Nieman Lab.
Predictions for
Journalism, 2024.
In 2024, the heart of local news strategy boils down to the question: Do you care about place, or not?
To what I believe are the most exciting and promising new local journalism organizations, the answer to that question is, deeply, yes. That calls for a very different, and I’d argue more challenging, way of doing journalism than nationally-focused organizations with interests in “local.” Authentically local journalism outlets already know this. And with so many new — and needed — locally-focused news and information organizations bubbling up across the country, there presents an exciting new space on the horizon for these journalists and newsroom leaders to redefine their relationships to place.
With that, I believe, comes an opportunity for a new crop of local journalists, along with community members and historical, cultural, and social organizations, to collaboratively reimagine a new way of doing local history — one that, like journalism, can be active, investigative, and engaged.
I’ve been saying for a while now that journalists must use history as a reporting tool. (This fall, I even became a part-time student to pursue a master’s degree in public history.) And I agree with some smart colleagues that journalism would benefit from synching more with public libraries and with humanities-focused organizations in general. But in 2024, with increasing investment in local news and particularly of efforts that are led by and that center people of color, a new generation of local and civic media will embrace new roles as place-makers themselves. The history they tell while doing so — the way they communicate place — will be very different from their predecessors.
As the researcher Nikki Usher writes in their book, News for the Rich, White and Blue, journalists have long been agents of place-making. But with the decline of local newspapers and the nationalization of news, Usher warns that “journalists are losing their authoritative claim to being able to cover places.”
This is somewhat concerning: Losing a sense of place risks losing an understanding of how power shapes our lives, and of what we can do about it. On the other hand, the history and sense of place that legacy-media often conveyed was, at best, incomplete. By misrepresenting and ignoring communities of color, “legacy” newsrooms have often been complicit in the mistelling and erasure of their histories, too. If journalism is indeed the first rough draft of history, the legacy of newsrooms’ overwhelming whiteness is telling of how much history needs revisiting.
New local newsrooms can be part of that revisiting. As they create their own histories in relationship to the communities they serve, they are well-suited to change the way history has been told. In doing so, they become their own, unique place-makers. This is especially exciting, as newer outlets and movement journalists are decidedly uninterested in replicating the traditional power roles of newsrooms past; they are less interested in claiming authority and more interested in sharing it. That is the hallmark of new journalism — and that is exactly the makings of effective public history.
Public history is the practice of doing history in and with the public (i.e. outside of academia.) As I wrote on my Substack, Public History + Journalism, some journalists may have done a bit of public history without realizing it. Public historians, a broad swath of people who may include community archivists, oral historians, site and museum interpreters, librarians and digital humanities professionals, local researchers and more, may likewise have some experience doing journalism.
I believe the fields of public history and journalism are shifting toward each other. In 2024, if local news outlets and civic media leaders are proactive in that shift, they’ll find new publics to serve — and a new generation of public historians waiting for them, too.
Logan Jaffe is a newsletter reporter at ProPublica and a public history graduate student at Loyola University Chicago.
In 2024, the heart of local news strategy boils down to the question: Do you care about place, or not?
To what I believe are the most exciting and promising new local journalism organizations, the answer to that question is, deeply, yes. That calls for a very different, and I’d argue more challenging, way of doing journalism than nationally-focused organizations with interests in “local.” Authentically local journalism outlets already know this. And with so many new — and needed — locally-focused news and information organizations bubbling up across the country, there presents an exciting new space on the horizon for these journalists and newsroom leaders to redefine their relationships to place.
With that, I believe, comes an opportunity for a new crop of local journalists, along with community members and historical, cultural, and social organizations, to collaboratively reimagine a new way of doing local history — one that, like journalism, can be active, investigative, and engaged.
I’ve been saying for a while now that journalists must use history as a reporting tool. (This fall, I even became a part-time student to pursue a master’s degree in public history.) And I agree with some smart colleagues that journalism would benefit from synching more with public libraries and with humanities-focused organizations in general. But in 2024, with increasing investment in local news and particularly of efforts that are led by and that center people of color, a new generation of local and civic media will embrace new roles as place-makers themselves. The history they tell while doing so — the way they communicate place — will be very different from their predecessors.
As the researcher Nikki Usher writes in their book, News for the Rich, White and Blue, journalists have long been agents of place-making. But with the decline of local newspapers and the nationalization of news, Usher warns that “journalists are losing their authoritative claim to being able to cover places.”
This is somewhat concerning: Losing a sense of place risks losing an understanding of how power shapes our lives, and of what we can do about it. On the other hand, the history and sense of place that legacy-media often conveyed was, at best, incomplete. By misrepresenting and ignoring communities of color, “legacy” newsrooms have often been complicit in the mistelling and erasure of their histories, too. If journalism is indeed the first rough draft of history, the legacy of newsrooms’ overwhelming whiteness is telling of how much history needs revisiting.
New local newsrooms can be part of that revisiting. As they create their own histories in relationship to the communities they serve, they are well-suited to change the way history has been told. In doing so, they become their own, unique place-makers. This is especially exciting, as newer outlets and movement journalists are decidedly uninterested in replicating the traditional power roles of newsrooms past; they are less interested in claiming authority and more interested in sharing it. That is the hallmark of new journalism — and that is exactly the makings of effective public history.
Public history is the practice of doing history in and with the public (i.e. outside of academia.) As I wrote on my Substack, Public History + Journalism, some journalists may have done a bit of public history without realizing it. Public historians, a broad swath of people who may include community archivists, oral historians, site and museum interpreters, librarians and digital humanities professionals, local researchers and more, may likewise have some experience doing journalism.
I believe the fields of public history and journalism are shifting toward each other. In 2024, if local news outlets and civic media leaders are proactive in that shift, they’ll find new publics to serve — and a new generation of public historians waiting for them, too.
Logan Jaffe is a newsletter reporter at ProPublica and a public history graduate student at Loyola University Chicago.
