There was a time, and it wasn’t that long ago when newspapers could easily have a 30% profit margin. Places like car dealers and grocery stores were able to get their message out. But then, the internet happened and kicked the legs out from under the entire business model.
Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan joins our podcast to talk about her first book, Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. The story Sullivan tells is not a happy one, but this is a book meant to give rise to hope, not despair, as she points the way to solutions. But first, we must take a sobering and clear-eyed look at the problem.
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Ghosting the News
Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy
Ghosting the News tells the most troubling media story of our time: How democracy suffers when local news dies.
“A brisk and pointed tribute to painstaking, ordinary and valuable work.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times