A review by lakegirl603
What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate by Dan Kennedy, Ellen Clegg

4.0

A great resource if you care about democracy and the changing landscape of the fourth estate. The death of local and hyper local community news organizations plays an enormous role in our current decline in civic engagement and the increase in divisive counterfactual narratives. Clegg and Kennedy do a wonderful job of laying out a comprehensive history of the news arena in the US, and highlighting innovative approaches being tried in various locales to stave off, or remedy, news deserts. While their book is inspirational and full of portraits of wonderful people and the organizations they have formed, or saved, it always comes down to money, and connections. I have a dream of a hyper local digital news source in a small NH town, but the financial aspects and lack of journalistic connections, is daunting.