We are not the only new digital niche journalism project in the Inland Empire.
I recently saw a presentation from Justin Pardee, who has launched the Raincross Gazette, “a local newspaper without the paper.”
I can relate to wanting to call the product a newspaper. I’ve worked in the newspaper business for 30 years — since my job involved an X-Acto knife and a wax machine — and though I am sincerely happy about the evolution to digital storytelling, saying “news outlet” just doesn’t seem to do it.
I was excited about Pardee’s paper, so I caught him by the sleeve at the end of the event and scheduled a call.
The Gazette will be focused entirely on Riverside, “a city founded by abolitionists with a commitment to justice and equality,” the manifesto on the paper’s website says. Pardee’s pride in and love for Riverside are evident, and I predict they will serve the Gazette well.
I previously worked as the editor of the Redlands Daily Facts, and saw my own spirit reflected on the Gazette site. For me that spirit manifested as a personal investment in service to my hometown through good and thorough coverage.
A decade before I ran the Facts I was a copy editor at The Press-Enterprise, where Marcia McQuern was the publisher. She was a strong role model, and conveyed to us repeatedly that a newspaper had to do more than tattle on people with power; it had to contribute to the success of the community. The paper only thrives when the community thrives.
A 2018 Poynter Media Trust study indicated that 76% more Americans trust local news than major national news media. In a 2019 a Knight-Gallup study, a whopping 79% said local news media are better at providing news that’s useful in their daily life.
So we look to local journalists to serve our right to know what’s happening in our cities, to provide an open forum of opinions and ideas, to herald accomplishments that feed hometown pride. And Americans are increasingly left looking.
According to Pew, almost 2,000 newspapers have shuttered since 2004 (that’s a fifth of the nation’s papers.) From 2008 to 2019, the estimated number of journalists working in the United States went from 114,000 to 88,000. Most of the job losses were in newspapers.
We are truly in a news desert.
“Half of the 3,143 counties in the country now have only one newspaper, usually a small weekly…. Almost 200 counties in the country have no newspaper at all,” says a 2018 report released by the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism.
The more news outlets we have covering the same area, the better the journalism will be, the better the readers will be served.
I wish the Gazette success.
