Reconsidering Philanthropy’s Focus on Local News in Light of Trump II

And the need to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Welcome to Second Rough Draft, a newsletter about journalism in our time, how it (often its business) is evolving, and the challenges it faces.

One of the most important reasons why I admire my longtime business partner, Steve Engelberg, the editor-in-chief of ProPublica, is because of his willingness and ability to acknowledge when a fundamental change has occurred in the news environment, and to shift the overall focus of the newsroom he directs. I saw him do so just months after ProPublica began publishing when the collapse of Lehman Brothers signaled the acute phase of the global financial crisis in September 2008, again when Donald Trump was first elected in November 2016, and yet again when the pandemic descended in March 2020. Steve and his team clearly recognized another such moment with the advent of Trump II earlier this month, and they have been very transparent about their coverage plans.

Philanthropy, especially institutional philanthropy, is not generally so nimble. Instead, it’s the sort of arena in which people can give themselves permission to conduct a nearly three-year strategic review and rollout, or even to commit most of their available resources just before seeking a new strategy.

Local matters

Sometime early in this decade, philanthropy reached a rough consensus that the heart of the business crisis in American journalism was at the local level, and that resources should be focused there. Eventually, after a year-long timeout for pondering, that gave birth to Press Forward, which has consumed a lot of grant-making during last year and this one. More is just ahead.

I didn’t disagree with this consensus view (although I did have a few words of caution). When ProPublica did its own first sustained strategic planning exercise, in late 2014, we concluded that local news eventually needed to become a priority, and this gave rise to the launch of ProPublica Illinois in 2017 and that of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2018. I am proud of those efforts. About half of the newsrooms with which I have consulted over the last three-plus years are local.

Nothing about Trump II makes their challenges any less urgent. If we needed a reminder of that, it came at the end of last month, when two of the three largest metro papers in New Jersey announced that they would cease print publication early next year, and another paper which they printed under contract said it would shut altogether. That will leave Jersey City, a town of about 300,000, with no newspaper of its own.

Local news remains the most trusted in a time of eroding trust, the most salient in the minds and lives of many citizens, and the most diminished during the now two decades of the business crisis of the press. So it continues to require and deserve lots of help.

Walking and chewing gum

But Trump II does mean, I am afraid, that we rapidly require the philanthropic equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time. That may be challenging for organizations which find it difficult to simultaneously act effectively and think deeply.

Local or National? We are going to need both.

In determining what sorts of national journalism will merit support, perhaps urgently, it may be useful to start with a few that won’t. As we’ve been reminded in recent weeks, we are awash in national political reporting and analysis; it’s hard to imagine how that could merit philanthropic dollars. Ditto for opinion journalism, which can and does reach audiences these days at little or no cost through platforms like this one.

Another unworthy recipient, in my view, would be those for-profit outlets that remain profitable. In a moment where available resources are likely not to match compelling needs, philanthropic support for the New York Times, for instance, which recorded an operating profit of more than $100 million in the most recent quarter, seems misguided. If the Times conceives a worthy project, it can and should fund it itself.

On the other hand, there are areas of reporting that are critical to sustain at the national level in this moment. Those would include reporting on climate, immigration, the administration of justice, public health, national defense and intelligence and the circumstances of those most easily overlooked or forgotten in our society, including the working poor. Moreover, we should acknowledge that national and local newsrooms can and have worked effectively together.

Taken as a whole, all these competing needs—local as well as national—will require that those given the privilege of directing philanthropy exhibit discipline, discernment and dispatch. Hard times likely lie ahead. They will require hard choices.

Second Rough Draft will be off next week. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones.