Is Covid-19 the knockout blow “local news” dreaded?
Local journalism has already been on the decline in the US for at least the last two decades. Few people were actually picking up the paper before this whole thing started. The massive newsrooms of the past are now all but extinct. I long for the days in this city when we had more papers than we knew what to do with. Where is the Breslin or Hamill to represent the working man? The voice of the streets. There are so many stories that aren’t being told.
It’s not that we have a lack of media organizations in this city. The problem is everyone has given up on neighborhood news. It may seem like there is constantly plenty of news to be reported on but that’s deceiving. Covid dominates headlines day after day. But Governor Cuomo’s press conferences get more coverage than the actual onslaught of death in the neighborhoods. The De Blasio administration conveniently forgot to include any of Brooklyn south of his Prospect Park in their mask distribution program.
Crime is down but police violence is up. Courts are largely shut down so it is harder to follow up on people’s cases and trials. Street reporting is restricted at best and crime scenes are harder to cover. The people in power want it that way and they’re enjoying it while they can.
Many are asking questions about the future of the country after Covid. Will things ever go back to normal? The answer, I think, is a resounding no. All across the media, spectrum bosses are realizing how much cheaper and easier it is to run their publication with less staff. The cannibalistic nature of the news cycle was already a huge problem. The laziness was reaching intolerable degrees. The people of this city deserve better. They deserve news organizations that care about an informed public. A public that is informed by first hand accounts of things happening around them. Not rehashed press releases and click bait.
Cuts loom at the Daily News, already a shell of its former shelf, the Times does what it can but they drifted away from covering the city long ago. And here we are, the furloughed press, an uncertain, bleak future hanging over us. There’s hope, but it’s not going to be easy.
I had a professor at a class I took at Columbia tell me once that no one cared about New York stories any more. It was all about globalism. The city just happened to be a base for all of these people to report about other places. It made me mad. It didn’t help that the guy thought the Sbarro by the school was a great example of our pizza.
I’m a proud New Yorker and I’m constantly in awe of everything that goes on in the metropolis. I wanted to prove him wrong and for a while I felt like I was. I hope that I can continue to work in some capacity with others of my generation to give the city what it needs. This summer is a turning point. We all know that.
