The rebirth of local news depends on all of us; The Washington Post, October 6, 2023

Leonard Downie Jr., The Washington Post ; The rebirth of local news depends on all of us

"Whenever they are asked, Americans say they want and depend on news coverage of their local communities. Its rebirth depends on them."

Inside Trump’s war on the National Archives; The Washington Post, August 27, 2022

 

Jacqueline Alemany

, 

Isaac Arnsdorf

 and 

Josh Dawsey

, The Washington Post; Inside Trump’s war on the National Archives

“Without the preservation of the records of government, and without access to them, you can’t have an informed population, and without an informed population, you lack one of the basic tools to preserving democracy,” said former acting archivist Trudy Peterson, who expressed concern that Trump’s rhetoric is damaging the public perception of the Archives. “The system won’t work if the neutrality of the National Archives is not protected.”

This portrait of an agency under siege by a former president and his supporters is based on interviews with 14 current and former Archives employees, Trump advisers, historians and others familiar with the escalating dispute, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions."

This was the week America lost the war on misinformation; The Washington Post, July 30, 2020

Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post

; This was the week America lost the war on misinformation

"Some new research, out just this morning from Pew, tells us in painstaking numerical form exactly what’s going on, and it’s not pretty: Americans who rely on social media as their pathway to news are more ignorant and more misinformed than those who come to news through print, a news app on their phones or network TV.

And that group is growing...

They’re absorbing fake news, but they don’t see it as a problem. In a society that depends on an informed citizenry to make reasonably intelligent decisions about self-governance, this is the worst kind of trouble.

And the president — who knows exactly what he is doing — is making it far, far worse. His war on the nation’s traditional press is a part of the same scheme: information warfare, meant to mess with reality and sow as much confusion as possible."

John Oliver’s newspaper rant hits a nerve: “We’ve watched it being not-so-slowly destroyed by forces beyond our control”; Salon, 8/10/16

Scott Timberg, Salon; John Oliver’s newspaper rant hits a nerve: “We’ve watched it being not-so-slowly destroyed by forces beyond our control” :

"So part of what’s interesting about Oliver’s bit — which looked at both the causes of the decline as well as the effects, with his usual combination of hyperventilating moralism and comic exaggeration — is that some seem frustrated with it. And not just people who hate the press, but people who value what it does.

The most visible of these criticisms so far has come from the president of the Newspaper Association of America, who praised the segment’s opening. “But making fun of experiments,” David Chavern wrote, “and pining away for days when classified ads and near-monopolistic positions in local ad markets funded journalism is pointless and ultimately harmful.”

Sullivan, who was once the executive editor of the Buffalo News and the public editor of the New York Times, hit back sharply in a Post piece:

Actually, no. What Oliver did was precisely nail everything that’s been happening in the industry that Chavern represents: The shrinking staffs, the abandonment of important beats, the love of click bait over substance, the deadly loss of ad revenue, the truly bad ideas that have come to the surface out of desperation, the persistent failures to serve the reading public."