy Kopp, freshly graduated from Princeton University, launched a program based on her undergraduate thesis called Teach for America. At the time, sadly not dissimilar to today, teachers were in very short supply, especially in schools that primarily served low-income, urban neighborhoods. The basic idea was to recruit the best and brightest soon-to-be college graduates to serve a two-year teaching assignment in one of those schools with their salary being paid or at least subsidized by funds raised by Teach America. It was a win-win proposition. For the students it was a guaranteed job and the promise of leadership training that would further their prospects once the assignment done. Meanwhile, the schools got badly needed teachers without further straining already inadequate budgets.

Jump ahead to today and you find that almost 60,000 people have passed through the Teach America program serving over 5 million students. It’s interesting to note that only one in five of those alums had expressed an interest in teaching before applying, and yet, four out of five continued to work in education or pursued careers serving low-income communities after they graduated from the program. Truly the gift that just kept on giving.

Teach for America is a non-profit organization and is funded primarily through private donation - 71% to be exact - by entities like the Walton Family (as in Wal-Mart) Foundation and the Susan and Michael Dell (as in computers) Foundation. Just 29% of its budget comes from the public sector. As with any form of innovation, the program has its detractors, but there is no denying that it has been, and continues to be, an inspired, radical, and at least, partial solution to a problem that appeared to be without one.

Journalism for America…

It seems to me the framework of Wendy Kopp’s creation would actually fit pretty nicely into a potential fix for our growing news desert issue. I believe there are people, foundations, even companies out there who share in the concern for the state of journalism today that would happily fund an effort to provide unbiased, just the facts ma'am, reporting of the issues and events effecting those 70 million people in 200 counties now operating in the dark. Wendy, are you listening? Or, if Wendy’s too busy to take it on, how about we find a way to expand the efforts of Steve Waldman and his team at Report for America. That program helps existing newsrooms add to their reporting capability by subsidizing salaries of new reporters. It seems like a fairly simple transition to also get into the business of establishing new newsrooms in those areas completely without.

It’s really just about money and, relatively speaking, not all that much. I guarantee that a couple of bright, eager journalists armed with smartphones would make a hell of an impact in each and every news desert out there. If it could be more than that all the better, but at this point, anything would be a massive improvement. This approach is a potential light at the end of a dark tunnel. An affordable, doable, and disinfecting ray of hope.

Thank you for reading this week. As always, we welcome your thoughts, ideas, and opinions. If you get the chance check out our website - Cheatwoodmedia.com and our Facebook page cause, you know, we did go to all that trouble to put them up and all…just saying.