As traditional media becomes increasingly polarized, forced further from the center of the aisle and consolidated in the greasy grip of a few wealthy monopoly vultures, it’s in the public’s best interest to turn its attention to independent news and not give in to the overwhelm.
Turning your back to the news is turning your back on information and your agency to discern. And through all the noise, your humble, local, independent papers struggle to keep their heads above water — for you.
Acclaimed outlets are an exceptional standard for national and international news; however, they don’t empower the voices of the many. Independent news does. That’s why the California Independent News Alliance (CINA) is establishing a coalition of independent newspapers, including Moonshine Ink.
CINA is fighting to keep independent journalism alive. Its mission is simple: “To support, protect, promote, and advocate for the business interests and editorial quality of California’s locally owned, independent news outlets, and to act as a clearinghouse of news industry information, support, innovation, and networking.”
CINA Founder Laura Rearwin Ward is also the owner and publisher of Ojai Valley News and the Ventura County Sun. She established CINA because she discovered there was no group dedicated to organizing independent newspapers. She said propping up local newspapers is a quality-of-life issue.
“It’s important to me that we protect the ability to have the information in the hands of the people,” Rearwin Ward said.
We need a diversity of voices, and we need local voices. The struggle is that small town papers face a plethora of challenges. They provide news to their communities because they believe in the freedom of the press and its role in maintaining democracy, freedom, and knowledge, yet their support and readership are dwindling due to general skepticism, hostile media perception and political bias, declining media literacy, and a lack of interest among younger generations.
Rearwin Ward said it matters who owns the media.
“The bigs, they stop doing the local coverage. They cut down on the amount of reporters that you have, and they start aggregating all of their news,” Rearwin Ward explained. “It’s the local California independents that are delivering the actual stories of communities. Because if all you read is national news … you do not know what’s going on.”
Without local news, she noted, residents would have to try to run around to the many weekly board meetings to stay abreast of community happenings. And who would be there to hold local agencies accountable?
“You won’t even know what’s going on in your town if you don’t have a newspaper,” Rearwin Ward said.
Sure, Nextdoor and Facebook are great places to mobilize and connect, but there’s a reason not just anyone is a journalist. I can tell you that the staff at Moonshine Ink feels a sense of duty toward the Tahoe/Truckee region. We are deeply invested in our community, and we are here to inform.
Rearwin Ward said something similar.
“Even if you don’t agree with someone’s opinion who might own the paper, at least they do care about the town,” she said. “They live there and their employees are there and they know who they are and they know who their neighbors are. So, there’s a lot of accountability just in that. And there’s more competition; it cuts down these monopolies.”
As any media literate person knows, what you take away from facts is up to you to decide. News isn’t around to give you what you want to hear, but it will give you the ground truths. It serves as a disseminator of information and a gatekeeper of fact versus fiction.
“It’s dangerous as we see our information become less and less trustworthy,” Rearwin Ward cautioned. “I believe there’s good reason for it not to be trusted, and that is because of who owns it does matter.”
The more independent news sources, the more boots on the ground in your town to expose facts without the oversight of the wealthy and powerful. You can help by supporting CINA and Moonshine Ink. Learn more about CINA at cina.news; support Moonshine Ink at moonshineink.com/members.
