My first job was a paper route. Each morning I’d wake before dawn to the thump of papers on the porch, then I’d kneel on the living room carpet to roll up each copy, reading the headlines as I went. Some were local, others national, but the news always felt important. Rolling through our California subdivision — on a bike or the open tailgate of our family Suburban — I practiced tossing papers close to each door, and safe from bushes or sprinklers. In my own small way, I felt I was helping my neighbors to stay informed and prepared to engage in our democracy. Back then, few would have argued the point.
Those memories make today’s reality more poignant. American journalism is in crisis. The economics are grim, driven by the failure of ad revenue, the demise of print and the dramatic reinvention of the information marketplace. As newspapers have lost money — an estimated $35 billion in advertising revenue from 2006 to 2018 — they’ve cut newsroom jobs in half, gutting the ability to uncover news and tell compelling stories. And now even local papers find themselves competing for attention with behemoths like The New York Times and CNN, but also Netflix and Instagram. It’s a losing battle, but even more tragic is the crisis of trust.
In her recent book, “News for the Rich, White, and Blue,” author Nikki Usher examines an industry that has lost touch with the country it serves. She describes a 2016 “lobster and scotch” party at The Washington Post, celebrating the paper’s move to K Street — known for its concentration of political lobbyists — under a new owner, Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos. That image of beltway reporters in power suits contrasts as sharply with the demographics of smaller newsrooms as it does with the rest of the American landscape, but Usher finds her counterpoint in upstate New York, where Trump signs and book sales herald an impending election victory that her friends in the media couldn’t see coming.
As cries of “fake news” spread, Usher saw something different in the growing segment of Americans who don’t trust the media or see themselves in its coverage. A self-described “failed reporter” — despite stints at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune — she, too, mourned what had been lost. Now an associate professor of journalism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, she set out to deconstruct the forces that have reduced the fourth estate to a partisan chess piece.
Usher recently discussed the resulting book in an interview with Deseret Magazine.
Deseret: Why do you think journalism is worth studying and writing books about?
Nikki Usher: News frames the way that many of us understand the world. Even when a citizen journalist is entering the scene, they’re doing so with an idea of what’s important to share. Studying the media tells us…
Read More: The journalism industry is struggling. How can we save local news?