Staff Report

URBANA, ILL. — As the local news industry continues to search for a business model that will be self-sustaining, a group of longtime supporters of journalism has developed an initiative that would change things dramatically.

The proposal – the Local Journalism Initiative – is the result of two decades of research, discussion and debate, according to Robert W. McChesney,  Professor Emeritus with the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

McChesney teamed up with John Nichols, a nationally known reporter, to write a summary of the initiative that was recently published by the Columbia Journalism Review. You can see it here.

In summary, the industry would turn to the federal government to help fund the cost of providing civic journalism – news about local government and community activities deemed important to the community.

It would require an infusion of billions of dollars. In exchange, the news would be provided to everyone free of charge.

Everything produced by federal funds must be made available immediately to everyone online and for free. In short, the principle is that journalistic organizations will be paid in advance, and what they produce primarily with public monies will be instantly put in the public domain and made available to all for free. The best check on abuses will be popular voting to determine the recipients, the story said.

In big cities where historic daily newspapers are struggling to survive, and in smaller towns where weekly papers are shadows of their former selves, LJI could help local journalists and editors buy, sustain and reinvent publications that have withered under chain ownership.

This is the public policy imperative facing the United States regarding journalism in 2021: We need the funding to support independent, competitive, professional local news media. That money must come from the government. It is the only viable option at a point when the market has shown that it cannot begin to sustain existing media, let alone usher in a renewal of bold speak-truth-to-power journalism, the story said.

The term local Journalism Initiative takes on different meanings in different geographies, especially in Canada, where a similar but different effort is already being embraced.

Another effort is being made in Wisconsin, which can be seen here.