Nearly seven years ago, Gov. Phil Murphy took a bold step toward reviving, strengthening, and transforming local media and civic engagement.
In August 2018, eight months into his first term, he signed a widely popular, bipartisan bill establishing the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, an entity formed to provide financial aid to create and support community-based news.
“I believe the Consortium is a viable means to begin to combat the widespread proliferation of deliberately false or misleading information that threatens our democracy,” Murphy declared.
State funding for the consortium has risen from $500,000 to $3 million. Here is a look at its grantees.
EDITOR’S DISCLOSURE: MorristownGreen.com is grateful for NJCIC support, which has helped Morristown Green continue our mission of serving you, the people of Greater Morristown.
With nine months left until Murphy leaves office, his final budget plan proposes quite a different commitment to the Consortium: ZERO. His spending plan also includes a planned 75 percent cut in state subsidies to NJ PBS, which operates NJ Spotlight News. The state’s current budget provides $1 million in funding to NJ PBS; Murphy’s plan would slash that to $250,000.
Why is Murphy abandoning what he clearly saw merit in as his term started, especially given the challenges we face today?
Can it be that he is looking to gain favor in Washington, where hostility to journalists is encouraged and legitimate, trusted local, state, national and global news reporting is under assault?
Or maybe he is saving up for earmarks. You know, the funds our legislators attach to the budget to “reward” their districts (and help get them re-elected).
I know some of those projects are worthy. But why not vet them through the budget hearings? Why add them, at the end, with no review, requiring no accountability? I’d have no problem coming up with a few likely answers.
Back to the main point: We need local news, free and independent. And so long as government support is not connected directly to any newspaper, digital or print, there is every reason for government to support it.
It’s important that those serving in government, despite whether they “like” their coverage or not, understand that a free press is democracy’s friend. They need to help secure its survival.
It is astonishing to me that the case must be made over and over again. Yet it does.
TYCOONS AND PHILANTHROPISTS
Funding sources are not reliable and can limit editorial policy and independence, as we have seen recently at the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Their owners, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, respectively, have not wanted to irritate President Trump.
They deny influencing editorial policy. But staff resignations tell a different story. When owners have other “interests,” support for independence may waver.
Advertising is unlikely to return to local newspapers. Ad dollars instead are gushing to corporate tech giants.
Global advertising spending is expected to increase by 9.5 percent, surpassing $1 trillion in revenue. Amazon, Alphabet (Google), META (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads), ByteDance (TikTok) and Alibaba (Chinese retailer, e-commerce) are expected to earn more than half of that total.
Advertisers also are flocking back to X, formerly known as Twitter, since Elon Musk has been handed a prominent role in the Trump administration. X now has a presence at White House press briefings.
Philanthropy is trying to help. Given the assets in that realm, it clearly can do more.
Consider the inspiring work of John Thornton, founder of The Texas Tribune, a seminal nonprofit digital news organization. It grew from 11 reporters and editors, focusing largely on Texas state politics, to a newsroom of more than 50 covering local issues in all 254 counties in that state, plus a congressional reporter in Washington.
Thornton was a blue sky guy, embracing creativity and envisioning possibilities beyond what seemed feasible. He leveraged his wealth on what his obituary characterized as “a quixotic mission to revive local journalism in a time of crisis.”
He created the American Journalism Project to support digital local newsrooms around the country. Described as a first-of-its-kind “venture philanthropy,” the AJP has raised more than $225 million to help fund and assist 50 digital nonprofit news outlets in 36 states.
A venture capitalist, Thornton initially was attracted to potential financial gain in the American newspaper industry. He quickly concluded local newspapers were questionable investments from the point of view of monetary return. Yet Thornton believed that without local newspapers, “the perils to the American political system seemed even greater.”
Quoting Thornton, obituary writer Alex Williams wrote: “The commercial press is too fragile for our democracy to rely on for all the news and information that we require to function as responsible citizens.”
Thornton saw the unmet need and dubbed it public service journalism, a “public good just like national defense, clean air, clean water.”
We need more people committed to revitalizing local news around the country. People who see it as an essential civic mission. Our society will struggle without local news. Funding it will remain a challenge.
WE, THE PEOPLE
Readers of newspapers, in print and online, recognize the crucial work newspapers do in the public interest. The media hold public officials to account, laying bare the plans of leaders and contenders.
Recognizing the profound challenge newspapers are facing, we, their readers, need to play an active role in their rescue. Our way of life depends upon it.
New Jersey has been a pioneer here — both in its support of local journalism, and by acknowledging its value.
If the governor’s significant cuts are not reversed, we will remember New Jersey for walking away from what it started. For abandoning its critical role in protecting democracy at home.