Help Identify "Media Deserts" for research project

[MFerrier]

Hi Folks,
Journalism That Matters Media Deserts/News Oasis project is based on a
national map I'm building that looks at places where news and
information sources are scarce. Many of you have started projects in
your area because you saw this lack. If you have a geographical or
topical "desert" that you can help identify, please let me know.
Here's a summary of the research aspects of the JTM gathering in
Seattle this January that examined a topical desert around the issue
of hunger:
http://www.elon.edu/e-net/Note.aspx?id=957424

Jacob Caggiano has also created a summary of the event on the JTM
website: http://journalismthatmatters.org/seattlejournalismcommons/news-oasis-to-end-hunger-in-puget-sound/

Thanks,
Michelle Ferrier

[MFerrier]

Here's the link to another version of the story...sorry the other link
needed correction and is back in the university editing queue;-)

http://www.locallygrownnews.com/stories/LocallyGrownNewscom-Founder-Initiates-Media-Deserts-Research-in-Seattle,28465

Michelle Ferrier

> website:http://journalismthatmatters.org/seattlejournalismcommons/news-oasis-...
>
> Thanks,
> Michelle Ferrier

[Tom Stites]

Hi Michelle -- Thanks for sending along the links.  

As for news deserts, I spoke a couple of days ago with Barbara Gref, who I met at a news entrepreneur workshop at Poynter a couple of years ago.  She lives in Jeffersonville, N.Y., in the Caskills, and is deeply committed to strengthening journalism in rural areas.  She runs the Community Reporting Alliance, which was "founded on the principle that community news is an abiding human need, but one whose continuance can no longer be taken for granted."  See http://reportingalliance.org/ .  She was activated when the owner of a group of nine rural weeklies around her closed them down one day, making a whole region on New York State into a complete news desert.  I'd be amazed if anyone knows more than she does about rural news deserts than Barbara.  See http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2009/02/10/news/doc4991a25bf3532468754961.txt .  Barbara's a wonderful person to boot.

A different story comes from New London, N.H., where a 185-year-old weekly died not long ago.  As advertising spending declined, a shopper, which of course doesn't have to pay reporters to print anything that doesn't bring in revenue, was able to hang on when the newspaper couldn't.  This is an affluent area around Lake Sunapee that no longer has a source of original reporting.

As I think you know, the Banyan Project pilot city is Haverhill, Mass., which has 61,000 people.  It has a fading weekly newspaper with one reporter and is covered as well by The Eagle Tribune, a daily published in nearby North Andover that presents itself with no place name in its flag and covers (I think) 52 communities.  I check its website periodically, and on average it publishes 3 to 4 Haverhill stories a day, almost all police items or city hall handouts.  The same company owns both papers.  Haverhill had a daily and a community radio station, but both folded more than a decade ago.  So Haverhill is a bit less arid than the Lake Sunapee and Catskills areas.

Comparatively, it's a long stretch to think of Seattle because the P-I bit the dust.

Have you come up with metrics for determining what's a news desert and to what degree?  Since original local reporting is what matters to a community, I'm imagining that the basic measurement would be the ratio of reporters to residents.  Figuring this out for the whole nation strikes me as a huge research undertaking, but I just an old reporter and don't know the sophisticated ways of academic researchers.  In any event, doing that kind of careful research could drastically change the conversation about the future of journalism the way the food desert map changed the conversation about food deserts.  Might there be a source of grant money?  Maybe start with North Carolina and then use that as a level for funding for a national project?  I'm cheering for you! 

Tom

  

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[Josh Wilson]

Really interesting. Thank you, Michelle.

Picking up on the metaphor of a "food desert" (in which you may have a community with more liquor stores and corner shops to get potato chips or trans-fat-laden TV dinners than actual grocery stores to purchase healthy eats), you can live in a "media rich" area and still be fed a "steady diet of nothing," to quote Ian MacKaye.

Just because there's an ad base to support a media outlet doesn't mean people are getting "journalism that matters," so to speak.

Most Americans don't vote, most don't trust media, most of the issues that really matter in peoples' lives are consistently given short shrift in what has become the traditional journalism practice. There's a business section, but there's no life on minimum wage section. Etc.

The idea of the "media desert" is important -- now let's deepen the model and include some content analysis to really bring out meaning from the GIS data.

Josh

[Michelle Ferrier]

Hi Josh,
The visualization is the first step of a multi-layered, multi-modal research strategy. Yes, as you suggest, when you think of news as food, some of us are fed crap. Thus the topical and substantive ethnographic/content research to identify what the local diet might be.

Several JTM folks have been involved in other sessions I held at JTM events on news as food. Those focus groups helped identify just the problem you articulated and the framework we discussed is shaping the direction of the research. I'm still working on funding to deepen the model, but believe that visualization will help move the conversation beyond journalism into sustainable planning initiatives of communities.

Thanks for your feedback!

Michelle

[Rob Kall]

There's a media desert anywhere media remains top-down, without "the people" having bottom up access to full participation, content, moderation, curation, headlining...

Perhaps one reason the reputation of the media has descended to such a low point is because our culture, our technology has become so much more bottom up, so old, top-down models are no longer, deservedly not respected.

Rob Kall
Publisher, www.opednews.com, a technorati top 100 site overall http://bit.ly/technoratitop100 (reaching 250-800,000+ unique visitors/month)
Host, The Rob Kall Bottom-Up Radio Show 1360 AM, reaching metro Philly & S. Jersey www.opednews.com/podcasts
Regular Contributor, Huffingtonpost.com
Ranked among the top 200 Print/Online Columnists by Mediaite

Consultant/trainer in Bottom-Up new media
211 N. Sycamore St. Newtown, PA 18940
215-504-1700 (messages only. Email me for urgent phone call mobile number)

Follow me on twitter at  www.twitter.com/robkall
www.twitter.com/opednews
www.twitter.com/bottomupmind
www.twitter.com/fhlt   (futurehealth)
www.facebook.com/rkall

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up, Studs Terkel

"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."
~ Albert Camus

[Tom Stites]

Friends -- Some further thoughts:

1.  No matter your community, if you are less than affluent you live in a news desert.  This was the theme of my 2006 Media Giraffe speech -- way before I had access to the news desert frame.  My thesis was built on Pew statistics on who quit reading newspapers between 1996 and 2004: People from households whose income exceeded $50,000 were holding on to their newspaper reading habits but that those from households that earned less were bailing out in droves.  And the speech made the case that a major reason for this was that metro papers had turned their backs on less-than-affluent readers, tailoring their service journalism almost entirely for the managerial and professional class with disposable income to spend in the stores of upscale advertisers.  Other people found less and less content relevant to their lives, and thus less and less value in the newpaper, until it was no longer worth the price to them.  So publishers' withdrawal of information relevant to the less-than-affluent pushed them into the desert.

Preparing for a speech I gave last week, I got new stats from Pew's biennial surveys to track how the trend has changed since 2004.  What I found was that so many people now access news on the Web that it's difficult to sort out what they're reading there; things have become too diffuse to tease out the trend anymore.  Also, in 2006 newspaper ad revenue began to plummet, and the statistic that matters now is the huge decline in the newsroom census.  The fewer reporters per unit of population, the more arid the ecosystem; it has become hugely more arid since I gave that speech.  If you're curious, the speech is at http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performance-democracys-critical-issue/

2.  Many African-American communities around the country once had vibrant newspapers, but most have faded to oblivion, and while downtown dailies have integrated their newsrooms since the '70s they tend to do a seriously poor job of covering black communities.  Many are among the most arid of news deserts; see this In These Times essay by Laura Washington of Chicago:  http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7151/the_paradox_of_our_media_ageand_what_to_do_about_it/ .  Some other big-city ethnic communities are served by lively publications, print and on the Web.  But I can't imagine a more desertified existence than being one of the many Hispanics living in small town and suburban America.

3.  Semantics:  I far prefer the term news desert to media desert or communications desert.  Many people understand media to includes not just news but also entertainment, Twitter and Facebook, even video games, making the term too broad to describe the desert that matters in this conversation:  a lack of original reporting that serves a community and its people.  And communications includes landline telephones and the Internet infrastructure, and is thus broader still.

Tom

[Michelle Ferrier]

Thanks Tom for your details!

I too wrestled with the semantics -- news desert versus media desert. Ultimately I settled on media desert *because* it is a more inclusive term. What I teach my students of the definition of news does not cover the types of information and storytelling that circulates in communities that doesn't fall under this classic definition of "news". And the broader definition is necessary to encompass the other ways in which people are communicating that is happening outside traditional "news" organizations.

Ultimately, our Journalism That Matters broader project will address interventions called "news oases" that get specifically at the concern you address.

Thanks for the thoughts...keep them coming!

Michelle

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Stites [mailto:t...@tomstites.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 07:15 PM
To: 'Josh Wilson'
Cc: 'MFerrier', 'Journalism That Matters'
Subject: Re: {JTM} Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" for research project

[MaryKay McFarland]

Hello,

I am new to this group, but I am reading all of this with a great deal of interest. Can anyone tell me about the broader project that is being worked on? I work in West Virginia where geography and lack of broadband availability and adoption really isolate rural communities.

Thank you,

mk


M.K. McFarland
WV Uncovered Coordinator
email: MaryKay....@mail.wvu.edu
office phone: 304-293-6779



>>> "Michelle Ferrier" <mich...@michelleferrier.com> 1/23/2012 12:04 PM >>>

[Michelle Ferrier]

Hi Mary Kay,
The Media Deserts project is but one take at the larger issue of media access...including internet, public TV, radio and other media sources for community news and information. If you're interested in some of the broader applications, feel free to call ...336-278-5737. I am working with several researchers to try and create a more comprehensive view;-)

Michelle

[Josh Stearns]

Hi folks,

 

I know many of you have reported on the ways that money is influencing the 2012 campaign, so I wanted to share with you this new report -- Citizens Inundated -- which exposes both sides of the Citizens United problem: where the billions of dollars in special interest money is coming from and where it’s going. It also offers concrete policy recommendations that can begin to help hold television stations accountable to viewers and voters. 

 

More details on the report below. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to discuss further.

 

Josh Stearns

Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director

Free Press :: www.freepress.net // SaveTheNews :: www.savethenews.org

Twitter: @jcstearns // Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204

 

PS: I also wanted to let you know that we’ve set a date for the next National Conference for Media Reform!  NCMR 13 will be in Denver, CO from April 5-7, 2013.  More details to come soon, but please save the date.

__________________________________________

January 26, 2012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jenn Ettinger, 202-265-1490 x 35

New Report Shows Big-Money Politics and Broadcast Media Are Undermining Democracy 'Citizens Inundated' documents how the media profits from elections, even as news coverage shrinks WASHINGTON -- On Thursday, Free Press released Citizens Inundated, a report that follows the money trail from big-spending political donors to the bank accounts of the nation's largest broadcast companies. The report sheds light on the ways in which the broadcast industry profits from elections while polluting political discourse and failing to cover important issues. Read Citizens Inundated here: http://www.freepress.net/citizens-inundated “It’s a corrupt process that enriches media execs while leaving voters awash in misinformation,” says Timothy Karr, Free Press senior director of strategy and author of the report. “As a result of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the wealthiest 1 percent now have unchecked power to pick and choose our nation’s leaders.  And they’re spending the bulk of this money on the sort of political attack ads that misinform the viewing and voting public.” Companies like CBS Corp., News Corp. and Sinclair Broadcast Group are already dividing the spoils of an election year that will see unprecedented spending on political ads.  They are expected to rake in more than $3 billion in political ad revenues. "What they’re not doing is letting viewers and voters in on the full story behind all these ads," Karr said. "Instead of exposing this runaway spending and separating fact from fiction in their news reporting, television broadcasters are lining their pockets and leaving the electorate none the wiser.” The report also makes recommendations for making television stations more accountable to viewers and voters. Below are a few of the recommendations Free Press makes in Citizens Inundated: Make Political Ad Spending Information Fully Available Online: All FCC-licensed broadcast stations should fully disclose their “public inspection files” online. This material should include a political file that contains a full accounting of political-ad spending.   Expose the Money Behind Front Groups in the Body of the Ads: The true funders of political ads should no longer be able to hide behind front groups with misleading names. To promote increased transparency the FCC should require the body of the ads to feature a stand-alone disclaimer naming the top contributors to the organization or entity sponsoring the advertisement   Strengthen Limits to Consolidated Broadcast Ownership: As the FCC reviews its ownership rules in 2012, it must not consider any rules that would further concentrate media ownership. In particular, it must curtail the trend of cross-ownership that allows one company to own several broadcast stations and a major daily newspaper in a single market. The full report can be read here: http://www.freepress.net/citizens-inundated ###

Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Free Press does not support or oppose any candidate for public office. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Learn more at www.freepress.net

 

 

 

[Josh Stearns]

This has been a rich discussion, and an issue that I am glad to see so much attention being paid to.

 

Michelle – have you looked at the Knight Info Needs toolkit? http://www.infotoolkit.org/ I wonder if you think it provides useful fodder as your develop your assessment process and identify other news deserts. New America foundation has also been undertaking an effort to study media ecosystems (you are probably aware of their Seattle work). Here is their study of North Carolina. http://mediapolicy.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_research_triangle_north_carolina

 

We did a bit of research on the human stories behind broadband access – this is also from North Carolina, although we also interviewed people in DC and LA. http://www.freepress.net/node/48654. Along the way we produced a series of short videos:

 

http://youtu.be/HbkkxphQH34

http://youtu.be/sNDvuZuBuS8

http://youtu.be/uFNgZBbwIGA

http://youtu.be/l72hfhCtV7k

 

Best

Josh

 

 

Josh Stearns

Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director

Free Press :: www.freepress.net // SaveTheNews :: www.savethenews.org

Twitter: @jcstearns // Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204

 

[Michelle Ferrier]

Hi Josh,
Yes, I'm familiar with the Knight work and also the work of New America. New America and others have done some of the ethnographic work in specific areas. Journalism that Matters has produced targeted interventions in Seattle. So I've been inspired by so much localized attention.

My frustration had been the limited and scattered resources for visualizing the effects of paper cuts on the ecosystem (and yes, I used papercuts specifically). The data currently doesn't give us that birds eye view of the effects on the landscape.

I may find that it's difficult to tease out that visuallization, but I think the exercise is worthwhile. We cannot measure the value of what we do as journallists effectively in this time of transition without somehow measuring change over time and mapping that to effects...and ultimately action.

Would love to continue the conversation with you!

Michelle Ferrier

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Stearns [mailto:jste...@freepress.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 04:26 PM
To: 'Michelle Ferrier'
Cc: 'Journalism That Matters'
Subject: Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" for research project

This has been a rich discussion, and an issue that I am glad to see so much attention being paid to.

Michelle ? have you looked at the Knight Info Needs toolkit? http://www.infotoolkit.org/ I wonder if you think it provides useful fodder as your develop your assessment process and identify other news deserts. New America foundation has also been undertaking an effort to study media ecosystems (you are probably aware of their Seattle work). Here is their study of North Carolina. http://mediapolicy.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_research_triangle_north_carolina   We did a bit of research on the human stories behind broadband access ? this is also from North Carolina, although we also interviewed people in DC and LA. http://www.freepress.net/node/48654. Along the way we produced a series of short videos:

[bgref]

Hi Michelle -

I just joined the group! I am glad you are revving up this topic. It's
an important one.

Yes, as Tom Stites was (very kindly) saying, the idea of places
without news has been a driving concern for us at the Community
Reporting Alliance. After identifying news-less communities as a top
need, we launched something called the Rural News Recovery Project
which has since morphed into the Media Restoration Project. It's been
slow going. We identified a place called Rhinebeck, NY, which is one
of those places Tom mentioned in his description of the eastern bank
of the Hudson River in New York where nine community papers were
closed down by a corporate parent in one day. We saw Rhinebeck as the
epicenter of the imposed news drought. We worked for more than a year
there with a small group of people led by one woman in the community
who saw and felt this need sharply. Just last week, she told me she
would not pursue setting up her news project because there was just
too much sacrifice involved and she saw no real path to
sustainability. I am not sure was tried to help here, we learned a
lot.

Now we are working with an even tinier community -- one at the edge of
the Catskill Mountains, called Livingston Manor. A mom who is also a
substitute teacher there came to the public library asking that a
newspaper run by young people be set up. As this mom points out, there
is a double desert of news going on. No newspaper for the community
(it was shut down in 2009) and no newspaper in the school (that was
cut out of the program when the budget axe fell). There's also a
"desert" of activities and jobs for teens and young people. So, we are
working with the mom and the kids and the library to get something off
the ground. We plan to fight fire with fire -- raise money for the
news by holding dances, thereby getting news and also offering
something for the young people and the whole town to do. We will see
if it works.

We're also involved with a newspaper in Cordova, AK, where a
corporation announced last year it was shutting down five community
newspapers. I was just starting to wrangle with the corporation to ask
them to turn the newspapers over to our nonprofit so that they could
keep going with their current staffs when lo and behold, one of the
editors, a woman named Jennifer, emptied her bank account in order to
buy her paper and keep it intact. We are now trying to help her. She
is piloting a project called 101 Stories where we give mini-grants to
small, mostly independent news operations and journalists to tell
stories of community importance that might not otherwise be told.

Here is a rather stirring editorial (
https://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/murkowski-shutdown-alaska-newspapers-leaves-big-hole
) about the pending shutdown of the papers, which by and large were is
Native territories of Alaska. There was a pretty big outcry, and I
think others have stepped up to take on some of the other papers and
keep them running. Still, these places are news deserts, they were
hurting for resources before the crisis and still are.

Another news operation in the Catskills here in NY, The Watershed
Post, is also piloting 101 Stories. The WP is run by two women in a
rather sprawling news desert where old-time newspapers in many towns
have dropped like flies over the past decade or so.

At any rate, we remain very interested in the topic as a whole. We
have a project on ice that is called "Undercovered in America" which
seeks, like you do, a way to truly quantify and measure the impact of
the news desert. If we had proper funding, we'd certainly pursue it
more vigorously -- but it is a project that needs funding because the
time and skills required are considerable. Having said that, I wonder
if you'd consider "crowd sourcing" this by setting up google doc
spreadsheet or something else in the cloud where a bunch of people
could add in our news-impaired places as we come across them.

I will leave you with the thought that LA Times 2011 Pulitzer Prize
winning report on the City of Bell, CA, remains one of the outstanding
parables from the news dessert. The LA Times reporters went to the
area to cover a different story, but heard about the highly paid,
highly corrupt officials in Bell and thus only by chance was the
wholesale rip off of the people in this working-class, largely Latino
news desert unmasked. It had been gong on for about five years.

The Bell story is a good tale of what can happen in the desert. It
also begs a bigger question. It's good to know where and how deep the
news desert is, but ultimately, what are we -- as individuals, as
journalists, as citizens -- going to do about it?

Best of luck to you,

Barbara Gref

On Jan 26, 6:37 pm, "Michelle Ferrier" <miche...@michelleferrier.com>
wrote:

> Hi Josh,
> Yes, I'm familiar with the Knight work and also the work of New America. New America and others have done some of the ethnographic work in specific areas. Journalism that Matters has produced targeted interventions in Seattle. So I've been inspired by so much localized attention.
>
> My frustration had been the limited and scattered resources for visualizing the effects of paper cuts on the ecosystem (and yes, I used papercuts specifically). The data currently doesn't give us that birds eye view of the effects on the landscape.
>
> I may find that it's difficult to tease out that visuallization, but I think the exercise is worthwhile. We cannot measure the value of what we do as journallists effectively in this time of transition without somehow measuring change over time and mapping that to effects...and ultimately action.
>
> Would love to continue the conversation with you!
>
> Michelle Ferrier
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Josh Stearns [mailto:jstea...@freepress.net]
> Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 04:26 PM
> To: 'Michelle Ferrier'
>
> Cc: 'Journalism That Matters'
> Subject: Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" for research project
>

> This has been a rich discussion, and an issue that I am gladto see so much attention being paid to.
>
> Michelle ? have you looked at the Knight Info Needs toolkit?http://www.infotoolkit.org/I wonderif you think it provides useful fodder as your develop your assessment processand identify other news deserts. New America foundation has also beenundertaking an effort to study media ecosystems (you are probably aware oftheir Seattle work). Here is their study of North Carolina.http://mediapolicy.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_research_tr...
>
> We did a bit of research on the human stories behind broadbandaccess ? this is also from North Carolina, although we also interviewed peoplein DC and LA.http://www.freepress.net/node/48654.Alongthe way we produced a series of short videos:
>
> http://youtu.be/HbkkxphQH34http://youtu.be/sNDvuZuBuS8http://youtu.be/uFNgZBbwIGAhttp://youtu.be/l72hfhCtV7k

>
> Best
> Josh
>
> Josh Stearns
> Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director

> Free Press ::www.freepress.net// SaveTheNews::www.savethenews.org

> Twitter: @jcstearns // Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204
>
> From:jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of MichelleFerrier
> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 12:25 PM
> To: MaryKay McFarland; Josh Wilson; MFerrier; Tom Stites
> Cc: Journalism That Matters
> Subject: Re: {JTM} Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" forresearch project
>
> Hi Mary Kay,

> The Media Deserts project is but one take at the larger issue of mediaaccess...including internet, public TV, radio and other media sources forcommunity news and information. If you're interested in some of the broaderapplications, feel free to call ...336-278-5737. I am working with severalresearchers to try and create a more comprehensive view;-)

>
> Michelle
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MaryKay McFarland [mailto:MaryKay.McFarl...@mail.wvu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 12:15 PM
> To: 'Josh Wilson', 'MFerrier', 'Tom Stites'
> Cc: 'Journalism That Matters'
> Subject: Re: {JTM} Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" forresearch project
> Hello,
>
> I am new to this group, but I am reading all of this with a great deal of interest. Can anyone tell me about the broader project that is being worked on? I work in West Virginia where geography and lack of broadband availability and adoption really isolate rural communities.
>
> Thank you,
> mk
>
>  M.K. McFarland
>  WV Uncovered Coordinator

>  email: MaryKay.McFarl...@mail.wvu.edu
>  office phone: 304-293-6779
>
> >>> "Michelle Ferrier" <miche...@michelleferrier.com> 1/23/2012 12:04 PM >>>

>  Thanks Tom for your details!
>
>  I too wrestled with the semantics -- news desert versus media desert. Ultimately I settled on media desert *because* it is a more inclusive term. What I teach my students of the definition of news does not cover the types of information and storytelling that circulates in communities that doesn't fall under this classic definition of "news". And the broader definition is necessary to encompass the other ways in which people are communicating that is happening outside traditional "news" organizations.
>
>  Ultimately, our Journalism That Matters broader project will address interventions called "news oases" that get specifically at the concern you address.
>
>  Thanks for the thoughts...keep them coming!
>
>  Michelle
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Stites [mailto:t...@tomstites.com]
> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 07:15 PM
> To: 'Josh Wilson'
> Cc: 'MFerrier', 'Journalism That Matters'
> Subject: Re: {JTM} Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" for research project
> Friends -- Some further thoughts:
>
> 1. No matter your community, if you are less than affluent you live in a news desert. This was the theme of my 2006 Media Giraffe speech -- way before I had access to the news desert frame. My thesis was built on Pew statistics on who quit reading newspapers between 1996 and 2004: People from households whose income exceeded $50,000 were holding on to their newspaper reading habits but that those from households that earned less were bailing out in droves. And the speech made the case that a major reason for this was that metro papers had turned their backs on less-than-affluent readers, tailoring their service journalism almost entirely for the managerial and professional class with disposable income to spend in the stores of upscale advertisers. Other people found less and less content relevant to their lives, and thus less and less value in the newpaper, until it was no longer worth the price to them. So publishers' withdrawal of information relevant to the less-than-affluent pushed them into the desert.
>

> Preparing for a speech I gave last week, I got new stats from Pew's biennial surveys to track how the trend has changed since 2004. What I found was that so many people now access news on the Web that it's difficult to sort out what they're reading there; things have become too diffuse to tease out the trend anymore. Also, in 2006 newspaper ad revenue began to plummet, and the statistic that matters now is the huge decline in the newsroom census. The fewer reporters per unit of population, the more arid the ecosystem; it has become hugely more arid since I gave that speech. If you're curious, the speech is athttp://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performanc...
>
> 2. Many African-American communities around the country once had vibrant newspapers, but most have faded to oblivion, and while downtown dailies have integrated their newsrooms since the '70s they tend to do a seriously poor job of covering black communities. Many are among the most arid of news deserts; see this In These Times essay by Laura Washington of Chicago:http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7151/the_paradox_of_our_media_age.... Some other big-city ethnic communities are served by lively publications, print and on the Web. But I can't imagine a more desertified existence than being one of the many Hispanics living in small town and suburban America.

>
> 3. Semantics: I far prefer the term news desert to media desert or communications desert. Many people understand media to includes not just news but also entertainment, Twitter and Facebook, even video games, making the term too broad to describe the desert that matters in this conversation: a lack of original reporting that serves a community and its people. And communications includes landline telephones and the Internet infrastructure, and is thus broader still.
>
> Tom
>
> On Jan 22, 2012, at 1:43 AM, Josh Wilson wrote:
>
> Really interesting. Thank you, Michelle.
>
>  Picking up on the metaphor of a "food desert" (in which you may have a community with more liquor stores and corner shops to get potato chips or trans-fat-laden TV dinners than actual grocery stores to purchase healthy eats), you can live in a "media rich" area and still be fed a "steady diet of nothing," to quote Ian MacKaye.
>
>  Just because there's an ad base to support a media outlet doesn't mean people are getting "journalism that matters," so to speak.
>
>  Most Americans don't vote, most don't trust media, most of the issues that really matter in peoples' lives are consistently given short shrift in what has become the traditional journalism practice. There's a business section, but there's no life on minimum wage section. Etc.
>
>  The idea of the "media desert" is important -- now let's deepen the model and include some content analysis to really bring out meaning from the GIS data.
>
>  Josh
>
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[Michelle Ferrier]

Hi Barbara,
Thank you for detailed post! I am indeed working on a solution to capture
these stories...I'll let you know shortly where that solution will be
housed.

Also, are you or anyone familiar with the Knight foundation's "circuit
riders" for their community information grants? I'm wondering what their
model is and how we can engage unconventional sources to make these news
operations sustainable.

I use the framework of "media deserts" because I believe there may be
unconventional ways to share news and information that don't look like
traditional news sources.

I'd love to hear more about your fallow projects though and learn what is
necessary from your experiences to chart a successful path.

Please let me know if there is a time we could chat!

Michelle Ferrier

[bgref]

Hi Michelle -
I do not know much about the Knight Foundation's "circuit riders" but
I'd like to know more as well.
Maybe someone else on the list knows a little more ... ?
Meanwhile, I will contact you off-list to see when we could talk
more.
Thanks!
Barbara

On Feb 25, 3:33 pm, Michelle Ferrier <mferr...@elon.edu> wrote:
> Hi Barbara,
> Thank you for detailed post! I am indeed working on a solution to capture
> these stories...I'll let you know shortly where that solution will be
> housed.
>
> Also, are you or anyone familiar with the Knight foundation's "circuit
> riders" for their community information grants? I'm wondering what their
> model is and how we can engage unconventional sources to make these news
> operations sustainable.
>
> I use the framework of "media deserts" because I believe there may be
> unconventional ways to share news and information that don't look like
> traditional news sources.
>
> I'd love to hear more about your fallow projects though and learn what is
> necessary from your experiences to chart a successful path.
>
> Please let me know if there is a time we could chat!
>
> Michelle Ferrier
>

> >https://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/murkowski-shutdown-alaska-news...

> >> toolkit?http://www.infotoolkit.org/Iwonderif you think it provides useful

> >> fodder as your develop your assessment processand identify other news
> >> deserts. New America foundation has also beenundertaking an effort to study
> >> media ecosystems (you are probably aware oftheir Seattle work). Here is their
> >> study of North
> >> Carolina.http://mediapolicy.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_research_t
> >> r...
>
> >> We did a bit of research on the human stories behind broadbandaccess ? this
> >> is also from North Carolina, although we also interviewed peoplein DC and

> >> LA.http://www.freepress.net/node/48654.Alongtheway we produced a series of
> >> short videos:
>
> >>http://youtu.be/HbkkxphQH34http://youtu.be/sNDvuZuBuS8http://youtu.be...

> >> wIGAhttp://youtu.be/l72hfhCtV7k
>
> >> Best
> >> Josh
>
> >> Josh Stearns
> >> Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director

> >> Free Press ::www.freepress.net//SaveTheNews::www.savethenews.org

> ...
>
> read more »

[Anna Tarkov]

I personally know a few of the Knight circuit riders. What questions do you have for them? I can give you their names and email addresses.

-Anna

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[Michelle Ferrier]

Anna,
I’m interested in finding out more about what kinds of support they provide and what other needs the community-based projects have confronted for sustainability. My media deserts research work is looking at what models might work for sustainable community journalism and who are the partners and conditions necessary for success.

Any contacts would be helpful.

Michelle

> >> wIGAhttp://youtu.be/l72hfhCtV7k <http://youtu.be/l72hfhCtV7k>

>
> >> Best
> >> Josh
>
> >> Josh Stearns
> >> Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director

> >> Free Press ::www.freepress.net//SaveTheNews::www.savethenews.org <http://www.freepress.net//SaveTheNews::www.savethenews.org>
> >> Twitter: @jcstearns // Phone: 413.585.1533 ext. 204 <tel:413.585.1533%20ext.%20204>

>
> >> From:jtm...@googlegroups.com <mailto:From%3Ajt...@googlegroups.com>  [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of
> >> MichelleFerrier
> >> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 12:25 PM
> >> To: MaryKay McFarland; Josh Wilson; MFerrier; Tom Stites
> >> Cc: Journalism That Matters
> >> Subject: Re: {JTM} Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" forresearch project
>
> >> Hi Mary Kay,
> >> The Media Deserts project is but one take at the larger issue of
> >> mediaaccess...including internet, public TV, radio and other media sources
> >> forcommunity news and information. If you're interested in some of the

> >> broaderapplications, feel free to call ...336-278-5737 <tel:336-278-5737> . I am working with

> >> severalresearchers to try and create a more comprehensive view;-)
>
> >> Michelle
>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: MaryKay McFarland [mailto:MaryKay.McFarl...@mail.wvu.edu]
> >> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 12:15 PM
> >> To: 'Josh Wilson', 'MFerrier', 'Tom Stites'
> >> Cc: 'Journalism That Matters'
> >> Subject: Re: {JTM} Re: Help Identify "Media Deserts" forresearch project
> >> Hello,
>
> >> I am new to this group, but I am reading all of this with a great deal of
> >> interest. Can anyone tell me about the broader project that is being worked
> >> on? I work in West Virginia where geography and lack of broadband
> >> availability and adoption really isolate rural communities.
>
> >> Thank you,
> >> mk
>
> >>  M.K. McFarland
> >>  WV Uncovered Coordinator
> >>  email: MaryKay.McFarl...@mail.wvu.edu

> >>  office phone: 304-293-6779 <tel:304-293-6779>

>
> >>>>> "Michelle Ferrier" <miche...@michelleferrier.com> 1/23/2012 12:04 PM >>>
> >>  Thanks Tom for your details!
>
> >>  I too wrestled with the semantics -- news desert versus media desert.
> >> Ultimately I settled on media desert *because* it is a more inclusive term.
> >> What
>
> ...
>
> read more »

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