WVIA’s Post

Interesting article outlining the well reported decline in trust in legacy media companies, with a focus on legacy media's role in the decline. I am an enthusiastic subscriber to the Breaking Points podcast because they declare their biases and report stories fairly, from my vantage point. "Still, with declining trust in media, legacy news media receives a disproportionate amount of support from consumers. An annual survey by communications firm Kaiser & Partners found that 53 per cent of Canadians trusted established news media." I wonder if this precipitous decline in trust will also permeate (if it hasn't already?) to legacy institutions in the health care systems across North America? Will new up and coming health care providers be able to establish trust through delivering care efficiently and reliably, and thus set aside established legacy health care institutions? https://lnkd.in/dpytnXp7

✳ FRAMING MATTERS: "In a new study, the team found that if news is framed in a way that contrasts one social group against another, stories about #healthdisparities might lead to misperceptions and polarization." Tips for journalists include: ➡ Use the active voice ➡ Add historical context ➡ Highlight community assets This resonates with our AAMC Center for Health Justice polling which has found the way #healthjustice-promoting policies are framed impacts support. One example: https://lnkd.in/eZFxskiw https://lnkd.in/eFR7MaTb #healthequity #communication

If we needed a reminder of the importance of local news to help communities thrive, we got it this week in Minnesota. Eight more local community papers in Minnesota will shut down, at the hands of out-of-state owners who aren't members of the communities they report on (more here: https://bit.ly/3VPZSXv). In the wake of this challenging moment, we convened 10 publishers from across the state yesterday to help the Star Tribune learn how we can better partner to help the whole news ecosystem in our state thrive. Lots of good ideas - from content-sharing, to subscripton bundling, to philanthropy, to collective action in legislative venues to raise this crisis with our elected leaders and beyond. Whatever we chose to do together, it's just a plane fact that our state will be stronger if many different news organizations are thriving. This week we also asked leaders from Greater Minnesota to come speak with our senior leadership team about how we can best expand our reporting footprint in Minnesota, something we've committed to doing in 2024. The picture below is from that conversation, in which we heard from Hudda Ibrahim from St. Cloud, Mayor Jorge Prince of Bemidji, and Jennifer Bevis of the Blandin Foundation in Grand Rapids. Their insights were powerful. We're on our way and have much to figure out, but we know one thing for sure: we'll only succeed if we're listening to the community. 2024 is a big year for democracy and journalism. If you're wondering what you can do, one simple thing is to subscribe to your local newspaper. Quality journalism depends on citizens caring that it exists, and demonstrating that care by paying for it. Imagine a world in which we didn't have journalists there to share information and provide trusted, reliable news about our communities? That's something AI can never replace.

🔍 **Did You Know?** Since 2005, the U.S. has lost almost a third of its newspapers, totaling nearly 2,900 – including over 130 in just the past year. More starkly, 204 counties, representing over 6% of all U.S. counties, now have no local news outlet. Additionally, 228 more counties, about 7% of the national total, are at high risk of becoming news deserts. 📰 In Kansas and Missouri, the impact is significant. Kansas saw a 14% decrease in newspapers from 2004 to 2019, going from 202 to 174, while Missouri experienced a similar 14% decrease, from 256 to 220 in the same period. 🤔 As the CEO of The Kansas City Beacon and The Wichita Beacon, one of the few independent nonprofit news organizations serving KS and MO, I see the critical need for robust local journalism in our communities. The decline in newspapers and the rise of news deserts in Kansas and Missouri highlight the urgency for innovative, community-driven journalism in the digital age. #LocalNews #Journalism #Media #CommunityEngagement #NonprofitNews

"Public radio, or public media more widely, share their mission-first orientation with most start-up local news organizations. Yet, they’ve inhabited parallel, but largely separate worlds, since the local news implosion began. Today, public media has issued a call to be included in this round of grantmaking. It deserves a listen. While the DNA of public media differs from most of daughter-of-print local news, there should be ways to work together to help solve this crisis." h/t Ken Doctor https://lnkd.in/gYAb-nax

Happy Sunshine Week! ☀️ Do you find it difficult to pay attention to public officials’ meetings or read their agendas? We do too. Tune in because in honor of Sunshine Week, the Tucson Agenda is pointing out some transparency issues that we have seen on a daily basis. 🌤️ #SunshineWeek #OpenGovernment #PublicRecords #LocalJournalism https://loom.ly/WN40AdQ

Talk to people with real life experiences, center the voices of those most effective, and elevate their perspectives! That is true expertise 👏

The U.S. news landscape can feel bleak. Newsrooms are shuttering. News deserts are spiking, with more than half of U.S. counties having no or almost no access to a “reliable local news source.” It’s clear to see why audiences may feel left behind by the news media. But help, and hope, is on the way. Local nonprofit newsrooms like Mountain State Spotlight, Outlier Media and Signal Ohio are blooming all over, with the hope of curbing news deserts and filling community news gaps. But they face a list of obstacles: How can they get people who have never heard of them to trust them? How do they get people to invest in news? How do they fill the gap of long-respected community institutions? Meet the people behind the small newsrooms with big ambitions in today’s story by clicking the link in our bio. Learn more about what we can all do to curb news deserts: https://lnkd.in/eXyNWNmn