Monday, March 7, 2011

A small town girl...living in a global world.

Local political coverage is really important...right?

When I was younger, my family either subscribed to the local Morris County Daily Record, or the regional Newark Star Ledger (we switched to the Star Ledger because my mother liked their crosswords better.) So for old times sake, I visited the Star Ledger's website to see how it was doing.
Here are Monday's front page stories:
- an investigation into flight cancelation statistics
- a huge photo of the champion NJ high school wrestler
- an editorial on Newark's school system
- an article about a tax issue in NJ towns
- one AP article on Libya

At the Morris Daily Record, we have one article about a mysterious death in Parsippany, another about a guy who killed his wife in Washington Township, and a nice article about kids in Morristown who are pen pals with kids in Nepal.

Our world is so globally linked these days, that I honestly think people don't feel as connected to their hometowns as they once were. People are interested in reading about what's going on in the whole world, whether that means Hollywood or the Middle East. Either way, they don't care about local town politics, state legislation, or small-time corruption at the local level.

This is ironic and sad, I think, because this is the stuff that actually affects our lives. Petty small town politics make the difference between your town getting a new train station or not, the corrupt chief of police being prosecuted, or the school system getting reformed. This is the day to day stuff that really matters, and if people don't care to read about it, the reporters who want to do a public service by investigating and reporting on it, are never given that opportunity.

Here's a class poll - does anyone from a small town (or a city other than NY) keep up with local politics? Vote in local elections? Read the town newspaper?

8 comments:

  1. No comment on the issue of local politics, but, I do appreciate the title of the post!

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  2. I'm from St. Louis, and I notice the same thing every time I go home and read the newspaper. It's what we described in class as poor-quality writing - the same old local crimes and copied and pasted AP articles.

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  3. I think it is important to remember that small town newspapers aren't going to report on major news topics, they don't have the staff or money to do it and they know that if a townsperson wants news about Libya they aren't going to go to the county or city newspaper, but to one of the big names like the NYTimes or Washington Post, as they should.
    When people are opening up local newspapers they are looking for small town elections, school board announcements and local arrests. If they want more hardcore world news than they are opening the wrong paper!

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  4. I'm from Chicago (ok, not a small town, but it is a city other than NY!) and when I'm home I read the Chicago Tribune, which isn't exactly a tiny newspaper...but is definitely not on par with the WSJ or NYT.

    I think that in Chicago people feel very connected to what is happening, but maybe that's just because of our politics.
    And I try to stay connected with local politics and I vote.

    Maybe it's because it is a big city and there are so many issues with it, but from my experiences, Chicagoans are very interested in our local politics and state politics.

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  5. @Helen, thats the point, people are too focused on "big" news at the expense of what is going on closer to home. I think the lack of interest in local politics is a symptom of a larger problem. Americans are becoming more and more atomized. Many Americans don't identify with any "micro-level" community.

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  6. I disagree, perhaps New Yorkers are atomized since they may consider their "local" newspaper to be the New York Times, but like Naomi said, it is possible to keep up with city and state news along with global news. I don't think it's a matter of one or the other, it's making sure to get both. Especially in todays world it is not difficult to get a local newspaper and also read larger and more world news publications. With today's media bias it's always a good idea to subscribe to a couple of news outlets in order to cover all bases, just in case.

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  7. But how many people are willing to have several newspaper subscriptions? Or read several different websites, even? I think most people don't do that.

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