Rachel Maddow has an interesting column up at the Washington Post. She notes the how various stories, from walking the Appalachian Trail to Bridgegate, have unfolded through the tenacious efforts of local reporters and concludes:
Most of the time, national news happens out
loud: at news conferences, on the floor of Congress, in splashy
indictments or court rulings. But sometimes, the most important news
starts somewhere more interesting, and it has to be dug up. Our
democracy depends on local journalism, whether it’s a beat reporter
slogging through yet another underattended local commission meeting, or a
state political reporter with enough of an ear to the ground to know
where the governor might be when he isn’t where he says he is, or a
traffic columnist who’s nobody’s fool.
It’s
annoying to pay for information — I know. But if you don’t subscribe to
your local paper or pony up to get behind its online paywall, who’s
going to pay reporters to cover the news where you live? A free press
isn’t that kind of “free.” An accountable democracy doesn’t work without
real information, gathered from the ground up, about people in power,
everywhere. Be inspired by the beleaguered but unintimidated reporters
of Chris Christie’s New Jersey: Whatever your partisan affiliation, or
lack thereof, subscribe to your local paper today. It’s an act of civic
virtue.
