{"id":1307,"date":"2023-11-17T22:54:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T22:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/fridaylunch\/?p=1307"},"modified":"2024-06-10T22:55:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T22:55:44","slug":"axios-cleveland-and-the-future-of-local-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/fridaylunch\/2023\/11\/17\/axios-cleveland-and-the-future-of-local-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Axios Cleveland and the Future of Local Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\"college
\nCenter for Policy Studies
\nPublic Affairs Discussion Group<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Axios Cleveland and the Future of Local Media<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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\"headshot\"<\/p>\n

Sam Allard – Reporter for Axios Cleveland<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Friday November 17, 2023
\n12:30-1:30 p.m.
\nMeeting Both In-Person and by Zoom
\nDampeer Room, Second Floor of Kelvin Smith Library<\/strong><\/span>*<\/strong><\/span>
\nCase Western Reserve University<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Colleagues:<\/span><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s \u201cFriday Lunch\u201d topic is the local version of both a local and national story.<\/p>\n

In an article last year in the\u00a0Columbia Journalism Review<\/em>, Steve Waldman reported that, \u201c<\/span>Our local-news situation is even worse than you think<\/u><\/span><\/a>,\u201d noting that from 2004 through 2020 newspaper newsroom employees dropped 57%, reporters per 100,000 population dropped 62%, and reporters per $100 million in state and local government spending dropped 67%.<\/p>\n

When I moved to Cleveland in 2000 I could get the\u00a0Plain Dealer<\/em>\u00a0delivered every day, and it was a much more substantial paper than the one in the city I left (New Orleans). Over time the\u00a0PD<\/em>\u00a0has become a lot thinner and cut home delivery first to four and then to three days a week. It cut reporters, some of whom now work for CWRU. This was the northeast Ohio face of \u201cthe collapse of local reporting.\u201d Lauren Rich Fine was kind enough to explain the basic economics of the trend, such as the collapse of classified newspaper advertising, to us way<\/span>\u00a0back in 2009<\/u><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Knowing why this was happening, however, did not help me get state and local news. Occasionally I would see a really interesting headline in the\u00a0Cleveland Scene<\/em>\u00a0about something I did not remember reading about in the PD. Usually the article was by Sam Allard. So I was struck when I learned earlier this year that Mr. Allard was helping to start Axios Cleveland, a daily (weekdays) newsletter that might fill some of the gap in local and state coverage, and I wanted to learn more about it.<\/p>\n

Axios Cleveland<\/em>\u00a0is not the only attempt to fill the gap. Another interesting effort is \u201c<\/span>The Land<\/u><\/span><\/a><\/em>.\u201d But the Axios effort seems particularly important because it is part of a nationally prominent news organization that both clearly recognizes the difficulty of accomplishing much, but declares an \u201c<\/span>editorial theory of the case<\/u><\/span><\/a>.\u201d In their words:<\/span><\/p>\n