Valley Views

valley views The great newspaper erosion (and the future hope)

By Marc C. Johnson

Daily Montanan

By one accounting, more than 2,100 U.S. newspapers closed between 2005 and 2020.

We’ve all heard the stories, many pretty bleak.

Smaller newspapers are purchased by large chains, which cannibalize newsrooms in order to squeeze the last cents – and sense – out of “the product.” Hedge funds with track records of slashing costs – meaning jobs – and maximizing returns for a handful of already really wealthy people are buying up newspapers.

Alden Global Capital is one such hedge fund. The group recently purchased the Tribune Company, owner of the venerable Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News, among other papers.

“The purchase of Tribune reaffirms our commitment to the newspaper industry and our focus on getting publications to a place where they can operate sustainably over the long term,” said Heath Freeman, the president of Alden. Separately it was reported that at least 10 percent of already depleted newsroom staffs at Tribune were taking financially slim buyouts, while senior top editors were replaced.

Freeman, the hedge fund guy, is doing great, however. He recently plunked down $19 million for a modest little six bed, six bath joint in an exclusive neighborhood in Miami.

More is at stake here than the survival of the local paper. As local news has been crushed under a variety of burdens from declining ad revenue to non-discerning readers and viewers who gravitate only to “news” outlets that serve only to confirm own ideological opinions, democracy has taken a hit, as well.

The non-profit Niskanen Center, a think tank doing first-rate, deeply researched work on a range of public policy issues, has produced an important new report on the links between local news and the health of American democracy.

“As local news has withered,” the authors of the new report noted, “so too has citizens’ ability to monitor the effectiveness of state and local officials. This has been a key driver in the ‘nationalization’ of politics, which refers to voters only drawing on preferences regarding national politics to evaluate politicians and policy at all levels of the federal system.”

Or put another way, as we increasingly frame all our thoughts about politics at every level around a question of “Biden or Trump” we ignore many of the really vital issues in our own communities. When the local newspaper shrinks or goes away this reality becomes even more pronounced.

As dire as the local journalism situation seems – and it is dire – there are some flickering signs of hope out there.

States Newsroom, a non-profit, now offers free online and first-rate coverage of state capitol and other news in 22 states. In every state with a States Newsroom – Idaho, Montana and Oregon have such outlets – the newsroom leader is a veteran “local” journalist doing superb work.

The Daily Montanan recently broke a blockbuster story, reported by Keila Szapaller, about sexual harassment at the University of Montana law school. The expose forced the resignation of the school’s dean and his deputy.

The Idaho Capital Sun and reporter Audrey Dutton have provided the very best statewide coverage of the state’s pitifully inadequate response to COVID-19. (Full disclosure: I have contributed opinion pieces to both organizations.)

In Arizona, as another example, the Arizona Mirror, reported this week on Congressman Paul Gosar’s recent trafficking in neo-Nazi and white supremacy images. A story larger news organizations missed.

Another potentially promising local news development is the union of legacy news organizations with public broadcasters. This type of union is unfolding in Chicago where WBEZ, the local public broadcast outlet, is fixing to acquire the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. Initial plans contemplate no layoffs, but instead the addition of more staff.

Authors of the Niskanen Center report offer another intriguing idea: “Political donors could redirect their financial support to local media.” A deep-pocketed contributor to political campaigns might spend thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a candidate or cause never knowing if the contribution had any real impact. By contrast, the same amount of cash supporting a hyper-local news gathering effort could produce immediate and obvious results, and “could be a better return on investment for those who are alarmed by the state of our politics.”

A proposal in Congress contemplates creation of a national endowment for local journalism, something akin to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or the long-established national endowments for the arts and humanities. The effort might be limited to “non-profit” news organizations and supported by individual taxpayers choosing a “check off” on their tax returns in the same way that millions of American provide public funds for presidential elections.

There are many reasons for the troubled state of American democracy – toxic cable television shouting matches that feed on fear and division, bald faced lies and conspiracy theories elevated by candidates, and a demonizing of legitimate news organizations and their reporters as “enemies of the people.” By any measure, the drastic decline of local journalism in so many communities, and the companion inability to focus on real and important local issues has to be part of the cause, as well.

We need to get on with addressing this.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “it expects what never was and never will be.” It’s worth remembering in light of our fractured, tribal politics that Jefferson championed a free and critical press even as he was often viciously attacked

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LETTER POLICY

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Please limit “thank you” letters to four people/organizations or less. Deadline is 5 p.m. Friday to publish the following week.

Opinions expressed in this section are not necessarily those of the newspaper.

Love on the other side of complexity

In the early 1980s, while living in China, my wife and I got lost in an unfamiliar city. At the time our Chinese language skills were non-existent, so we couldn’t ask for directions, let alone understand the answers. It was hot and humid, and after four hours of wandering we were tired, hungry and dehydrated. Panic started to set in as we began to realize we lacked the language skills to meet even our most basic needs.

Finally we came upon a street vendor selling watermelons. After a quick and silent transaction, the watermelon was in our hands and immediately devoured — the most delicious, rejuvenating watermelon the planet had ever produced. Thirty-five years later, I can still taste it.

To me, this story illustrates the meaning of the quote at the top of this post. The complexity of our circumstances turned an act I previously wouldn’t have given much thought to — eating a watermelon — into a profound encounter with a simple necessity of life I’d long taken for granted: Water. I’ve never looked at a watermelon the same way again.

I bring this up because we clearly live in very complex times — a confluence of extreme environmental, social, economic, and political upheaval. All of which makes me wonder about another simplicity we might come to see differently as we travel from this side to the other side of complexity: Love. Or more specifically, the notion that “love is all we need” to solve our problems.

I think many would agree that on this side of complexity such a notion comes across as naive, and can be easily dismissed as trite, vague and unrealistic. But what if on the other side of complexity it was becoming more clear to us that love, like water, is an essential ingredient for life in general, and civilizations in particular? The one and only universal force that can unite us in common purpose and motivate us to act for the common good? Would love then become one of those simplicities we’d all be sure made the journey across complexity’s rough terrain? This seems to me to be the great opportunity of our time — to, in the midst of our upheaval, practice love and see what new understanding emerges.

Difficult conversations are, of course, ideal for such a practice. The ability to set aside our opinions, agendas and judgments so we can actually hear the views of the other side, is itself an act of love — one with the power to change hearts and minds. Such an act of love also reveals the meaning of a part of the quote I’ve not talked about, that the simplicity on the other side of complexity is worth our life. Setting aside our own perspective for love can indeed feel like a surrender of selfhood. But it’s a loss soon restored when we realize what we surrendered to was our own more expanded sense of self — the self that can see beyond its own filters, allowing the presence of love to do its work.

It’s worth noting that this is a particularly ripe moment for a deeper understanding of the power of love to emerge. The binding agents we’ve long relied on as a society — our

norms, institutions and laws — appear no longer strong enough to hold us together. All have, to some extent, lost our consent, and so we find ourselves adrift, a boat without a rudder at the mercy of whatever winds prevail. Something we’ve long taken for granted — our ability to govern ourselves — now seems at risk. Binding people together, of course, is love’s great gift. Another What we love, we care for and sacrifice for...not because View anyone told us to, but because we want to, because it fulfills something within us even as it does good beyond us. What’s gotten in love’s way, however, is our choice to limit its circumference, to restrict it to family, friends and tribe. But what we may discover about love on the other side of complexity is that love has no boundaries — making it the ideal and perhaps only binding agent that can do the job. The only one that can operate at scale, the only one that, unlike hate or fear, does not need an enemy to succeed. Kern Beare is the founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and the author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together.

Ken Beare

letters

Be careful what you sign

Editor,

Flathead Irrigation irrigators, a few weeks ago you were sent a letter from the Montana DNRC about filing water rights according to the CSKT compact. Be careful what you sign, remember that all three irrigation districts filed irrigation, pumping, and stock water rights on March 20, 1982, two weeks before the deadline of April 1, 1982. The BIA magically copied and filed these same water rights in two weeks, and got them to Helena before the deadline. Have you ever seen the BIA do anything in two weeks? The BIA filings are on top of the districts’ filings, which means the districts filed first. A year or so back you were asked to file water rights on springs, creeks, and wells for stock water. We hope you all got that filed. This request from the MT DNRC is under legal review, trying to sort out priority dates for example. Do not let the DNRC bully you into believing your water rights have not been filed. We, the districts, have audio and written testimony how this was accomplished.

One more concern is the fact from the DNRC, that you United States and Montana citizens have 180 days to file, Tribal members have 5 years.

This is Montana, United States, how is this supposed to be constitutional? Be careful.

Tim Orr Mission District Commissioner St. Ignatius

more letters on page 12

newspaper

from page 10 in print by his political opponents.

“For most of American history, localism came naturally,” the Niskanen Center report says. “But that’s no longer the case in our age of national and international connectivity. And while much has been gained in this changed environment, that connection to the local that our political system takes as a given has been severely undermined. Recapturing that type of community connection would help America’s political institutions function as intended. And a robust local media landscape is a prerequisite for a reinvigorated localism.” (Editor’s note: this column is republished courtesy of Daily Montanan, https://dailymontanan.com)

vj

Selfish citizens responsible for harming others

Editor,

Montana; tops in COVID, bottom in vaccinations. What a record, mostly because people don’t want to be told what to do. Cost in lives and money because people don’t want to wear a mask or get a shot? Schools are opening and closing, not providing online learning. I have followed the story of a Ronan family who did not feel safe sending their children to school where masks are optional, home schooled for a while because there is no online learning, and finally paying to be out of district on line students through the Missoula school system. We now have a state sponsored monoclonal antibody clinic in Butte. We have called out the National Guard to help at hospitals. Cost? My nephew and wife had to juggle work schedules for a week when their daughter was exposed at school. They both lost about half a week of work but had no other options. Cost?

Montana opened up to get kids back to school and support the economy, however nobody seemed to consider that businesses which did not require masks and social distancing lost potential customers. Businesses have shut down and reopened on several occasions because an employee has tested positive for COVID. If their workers had been masked and had their shots and if they required masks in their place of business they may not have had to shut down. Cost in lost business and salaries? We could be done with the worst of this if people cared. I conclude that in Montana we have a lot of self-centered people who are willing to hurt their communities because they don’t want to be inconvenienced. We have ignorant people who say they won’t get vaccinated because they don’t trust the vaccines, but they go to Murdoch’s and get horse wormer. It defies all reason. The people of Montana are the ones that have made the COVID situation what it is. Our citizens have chased off health workers. Our citizens have spread ignorant information about vaccines and horse wormer. Our misinformed, selfish citizens are responsible for the deaths of others.

Vicky MacLean Ronan

Voting rights advancement act a critical safeguard

Editor,

Our U.S. Senate Republicans are striking at the heart and core of our democracy through their repetitive assaults on our freedom to vote. Our right and privilege to vote in the United States of America is at the core of our democracy. We count. Every single registered voter provides the bedrock of our democracy. Without our votes, what are we left with?

The opposite of democracy is dictatorship, tyranny and inequality. That is not what our founding fathers created for us. That is not what has sustained our country since our founding in 1776.

The Senate Republicans have, since May, introduced 360 bills restricting voting rights. The most recent attack was just two weeks ago when they blocked The Freedom to Vote Act. They even blocked debate on this important piece of legislation. This is now the fifth time the Senate Republicans have abused the filibuster to block debate on our voting rights and democracy reform legislation this year.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will advance critical reforms to safeguard every American’s freedom to vote. Senate Republicans filibustered to avoid even a civil debate on the issue. It is clear that Senate Republicans are not good faith actors and will block any and all legislation to empower voters and ensure every American has access to the ballot box. The one Senate Republican who wants this bill to pass is Senator Murkowski of Alaska. Kudos to her good sense.

We need to halt this Republican Senate assault on our voting rights now. Call Senator Jon Tester, a co-sponsor of this bill. He can be reached at: 202-2242644. Tell him you are in favor of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Ask him to rally his colleague, Senator Manchin and ten Senate Republicans to vote yes on this vital piece of legislation. We need 60 votes to pass this bill.

Sheila M. Bell Polson

President Biden is detriment to country

Editor,

Are we now living in a banana republic? It started with a dubious election last November and a spineless Supreme Court that refused to even look at the evidence of voter fraud that 70 million people believe occurred. For the past nine months we have observed one crisis after another instigated by this incompetent President and his equally incompetent VP. If your news source is ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, or CNN, you probably haven’t heard of any of the following disasters caused by Biden, as they are not journalists, but merely the propaganda arm of a corrupt Democrat Party, and their orders from the party leaders are to mislead the American people with obfuscations and lies. These are some of Biden’s anti-American actions:

Killing our energy independence and the Keystone Pipeline, giving us the highest gas prices in 7 years. We now have the worst inflation of prices in 30 years, and Biden is begging OPEC to produce more oil which is complete insanity.

Refusing to abide by and enforce Supreme Court decisions, and planning to pack the Supreme Court with ideologues who support his radical Marxist agenda.

Forcing an unconstitutional vaccine mandate upon American citizens.

Biden’s departure from Afghanistan became a total debacle leaving dead and wounded Marines and abandoning $80 billion in military hardware to the Taliban terrorists. Biden declares he will evacuate all Americans, but he instead leaves Americans abandoned and betrayed.

The most lawless of Biden’s actions has been his refusal to enforce our immigration laws and to protect the sovereignty of the country. Section 4 of Article 4 of our Constitution guarantees that the Federal Government will protect every state against invasion and domestic violence. The Border Patrol has apprehended 1.7 million illegal aliens at the southern border in 2021, many with Covid, and they are being released into the U.S. Biden has created a humanitarian catastrophe, and a health crisis of monumental proportions. His illegal border policies have enabled the Mexican cartels to increase child sex trafficking, and to bring in greater amounts of Fentanyl and Meth to the detriment of our state.

Fred Smith Polson

The answer is clear: choose love

Editor,

The world is in a mess. I list some examples. See what you think of the solution.

Saturday morning on CNN with Michael Smerconishm had a segment based on the review of a book by John Mowhorter. “Woke Racism, How a new religion has betrayed black America.” More racism to the forefront in the news.

Then I listened to other news. Numerous reports of fear and anger-based human unrest and actions. Our ego-based human reactions to all this is frightening.

Then on to posing this political question: “How do we hold power accountable?” That’s a big one all over the world as well as here at home. The great divide in our American politics right now is seriously threatening our democracy. Our human egobased responses take many negative forms that are evident in thoughts, words, and actions.

The choice and answer are clear. Choose to follow God’s gift of love within each of us. The answer involves dedicated choosing and practicing thoughts, words, and actions based upon God’s gift of love within. This love is expressed in many ways, day by day and moment by moment.

Bob McClellan Missoula

NFTs beneficial for digital artists

Art – for millennia every single culture has emphasized channeling precious time and resources to create objects of beauty. Such objects of affection have fulfilled many distinct purposes. Art has been displayed in religious contexts and ceremonies, political and governmental contexts to signify authority and authenticity, as status symbols of immense wealth, and even an artifact of beauty in itself. Over time, new technology emerged allowing for new and exciting forms of art like photography. As we have turned the corner into the digital age, innovative artists began to discover the potential for completely virtual forms of art.

With the frontier of art expanding to include more technically complex expressions, a new set of problems has materialized. Most digital art exists as simple image and video files like .jpgs or .mp4s. Because of the nature of digital files, the artwork can be copied and distributed in its original form a theoretically infinite number of times. Imagine snapping your fingers and creating an exact replica of a painting right down to the brush strokes! Now, in case you can create an unlimited quantity of perfect copies of a piece of art, how would you preserve any kind of value in the individual artwork? This existential question has been overshadowing the entire digital art space like a dark cloud since its inception.

Artists have explored ways to make a viable living with such artwork; however, the options were limited. Selling physical products based on digital works or building an audience for advertising purposes like YouTube were the only options available. The resulting challenges prompted numerous artists to make a conscious choice to avoid the medium entirely. But innovation was hampered within the digital art space; many possibilities were unexplored.

Enter the mighty Non-Fungible Token or “NFT” for short. An NFT works like a certificate of authenticity for an attached work of art. These exist on digital blockchains in the same way as cryptocurrencies. That is what the token part of the name is in reference to. The word fungible means that an object is interchangeable with any other of the same kind. Dollar bills are fungible because one is worth the same as another. Something that is non-fungible is unique and not interchangeable. Original paintings are

unique., and therefore non-fungible. Consequently, Non-Fungible Tokens are one-of-a-kind records that cannot be duplicated or forged. By attaching an NFT token to a work of digital art, unequivocal ownership over a digital file can be proven. Because ownership can now be proven, digital artwork ben there can be bought and sold. Ben Stone DONE that This has revolutionized the world of digital art in Media Production, Valley Journal the last couple of years. Artists can create or “mint” an NFT and lock in an artwork’s ownership. Market places have

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