About 1,800 newspapers in the country have folded since 2004
Local residents discussed a new paradigm for local news at the Ashland Public Library Tuesday in an age when journalism has withered in the face of social media and the rise of the internet.
A full room of about 90 people showed up for “The Current State of Local/Regional Journalism,” part of the “Big Ideas” series presented by the Association of University Women and Jackson County Library Services.
The three featured speakers were Bert Etling, Ashland.news executive editor; Bob Wise, KOBI-TV NBC5 vice president and general manager; and Heidi Wright, president of FORJournalism, a nonprofit.
Etling said that about 1,800 newspapers in the country have folded since 2004, creating news deserts. The Medford Mail Tribune and the Ashland Daily Tidings, of which Etling was editor from 2014 to 2019, have both been shuttered.
The effect of the closures nationwide has been to gravitate people more toward national news, leading to increased polarization and partisanship, Etling said. Google, Facebook and other internet companies have sucked up articles written by newspapers while also failing to verify the validity of many information sources, helping to fuel misinformation…