What the death of local news actually means

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, July 24. I’m Gustavo Arellano, a metro columnist, which means I’m allowed to have opinions like:

Newspapers are cool.

But before I begin my rant, here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Whither the news industry in California?

Since I was a teen, I’ve lapped up newspapers.

I used to steal the sports section from the rolled-up newspapers on the driveways of homes on the way to Sycamore Junior High in Anaheim. When I realized there was more to life than just the Angels and Dodgers, I’d jump a fence every Sunday morning to buy copies of the Orange County Register and L.A. Times from news boxes in my neighboring apartment complex. Once I got a job my senior year of high school, I subscribed to those two papers along with the New York Times.

I went into journalism straight out of college despite earning a film studies degree — I’ve never regretted it. But as the years went on, I ended my print subscriptions because I could read for free on the internet most of what I used to pay for.

It’s people like me who launched the proverbial Little Boy that destroyed too many journalism outlets to count.

But the Fat Man remains companies like Craigslist, Google and Facebook, which eradicated the traditional business model of news organizations — advertising. This one-two punch has led to mass layoffs, shutdowns and a society where misinformation reigns.

Two bills currently in the California Legislature, Assembly Bill 886 and Senate Bill 1327, seek to confront this digital dystopia.

The former would require social media giants such as Facebook and search engines like Google to pay news outlets for using their content; the latter would use the revenue gathered from a proposed tax on user data gathered by Big Tech to gift news groups a tax credit for every full-time journalist they employ. The California News Publisher Assn., of which The Times is a member, supports AB 886, arguing it could give the state’s dying news industry — and local news — a lifeline.

(Tech companies vehemently oppose the bills, arguing it’s unfair to target them when the news industry hasn’t kept up with modernity and readers have more options to get their news than ever before.)

These bills aren’t merely a desperate money grab by the lamestream press, folks.

A limping media ecosystem affects society in many ways — few of them good.

Times reporters investigated the decline of local news and what it actually means. Here’s what we found:

• More big businesses control the narrative. The largest news source in Richmond, Calif., is owned by the Bay Area town’s largest business: Chevron. That means in a city where pollution concerns are real from the company’s refinery, its digital rag doesn’t say a damn thing, Jessica Garrison reported.
• News that serves disenfranchised communities is ignored. Santa Ana is one of the most-Latino big cities in the United States. Twenty years ago, dozens of local semanarios (weekly papers) and all sorts of sports, entertainment and lifestyle magazines covered the goings-on of the city. Today, just two publications focused on entertainment fluff remain. I looked at how important issues affecting residents now get ignored.
• Tech companies are intent on winning. Australia and Canada passed bills similar to what California legislators have proposed. Some money went to publishers, but tech bros created chaos by blocking news from their platforms, national correspondent Jenny Jarvie reported.
• AI is only making things worse. AI chatbots might openly lift local journalists’ work and either pass it off as their own or mischaracterize it. “The average consumer that just wants to go check [out a restaurant], they’re probably not going to read [our article] anymore,” L.A. Taco editor Javier Cabral told Wendy Lee on AI’s effects on his scrappy indie site.
• Even news nonprofits — long seen as a foolproof solution — are having a rough time of it: The Long Beach Post had eclipsed the 127-year-old Press-Telegram in readership and gravitas but now finds itself in tatters after nearly three-quarters of its reporters resigned over editorial and business disputes with management. Those defectors now have their own publication, the Long Beach Watchdog, James Rainey reported.
• There are fewer reporters to hold power accountable. The people paid to objectively find out what people in power are trying to hide from you … we’re losing jobs like the Halos are losing fans, Ashley Ahn showed.

I thank you, gentle reader, for reading this newsletter, offer you a virtual high-five if you subscribe to Essential California, and gift you a digital gold star if you are a Times subscriber. And if you read this without paying us? We pardon you — and ask you to subscribe. Hey, $1 for four months is a deal anyone can afford, amirite?

Today’s top stories

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns at West Allis Central High School in West Allis, Wis.

(Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)

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Coronavirus in California

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Fentanyl

• The family of 3-year-old twins who died of a suspected fentanyl overdose is in shock. Relatives said they had no idea the boys’ mother used the opioid.
• Their mother has been charged with murder.
• Just last week, another toddler died of a fentanyl overdose. DCFS had trusted his mom’s friend to keep him safe

More big stories

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Today’s great reads

A plate of tacos is displayed at the Industrial Downtown Night Market.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

How L.A. reached peak taco. To understand how Los Angeles became the world’s most taco-diverse city, let’s start with the taco truck.

Other great reads

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your downtime

Tacos at Bandito Taqueria.

(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

And finally … from our archives

On this day in history, the Supreme Court voted 8 to 0 that President Nixon had to turn over transcripts of the Watergate tapes to Special Counsel Leon Jaworski.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team.

Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Defne Karabatur, fellow
Andrew Campa, Sunday reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor and Saturday reporter
Christian Orozco, assistant editor
Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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