44 CityAndStateNY.com
Local media landscape
August 16, 2021
Experts weigh in on the future of news and where City & State fits.
By Annie McDonough
Print media in New York City has been gutted in the past 15 years, and the news business has transformed.
media landscape, including Elinor Tatum, publisher and editor-in-chief of the New York Amsterdam News; Javier Lacayo, senior vice president at SKDK; and Jere Hester, editor-in-chief of The City. These responses have been edited for length and clarity. What are the most important changes the local news landscape has gone through in the past 15 years? JERE HESTER: We all know the bad news: The shrinking of local news staffs, especially at the Daily News. Major losses, from the shuttering of DNAinfo to the end of regular publication of The Village Voice to the recent nixing of The Wall Street
Journal’s Greater New York section. But the most important changes are the seeds of a good-news story: a burgeoning nonprofit media sector that’s built on what City Limits started over 40 years ago – from the rise of outlets like Chalkbeat, Documented and, yes, The City. Put that together with a certain 15th birthday well worth celebrating, and there’s good reason for hope. ELINOR TATUM: The most important changes that the local news landscape has gone through over the past 15 years is the slaughter of the local newsroom. Daily newspapers have gutted their newsrooms and local news, and the communities that were once served have been the victims. If it were not for community-based news
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HEN CITY & STATE first launched 15 years ago, journalism was already in the throes of a massive transformation. The decline of print was accompanied by grim stats: Nearly 1,800 newspapers have shuttered since 2004, and there has been a 57% drop in newspaper newsroom employment between 2008 and 2020. This transformation has been painful for media outlets and the communities they cover, but the entities that have survived and taken their place – print and digital hybrids, community and ethnic media outlets, nonprofit newsrooms and more – are full of promise. For a special edition of Ask the Experts, City & State consulted experts on the local
