Comments (178)
| I place a much higher value on timely, indepth reports that focus on multiple perspectives and potential solutions to community challenges than on incremental process coverage that often passes for news. The Web enables archived reports that can be refreshed. It's a much more rich format for delivering information and letting people interact with it than the government meeting story that fills a 10-inch hole in the newspaper. | ||||
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Ideally, one could access both the large issue coverage that helps one form an opinion, AND the process coverage that enables one to know what action is or is not being taken, by whom and where points of interaction and advocacy might be. | ||||
| Lord yes it is difficult to ferret information on the local issue categories you list, but also the effectiveness of elected and appointed government, law enforcement, even civic activism. Local television news hasn't met the challenge of substance for me in 40 years and four states. My bias as a former print journalist is clear, but with too few exceptions, community journalism is an unattractive calling for journalists, so we are stuck with the less-able practitioners. Maybe journalism programs should lionize local news reporting instead of tantalizing students with big city dreams. | ||||
| Locally, I'm most interested in schools, safety issues, and cultural events. | ||||
| In Rhode Island, like many other states, we are facing severe budget issues. Unlike all other states we are tiny, with antiquated forms of government, e.g. over 70 separate fire stations serving a bit over 1M folks. Our local news media gives lip service to these issues. They report on a news story, but there is little if any follow-up, no real in-depth writing including what is happening in other states, etc. Local TV news is accidents (BREAKING NEWS), weather, and sports. | ||||
| Interestingly, I have relatively little connection with or care about most of the "official" news about my locality. I get a pretty good feed on hyper-local (neighborhood+) news from email lists and even just forwarded emails. It would be nice to have some sort of simple framework to highlight something that really is material, but local news (particularly TV) is just so dreadful and manipulatory that its not worth the time. | ||||
| I find that I get the best local information from the local news radio casts. I also read the local paper for that type of information. Sadly, local news TV does not give you nough information. It would be great to get unbiased information about local issues and races all in one place - the net. | ||||
| The local newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel, does an adequate job of providing detailed local information. I rarely watch the local TV news because I've found it to be mostly superficial and sensational. | ||||
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What I need is straightforward, factual info on candidates for local elections, on local issues, on the activities of all aspects of the community (whole sections of our town are invisible to other sections), and on what the local movers and shakers are up to. Much of this is "boring" but necessary to an informed citizenry. An ad occassionem-updated online source independent of local advertising might be the best solution: one might only need to check it once a week. | ||||
| Local information is readily available. I try to read the agendas of the Board of Supervisors and the City Council. I read the local paper headlines online. | ||||
| I find that going online is easier and I can get contact info if I have any questions | ||||
| Our Canton publishes a regular newsletter with community issues. There are three local newspapers - a daily and two weeklies that cover community events and news and also there is a daily email notice relating to issues affecting Anglos in Quebec. | ||||
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We have a local newspaper that does a reasonable job, but it would be nice if there were also local online news sources beside the official town site etc. | ||||
| Mostly I need to encounter what I don't know... that is, I depend on media outlets to find and report all sorts of stories about things I wouldn't always discover on my own. | ||||
| Local TV news and newspapers have really dropped the ball on local reporting. They provide only so much information, but the rest is just filler. There are smaller regional newspapers that provide quality news on local issues. I also rely on bloggers, online news sites, and social networking sites to learn what's happening in my community. | ||||
| While I need news on local issues (crime, politics, education, business, the economy, nonprofits, etc.), I particularly enjoy and use news about the arts community and columns about food, gardening, parenting, decorating, etc. Unfortunately, the Wichita Eagle keeps getting rid of more and more of those things. | ||||
| I subscribe to Mother Jones, The Nation, Newsweek, Harper's, In These Times, Vanity Fair, The Progressive Populist, and The New Yorker; my home page on the internet is TruthOut.org and I visit Crooks&Liars.com;, Information Clearing House and a few others. So, unlike most Americans who assume they get a full disclosure of factual news on network or cable news casts, I know that is not the case so I get information from a wide variety of alternative news outlets that are not beholden and/or owned by large corporations. It is sad that 95% of information outlets are owned by only a handful of large conglomerates. It is a mistake to ever assume that a corporate-owned media outlet will ever report news that would be detrimental to the parent company. For instance, it would be foolhardy to assume that NBC would ever investigate cost overruns at the Pentagon because they sell jet engines to the military. Why would they cut off their nose to spite their face? In short, they wouldn't. | ||||
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I need to know when public forums and face-to-face events that talk about important local issues are happening and ways of accessing them if I can't attend the actual event. I also need timelines, histories, and aggregation of information and perspectives around community issues and decisions. Most people access this information from the local newspaper, but coverage is often brief and unnuanced, or worse, covered by polarized editorializing. Blogs, e-mail lists, and posts on social networking sites and street-corner conversations provide more of the information I want, but this information doesn't always propagates through social networks to where it can be considered by the community as a whole. Also, simply projecting these perspectives to a broader audience doesn't always work because individual blog or mailing list posts lose the context of the blog's audience and contributors. What is really needed is aggregation that puts all the different info. sources in context. | ||||
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We are blessed with a community radio station that makes it their business to address local issues. They broadcast public forums, air current issues on the "First Thursday" conversation and air local commentators on their AM. PM and Staturday morning Calendar show. | ||||
| i get most of the information that i need off of the internet. even local information. through local blogs, listserves, google searches, you can find out virtually anything about an area, whether its finding a place to meet others, seeing who is behind a particular decision, or planning an event from afar. | ||||
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