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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

Papers like the NYT, WP and WSJ are doing ok. It's the local ones that are dying or getting bought out and gutted.

This is a big problem, because no one else sits through those hours of local meetings that mean so much to our cities in terms of transportation, housing, schools and so on.

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Second that opinion. Local media is crucially important. Not least as it serves as a public record in an edited and readable form, moreover, most journalists at the “big” papers also have a background in local press. That’s where you learn the ropes and the craft of reporting.

Not true. Television stations have reporters. Radio stations have reporters. Some are for-profit, some are public. They report on local meetings. Websites are cropping up that have reporters that cover local matters:

https://www.marylandmatters.org/

https://marylandreporter.com/

Maryland Public Television sends three reporters, plus an anchor and all the associated production staff, to cover the Maryland General Assembly each year. They sit through the hours of debates. They interview lawmakers.

The newspaper never was the only source of local news, and now more than ever there are places to get local news if people bother to look.

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734501

But also, you're talking about state-level reporting in a state with 6 million people.

I'm talking local papers in towns of 10K, 50K, 100K, 200K. They used to exist, and now they're going away, and we're worse off because of it.

WP was sold to Bezozs by Buffett and the other owners probably because it was not doing ok financially.

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