Why should people who live in the Bay Area care that the local news industry has imploded? Because what you don’t know can hurt you.
Over the past decade, the San Francisco Chronicle’s newsroom staff has shrunk to 175 from a high near 575, the San Jose Mercury News has seen its copy desk outsourced to Walnut Creek, and one conglomerate has gained control of almost all of the daily newspapers in the Bay Area.
All told, hundreds of local broadcast, online and print journalists have been kicked to the curb since 2000, resulting in decades of lost institutional memory and merged coverage of beats — meaning that some communities go without consistent media attention until a crisis breaks. How many school board debates and behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts by termed-out politicians have gone unmentioned? The disappearance of watchdogs leaves policymakers to spend or cut millions of taxpayer dollars with minimal oversight. A new workforce study aims to quantify the loss of journalism jobs in the Bay Area. Our reporters will build on that work to show how a diminished cadre of professional news gatherers is affecting the quality of information about local governance. In a thorough look at how consolidation is affecting local news coverage, a team of reporters working with the San Francisco Public Press will provide concrete examples of the civic side effects of the dismantling of the journalism infrastructure. We will also look at attempts by citizens, journalists and tech entrepreneurs to address these news and information voids with niche websites and new-media ventures.
