If local news = democracy

Skagit County League of Women Voter members have new T-shirts that read “LOCAL NEWS = DEMOCRACY.” They printed these ahead of their successful campaign to have the national League adopt this as a resolution in June:

“The League of Women Voters of the United States believes it is the responsibility of the government to provide support for conditions under which credible local journalism can survive and thrive.

“The LWVUS defines local news as accurate, in-depth coverage of government entities, including but not limited to, city councils, county councils, county boards of commissioners, health departments, schools, and school boards.”

In 2024, the catastrophe of hundreds of newspapers closing across the country yearly continues. As a math formula, if local news disappears, becomes zero, what happens to the democracy side of the equation?

Since “freedom … of the press” is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, is democracy about to be abridged rather than not being abridged?

The national League “believes it is the responsibility of the government to provide support for conditions” for journalism to “survive and thrive.”

That is exactly the proposal George Washington got Congress to agree to in 1792 when it advantaged newspapers with subsidized postal rates.

Those subsidies started disappearing in the 1970s, after Congress created the United States Postal Service, removing the Postmaster General from the president’s cabinet. In the 50 years the Postal Regulatory Commission has set rates. newspapers have gotten hammered. In just the last four years, there have been eight rate hikes, all greater than the rate of inflation. Now publishers are facing another roughly 10% rate hike.

The Weekly News postage costs in 2018 were $7,926. In 2023, postage costs totaled $11,762. That is a 48.4% increase, an average of 8% annually.

The Weekly News, the Channel Town Press and the Puget Sound Mail have all been delivered by mail. Kids tossing papers from bikes is a long-gone memory around the U.S.

Subsidizing the mail was a good idea for George Washington and Congress for almost 200 years. Since newspapers have been judged by the Postal Regulatory Commission to be a commodity with no greater value than commercial mail, the criteria of economic payment has trumped the value of readily informing the public.

This appointed commission has treated periodicals as another economic transaction, increasing newspaper postal costs repeatedly with no thought to the value of the content.

Meanwhile, first-class mail costs are among the lowest in the world. A 2023 study by the USPS Office of Inspector General found that stamps from 13 countries cost more than double the price of a U.S. stamp. Italy, Finland, Estonia and Iceland charged more than triple.

Subsidies – or not providing subsidies – are a policy choice. The federal government subsidizes air, water and road transportation. It heavily subsidizes the fossil fuel industry. The support for freedom of the press, just in terms of postage? Almost nil.

Can the American people afford not getting newspapers mailed to them? That is, if publishers give up on mailing because of the high postage cost, can our democratic society – read newspaper subscribers – stand the consequences of the loss of this source of information?

James Madison wrote in 1822 “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.”

In this political year, consider that Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose Party run for president was fueled by newspapers getting the word out. “Communicated directly to voters through a newly emergent mass media – the independent newspapers, popseular magazines, audio recordings and movies that Progressives used so skillfully – the Bull Moose campaign resonated especially well in the fastest growing areas of the country, which best represented America’s future,” wrote Sid Milkis and Carah Ong.

Their article’s title: “Transforming American Democracy.”

As more and more newspapers disappear, American democracy is being transformed again. Will democracy survive both the loss and absence of a free press?