The siren song of consolidation forebodes a dangerous threat to local news. Across California, the bedrock of community information is under relentless pressure as newspapers are bought up and absorbed by distant profit-driven entities. This isn’t just about business; it’s about the very fabric of our towns and cities.
California is home to 482 incorporated cities and towns and an estimated additional 500 to 1,000 unincorporated towns. Yet, California Independent News Alliance (CINA) Founder Laura Rearwin Ward estimates there are only about 200 independent newspapers still owned and operated in the state. This disparity is alarming. Independent outlets are the eyes and ears of our neighborhoods, holding local power accountable, and celebrating community achievements. Keeping publications close to communities is a subject dear to our hearts at Moonshine Ink.
CINA, a recently formed organization, is a vocal supporter of AB 611, the Keep News Independent Act, proposed by Assemblymember Alex Lee. This legislation would require that employees and the community receive notice before a news publication is sold to a large corporation or private equity firm. This is hardly radical. This is a simple, yet vital, safeguard. It recognizes that a newspaper is not just a widget to be traded, but a public trust.
After the Senate Judiciary Committee reviewed it July 1, the bill was taken off the table, for now. Among the concerns raised were ones about bias against hedge funds and corporations. This fear, while ostensibly based in the idea of fairness, glosses over the very real threat of “corporate capture” that has seized our world today. The term refers to the phenomenon where private corporations exert undue influence on government and public institutions, shaping policies and regulations to their advantage.
We’ve already seen frightening examples of this phenomenon happening in the journalism world. See my Membership Update, Bully in the Legislature, from last September about two California journalism bills that were nixed in an anemic backdoor deal with Google. Beyond these legislative battles, we witness corporate capture’s chilling effect when newsrooms are pared down by layoffs after acquisitions, when investigative reporting dwindles because it’s deemed unprofitable, or when a paper’s editorial stance subtly shifts to align with the financial interests of its far-off owners.
The same battle is at play in most industries — retail, services, communications, you name it. When local industry becomes subject to corporate capture or is owned by distant interests with no stake in local well-being, the independence and connection that define being a community are eroded. A chilling recent example is the social media giant Meta shutting down accounts with no recourse for those account holders to ask a live human what happened. A petition entitled “Meta wrongfully disabling accounts with no human customer support” has gathered, as of press time, more than 26,000 signatures on change.org.
The struggle for independent small businesses is big, but there is cause for optimism. Mountain Bounty’s John Tecklin describes this well. Yet, as he points out, the value of independent, local contribution is undeniable. Alex Hoeft’s news feature about federal cuts to the Forest Service highlights how a robust local network is filling in gaps when it comes to forest and fuels management. A Think Local essay by Jesse Patterson of Keep Tahoe Blue posits that only through local collaboration will we see Lake Tahoe as it is, a single complex ecosystem, and be able to protect it for the ages.
Local and independent isn’t just a nostalgic ideal or another mom and pop; it’s a strategic imperative. It’s where shared understanding is built, where people help each other because they know each other, and where critical local decisions can be made.
As Parting Shot artist Samurai Rains said about philanthropy in a Your Tahoe Guide article, “Anyone can raise money for big organizations, but you don’t know where that money is going half the time, so I like to contribute on a more direct, local level.”
We must Think Local and support local … everything. We must resist the corporatization that threatens to silence our local voices. The future of informed, connected communities depends on it.
