How the current epidemic of news deserts and ghost papers threatens democracy
Ghosting the News tells the most troubling media story of our time: How democracy suffers when local news dies. From 2004 to 2015, 1, 800 print newspaper outlets closed in the U.S. One in five news organizations in Canada has closed since 2008. One in three Brazilians lives in news deserts. The absence of accountability journalism has created an atmosphere in which indicted politicians were elected, school superintendents were mismanaging districts, and police chiefs were getting mysterious payouts. This is not the much-discussed fake-news problem—it’s the separate problem of a critical shortage of real news.
America’s premier media critic, Margaret Sullivan, charts the contours of the damage, and surveys a range of new efforts to keep local news alive—from non-profit digital sites to an effort modeled on the Peace Corps. No nostalgic paean to the roar of rumbling presses, Ghosting the News instead sounds a loud alarm, alerting citizens to a growing crisis in local news that has already done serious damage.
“An excellent introduction to the essential problem of our republic. With a wake-up call like this one, we still have a chance.” ―Timothy Snyder
About the author
Margaret Sullivan is The Washington Post’s media columnist and one of the nation’s foremost authorities on journalism and the press. Previously, she was the longest-serving public editor of The New York Times, critiquing the paper on behalf of its readers. She began her career at The Buffalo News, where she rose through the ranks to become the paper’s first female editor. Sullivan is a graduate of Georgetown University and has a masters in journalism from Northwestern University. Sullivan was twice elected a director of the American Society of News Editors, where she led the First Amendment committee, and is a former member of the Pulitzer Prize board. She lives in New York City.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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