The Online vs. Traditional Local News Dichotomy

“Communities now have more news distribution outlets and, simultaneously, less accountability journalism.”

-From the FCC study, “Information Needs of Communities.”

Or, as the WSJ explained in its coverage of the report: there is more and more people talking about news, but less local original content that is occurring.

My quick answer: the rise of more news outlets (notably, news sites and blogs) was driven by the change of technology that made publishing easy and cheap. What that didn’t lower the bar on was access. Sure, some established blogs get a seat at the press conference table, and more and more are on press release lists. That doesn’t do much.