‘On Contact’ With Chris Hedges: The Fading Away Of The Print Version of ‘The Village Voice’ Emblematic Of Loss Of Alternative Newspapers

Posted By: Mark Taylor October 12, 2017

On Contact (9/10/17)

Chris Hedges is joined by former writers for ‘The Village Voice’ Tom Robbins and Michael Musto. The New York City alternative weekly newspaper announced recently it is ending its free print edition. Robbins, now an investigative journalist in residence at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and Musto, a columnist at NewNowNext, reminisce about the muckraking journalism and unrestrained commentary that appeared in the pages of the Voice.

RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at the decline of print newspapers.

Link to Story and 29-Minute Video

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The Consequences Of Declining Local Journalism

By Tom Ashbrook
On Point (10/3/17)

America’s local news-gathering operations are in trouble. We’ll look at efforts to save and strengthen local news.

When it comes to news gathering, news organizations, the cutbacks have come all over in recent years. But local news may have taken the most dire hit. You want to know what happened at the town council meeting this week? Or the zoning commission? Or just around the block? Good luck to you in too many communities now. This hour, On Point: Saving local news. And we’ll talk with Bob Schieffer of CBS about how to sort fake news from fact.

Guests:

  • Margaret Sullivan, media columnist at the Washington Post. Previously The New York Times public editor and chief editor of The Buffalo News. @Sulliview

Link to Story and 47-Minute Audio

  • Report For America Aims To Get 1,000 Journalists In Local Newsrooms In Next 5 Years – Many local newsrooms have been cut to the bone so often that there’s hardly any bone left. But starting early next year, some may get the chance to rebuild, at least by one. On Monday, a new project was announced at the Google News Lab Summit that aims to place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms in the next five years. Report For America takes ideas from several existing organizations, including the Peace Corps, Americorps, Teach for America and public media.  Unlike foreign or domestic service programs or public media, however, RFA gets no government funding. But they are calling RFA a national service project. That might make some journalists uncomfortable  – the idea of service and patriotism, said co-founder Charles Sennott, founder and CEO of the GroundTruth Project. But at its most fundamental, local journalism is about protecting democracy, he said. … Read the Rest