Information Districts Are a Popular Way to Expand Funding for Public Media
By Philip Kiefer, Simon Galperin, and Ethan Winter
In 2018, Matt DeRienzo, then the director of a nonprofit supporting independent news publishers, made a prediction: “The last recession was brutal for newspapers and local news. The next one could be an extinction-level event.”
We’ve watched such an extinction event in action since the start of the pandemic. Even as local reporters were designated essential workers and web traffic skyrocketed, newsrooms—and local news publishers, in particular—have cut salaries, laid off staff, or folded entirely.
The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school and research organization, has collected accounts of more than one hundred local news organizations that have shut down or hollowed out in the last few months. Small publishers who’d been reliant on advertising revenue have seen that revenue all but vanish as advertisers freeze spending. Those sustaining their work through ticket sales and events revenue have also been gutted. Even NPR affiliates are struggling.
But this is a cliff at the end of a decade-long slide. Between 2008 and 2019, about 27,000 newsroom jobs disappeared—a decline of 23 percent. At least 1,300 communities in the US now have no local news coverage at all, according to a study from the University of North Carolina.
Meanwhile, those same newsrooms are responsible for covering the local impact of the most-important news in a generation. Amid public-health shortfalls, budget crises, and nationwide protests, how will critical news and information reach the people who need it most?
Direct, immediate relief
In the short term, existing news publishers are looking for relief. Smaller publishers have been able to take advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program, but larger organizations have been excluded. This is despite support from a bipartisan group of over two hundred members of the US House and Senate for local news providers to be included in the program. Some have also called for future relief programs to include money for local journalism. This gives the federal government two ways to provide short-term stability to news publishers.
The US already spends close to one billion dollars per year on advertising (largely for military, public health, and engagement campaigns). It could direct some of that money to publishers through ad buys promoting pandemic-related public-health advisories. And as with the Paycheck Protection Program, the government could also simply directly subsidize newsrooms through forgivable loans or grants.
As part of a June 2020 Data for Progress survey, we asked registered voters if they would support or oppose allocating federal funds through a coronavirus relief bill to enable local journalists to continue to cover the pandemic and its fallout. We found mixed attitudes on this proposal.
Overall, voters supported it by a 1-percentage-point margin (44 percent support, 43 percent oppose). One split in attitudes was by party affiliation. Voters self-identifying as Democrats backed it by a 27-point margin, while voters self-identifying as Republicans opposed it by a 26-point margin. Attitudes were also divided along racial lines, with Black voters being generally supportive, backing the proposal by a 36-point margin, while white voters opposed it by a 7-point margin.
Increase funding for public media
The US can shore up and expand public media to fill gaps that have emerged through increased funding. Currently, the federal government spends $465 million annually through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support local and national public radio and television, such services as NPR and PBS. (Many European countries spent at least six times that per capita, as of 2011.) Additional funding for public media could come from a tax on internet platforms like the one proposed by Free Press.
We found that doubling funding for local public media enjoys plurality support. Overall, voters supported this proposal by a 13-point margin (49 percent support, 36 percent oppose). Patterns of support were generally similar to the above question, with attitudes sorted largely along partisan lines. Democrats backed it by a 36-point margin, while Republicans opposed it by a 12-point margin. When responses were broken down by race, we see that Black voters support the proposal by a 25-point margin, while white voters do so by a 10-point margin.
Rethinking the local public funding model
Local improvement districts offer a new opportunity for publicly funding local news. Pioneered by the Community Info Coop, these “information districts” are modeled after improvement districts that fund public goods, such as libraries, fire departments, and waste-management services.Like other improvement districts, information districts would be funded by dedicated levies and function independent of local government. This allows for an approach distinct from traditional news in its inherent accountability to its community, which would choose whether or not to fund or renew the levies. Because of that, an information district could also expand the types of services it provides, focusing on the news and information needs of a single, dedicated community. The approach would also create a framework for groups of rural communities to aggregate resources to support local news.
We tested support for this by providing voters a brief description of the model and outlining its purpose: providing information about what is happening in their community, including information about local government, businesses, and services, as well as opportunities for work, recreation, and civic engagement.
We found that voters supported the creation of information districts by a 38-point margin (62 percent support, 38 percent oppose). Support for this proposal was also bipartisan, with Democrats backing it by a 52-point margin and Republicans backing it by a 23-point margin. Black and white voters each supported this proposal at comparable rates, with the former doing so by a 44-point margin and the latter by a 39-point margin.
Local improvement districts were the preferred public-funding mechanism for supporting local journalism among voters. This finding suggests that a broad swath of Americans are interested in investing in public media and see local accountability as an important element of such an investment. Information districts provide that accountability.
Authorship and Methodology
Philip Kiefer (@philipjkiefer) is a freelance science and environment reporter in New Orleans. His work has appeared in FiveThirtyEight, the Lens, National Geographic, and Outside.
Simon Galperin (@thensim0nsaid) is the founding director of the Community Info Coop, an organization dedicated to democratizing journalism, media, and technology. There he runs Info Districts Project, an effort to establish a nationwide network of publicly funded, community-run local news cooperatives.
Ethan Winter (@ethanbwinter) is an analyst at Data for Progress. You can email him at ethan@datafoprogress.org.
From June 13 through June 14, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,157 likely voters nationally, using web-panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is +/- 2.9 percentage points.
Question Wording
Would you support or oppose allocating federal funds as part of coronavirus relief bill to support local journalism as outlets hire reporters, editors, and producers to cover the ongoing crisis and its fallout?
Strongly support
Somewhat support
Somewhat oppose
Strongly oppose
Don’t know
Would you support or oppose a proposal to double federal funding for local public media outlets? This would include support through PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio).
Strongly support
Somewhat support
Somewhat oppose
Strongly oppose
Don’t know
Libraries are often funded through local improvement districts. Such improvement districts are independent from local government, and set their own levies. Would you support the creation of local improvement district to provide information about what is happening your community including information about local government, businesses and services, or opportunities for work, recreation, and civic engagement?
Strongly support
Somewhat support
Somewhat oppose
Strongly oppose
Don’t know