These days, it’s getting harder to imagine a future where America is home to a robust local media. Part of that comes down to a punishing financial climate for local news, compounded by the ravages of corporate consolidation and private equity and venture capital ownership: In a 2018 report, the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Media and Journalism found that more than one out of every five newspapers had closed over the preceding 15 years, and that some 1,300 communities across the country had no newspaper at all.
Equally disturbing, though, is how local coverage seems to be shifting: In a study of 100 communities located outside of major news markets from that same year, Duke University found that only 17 percent of local news articles in circulation were region-specific—and that more than half of the stories published were syndicated from elsewhere. As the need for up-to-the-minute public health information amid the coronavirus pandemic drives an uptick in local news subscriptions, the scale has likely tipped at least slightly in favor of journalists producing more original and localized news. Still, as long as the media industry remains beholden to a broken ad-revenue model—one predicated on capturing as many eyeballs as possible, on social media platforms that are largely agnostic of geography, for infinitesimal returns—it’s hard to imagine a major course-correction any time soon.
Of course, the crisis isn’t unique to small towns. This week’s guest, Los Angeles native Jeff Weiss, is no stranger to the heartbreak of watching the newspaper the shaped your understanding of the city where you grew up, and the people and institutions within it that are worth fighting for, become a shell of its former self. Three years ago, when a group of Republican-donor investors purchased the LA Weekly and laid off almost the entirety of its editorial staff, the writer and editor was so rattled by the gutting of his favorite alternative weekly that he organized a boycott of the publication. Then he teamed up with a group of local journalists and editors—many of them, like Jeff himself, former contributors of the alternative culture bible—to start a print magazine called The LAnd.
Focused on telling local culture and politics stories from a distinctively Los Angeles perspective, the publication is celebrating the release of its third issue this summer. Fittingly with the events that birthed it, the theme this go-around is the future of Los Angeles. Jeff, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, wrote over 6,000 words about how a corrupt and racist police force, vampiric real-estate developers, and a bloated and ineffectual local bureaucracy prevent the city for actually living up to his reputation as one of the most progressive cities in the world; The Culture Journalist’s Andrea Domanick, another former LA Weekly contributor, reported a series of interviews with local venue owners about what a post-pandemic Los Angeles nightlife might look like. And there’s also a great piece about the future of the city’s dim sum scene.
Over the past 15 years, Jeff has developed something of a cult following for his imagistic writing style and tireless advocacy of indigenous Los Angeles culture—both through his rap-centric POW site, which he has expanded to include a record label since he started it in 2005, and through writing for places like the Washington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, and The Ringer. On this week’s episode, we talk about the stories that don’t get told when local media disappears, Weiss’ ongoing coverage of rapper Drakeo the Ruler’s legal battle, and why the place where you live will always be a much better source of meaning and inspiration than the Internet.
Read more by Jeff
“What I Saw at the Revolution: A First-person Account of the L.A. Protests”
“The Age of (Not That) Innocence”
Follow Jeff on Twitter
Join Jeff and Andrea this coming Wednesday, September 9 at 6pm PST for a LAnd-hosted panel discussion about the future of the music industry in Los Angeles, with Kyambo "Hip-Hop" Joshua, Cypress Moreno, and Rosencrans Vic. It’s on Zoom, so you don’t have to actually be in Los Angeles.
Localize it, with Jeff Weiss