NewsBeat

4 NewsBeat June 2019 When local newspapers shrink, fewer people bother to run for mayor W hat do strong local newspapers do? Well, past research has shown they increase voter turnout, reduce government corruption, make cities financially healthier, make citizens more knowledgable about politics and more likely to engage with local government, force local TV to raise its game, encourage split-ticket (and thus less uniformly partisan) voting, make elected officials more responsive and efficient, and bake the most delicious apple pies. Okay, not that last one. Local newspapers are basically little machines that spit out healthier democracies. And the best part is that you get to reap the benefits of all those positive outcomes even if you don't read them yourself. (On behalf of newspaper readers everywhere: You're welcome.) Now a new paper suggests that weakened newspapers hurt communities in a different way: by reducing the number of options voters have to choose from. The paper in Urban Affairs Review, by Cleveland State's Meghan Rubado and the University of Texas' Jay Jennings, examines what happens to mayoral elections in cities where staffing at the local daily gets cut. Here's the abstract, emphases mine: Newspapers have faced extreme challenges in recent years due to declining circulation and advertising revenue. This has resulted in newspaper closures, staff cuts, and dramatic changes to the ways many newspapers cover local government, among other topics. This article argues that the loss of professional expertise in coverage of local government has negative consequences for the quality of city politics because citizens become less informed about local policies and elections. We test our theory using an original data set that matches 11 local newspapers in California to the municipalities they cover. The data show that cities served by newspapers with relatively sharp declines in newsroom staffing had, on average, significantly reduced political competition in mayoral races. We also find suggestive evidence that lower staffing levels are associated with lower voter turnout. This isn't the first paper to connect newspapers' health to the number of candidates for local office. One paper I've long been partial to used the natural experiment of the Cincinnati Post's closure in 2007 to determine that, in the places where the paper had had the most readers, "fewer candidates ran for municipal office…incumbents became more likely to win re-election, and voter turnout and campaign spending fell." But most research in this area has focused on newspapers closing, and longtime Nieman Lab readers know that closures aren't the big problem (yet). It's that nearly all American local newspapers have been cut and cut and cut to lilliputian dimensions. The Cleveland Plain Dealer hasn't closed, but its newsroom is 1/13th the size it used to be. That's gonna leave a mark (on your local democracy). Rubado and Jennings tackle this by looking at newspapers that report staff numbers to ASNE's annual census and that are in California, where local election data is more By JOSHUA BENTON "In a well-functioning system, citizens need to be actively engaged in their government and aware of decisions made by their elected representatives. Newspapers are a means of citizen engagement, and this study provides evidence of the importance of this link."

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