Local media deserve funding in next stimulus package

Marshall McLuhan became a well-known author when he coined the phrase “the medium is the message” in the mid1960s.

Trying to define the meaning of the phrase became a common topic of conversation among college journalism students at the time.

I’m not sure I ever figured it out. An entry in Wikipedia explains: “McLuhan used the term message to signify content and character. The content of the medium is a message that can be easily grasped and the character of the medium is another message which can be easily overlooked.”

If you need further explanation, I refer you to McLuhan’s: “Understanding Media: The Extension of Man.”

McLuhan is often billed as “a Canadian communications thinker.”

I don’t know what that means but McLuhan’s theory came back to me as I followed debates over the next planned stimulus package to offset the financial crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you’re reading this — whether in print or online — consider yourself fortunate.

It’s not about me, it’s about you.

The medium is the message. Your reading shows you are a person interested in local news, opinions and events.

Hopefully, this product and other media outlets will be available well into the future.

But it’s not going to be easy. Like a lot of businesses, from the auto industry to restaurants, barber shops and salons, media have been hit hard by the pandemic.

If a business isn’t open, there is no need to advertise.

You probably haven’t heard much about the troubled media. Journalists aren’t inclined to report on their own problems.

But the disaster facing the media is slowly coming to light.

Nineteen U.S. Senators recently sent a letter to Senate leadership asking that the next stimulus package include funds for media outlets.

The letter starts: “We write to ask that any future coronavirus stimulus package contain funding to support local journalism and media. Without this support, communities across the country risk losing one of their key sources of accurate information about what citizens need to know and do in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The newspaper industry was in trouble long before the pandemic. Internet competition and online merchandise sales have cut into the bottom line.

Newsroom employment has decreased and about 1,800 local newspapers have ceased operations since 2004, according to a report by the University of North Carolina.

The efforts for stimulus funding have quietly picked up support.

The plan is endorsed by

PEN America, a non-profit based in New York City, the NewsGuild-CWA, the labor union representing journalists across the country and many in southeastern Michigan. The Society of Professional Journalists, of which I have been a dues-paying member since 1966, has not taken a position on the issue.

Some opponents question whether the media, the selfproclaimed watchdogs of government, should receive funds from the government.

That argument can be rebutted by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit created and financed by a 1967 act of Congress. Much of that funding goes to 1,400 locally owned public radio and television stations. They continue to provide top-notch journalism.

The NewsGuild suggests funding to support media workers, to prevent layoffs and reduce furloughs, while prohibiting using public funds for executive bonuses, dividends, stock buybacks or golden parachutes.

The letter sent to Senate leaders, by senators, notes: “Local journalism has been providing communication answers to critical questions, including where to get locally tested, hospital capacity, road closures, essential business hours of operation and shelter-in-place orders. During this unprecedented public health crises people need to have access to their trusted local news outlets for this reliable and sometimes life-saving information.”

Let’s hope a majority of senators agree.