Abstract

Local journalism is often categorized by policymakers and academics as what neoclassical economists call a public good. The theory of public goods is used to describe journalism's nonrivalrous and nonexcludable characteristics and explain its positive externalities. Challenging this, I argue that the discourse of public goods is insufficient to fully capture the social democratic importance of local journalism. In its place, I call for a shift to thinking about local news as a merit good. Positioning local news as a merit good gives political economic leverage for increased regulatory support and encourages efforts to ensure the sustainability of local journalism.

The Value(s) of Local Journalism

The past decade has witnessed an influx of reports and commentary lamenting the decline of local journalism in communities across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.1 Accompanying these discussions of the “crisis of journalism” has been a chorus of scholars, activists, politicians, and regulators loudly championing the importance of journalism for a healthy democracy.2 Channeling James Carey's missive that “journalism and democracy are names for the same thing,” we are repeatedly reminded that journalism, especially the local, investigative, and accountability journalism performed by professional journalists, is necessary to inform voters, keep officials accountable, assist consumers to make informed choices, and help individuals go about their daily lives.3

Lending further gravitas to these conversations, scholars and policymakers alike have begun to classify journalism as what neoclassical economists call a “public good.” The theory of public goods is used to describe how journalism is “nonrivalrous,” “nonexcludable,” and how it engenders numerous social democratic benefits (“positive externalities”).4 Labeling local journalism, and journalism writ large, as public goods places the practice in the same category as education, national defense, and public parks, therein signaling its importance and demanding that we no longer take it for granted.

By definition, however, public goods are expensive to produce, provide little financial return, are under-appreciated by consumers, and are therefore under-produced by commercial enterprises. This under-production and under-valuation (in concert with structural shifts in communication technologies and media consumption habits) has led to the crisis of journalism so often decried and of which we are still in the midst.5 Hundreds, if not thousands, of local newspapers have closed in the United States, a pair of small market television stations has closed in Canada, and in both countries local television newscasts have been either replaced by generic morning shows or canceled altogether.6 The United Kingdom has also not been immune, with the closure of daily newspapers7 and the near collapse of the newly launched local television system.8 Despite the hopes of regulators,9 moreover, digitally native newsgathering sites at the hyperlocal and local levels have struggled for both visibility and sustainability.10 While some exceptions exist,11 it is telling that the largest network of hyperlocal news sites in the United States—AOL's Patch.com—was gutted and sold in 2013 after running losses upward of $300 million.12

Political economists of media call the abandonment of high-quality investigative local journalism by commercial news organizations a market failure—appropriating the term used by neoclassical economists to describe the under-production of public goods.13 Meanwhile, critical media policy scholars use the term “policy failure” to describe “existing policy mechanisms' insufficiency in dealing with significant social problems including market failure.”14 Taken together, public goods, market failures, and now policy failures have been valuable analytical tools for describing the social democratic importance of local journalism and to remind us of the fragility of high-quality local journalism when placed solely under the purview of the commercial market with little protection or oversight.15 These tools work to remove journalism from being perceived solely as a consumer good, and rejoin it with the normative democratic vision articulated by Carey and so many others.16 Much to the chagrin of activists, scholars, and progressive policymakers, however, pleas to bolster local journalism have gone largely unanswered and even unheard by mainstream media organizations and regulators. Perhaps, then, it is time to change the way we talk about local journalism?

In this article, I argue that the discourse of public goods is insufficient to fully capture the social democratic importance of local journalism and local news. In place of public goods theory, I call for a rhetorical and purposive shift toward framing local journalism as what Richard Musgrave called a “merit good.”17 Like public goods, merit goods are under-produced by the market and underinvested in by consumers, but should nonetheless be provided. The difference between public goods and merit goods is that public goods demand intervention only to the point that they continue to be consumed. If individuals do not consume public goods, then the good should not be provided.18 In contrast, merit goods are based on a normative assumption that the good should be provided regardless of consumption habits. Positioning local journalism as a merit good provides justifications rooted in economic theory for increased regulatory support and encourages efforts to ensure the sustainability of local journalism. If it is true, as Cunningham et al. argue, that media policy scholars need to learn “how to speak the language of market economics,” then a review of the applicability of merit goods theory for local journalism is an important first step.19

To be sure, numerous genres of journalism are threatened by what Victor Pickard identifies as the “corporate libertarian” turn within media policy and regulation.20 Examples include foreign journalism, health journalism, education journalism, and science journalism.21 While all valuable and deserving of discussion, this article focuses on local, investigative, and accountability journalism. In other words, labor-intensive journalism focusing on local issues that, by definition, require the support of journalistic institutions and organizations.22 There is of course a wide debate as to what constitutes journalism.23 While not discounting emerging forms of citizen and community journalism,24 my focus for this article is on professional journalism. With this in mind, I take local journalism to mean the reporting undertaken by professional journalists in an institutional setting that is focused on a predetermined geographic area.25 This perspective finds agreement in McChesney and Nichols, who argue for the ongoing importance and relevance of the professional journalist and journalism institutions even in the digital age:

there needs to be a significant body of full-time paid journalists, covering their communities, the nation, the world, in competition and collaboration with other paid journalists. There need to be independent newsrooms where journalists who are secure enough in their livelihoods to focus on their work can collaborate, and receive professional editing, fact-checking and assistance … [And] There needs to be news institutions that can preserve and promote journalism.26

The decision to focus on local professional journalism also reflects recent efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada to better understand the normative role of local journalism and the expressed desire by regulators to protect and foster local news ecosystems.27

Drawing from neoclassical economics, critical political economy, and public finance theory, I discuss the public goods theory of journalism and outline the contributions of the theory of merit goods. I then point to numerous instances where regulators have already suggested this course of action. I conclude with the implications and deliverables for this radical repositioning of journalism for social democracy.28

Local News: Public Good and Market Failure

Local news, Lowrey et al. agree, is the lynchpin connecting community life to larger ideas like democracy and the public sphere.29 From a micro level, local news in the form of everything from newspaper articles to radio reports, blog posts, and television newscasts, is essential to community solidarity, identity, and everyday life.30 The Knight Commission in the United States, for instance, concluded that not only do community residents require local news to “participate in election and civic affairs [but] people need access to information to better their lives.”31 When it comes to the specifics of elections, for instance, local news is said to be a catalyst for voter turnout. In their study of Spanish-language local television news and Hispanic voters in the United States, for instance, Oberholzer-Gee and Waldfogel found that consumption of “Spanish-language local television news raised Hispanic turnout by more than 4 percentage points.”32

At a macro level, local news assists in the reproduction of citizenry by stimulating deliberation.33 Drawing on Habermas' concepts of system, lifeworld, and communicative action, Friedland argues that “communicatively integrated communities” are formed and maintained through a robust network of local news outlets.34 While acknowledging that neoliberalism (defined by a focus on deregulation, corporate rights, capital accumulation, and individualism) and digital communication technologies have shifted our identification with place-based communities, Friedland argues that local media covering local issues and reflecting local voices continue to act as stimuli for a local public sphere. Local media forms an information ecosystem or local news ecology, where everything from community television to the daily newspaper to hyperlocal blogs is necessary for a communicatively integrated community. In our era of audience fragmentation, users draw on all facets of this ecology for their news and information and sense of community and place.35

The aforementioned benefits of local journalism have thus led many to conclude that local news represents a public good.36 Originating in the lexicon of neoclassical economics, public goods contain three primary characteristics. First, they are nonrivalrous, meaning “one person's use of or benefit from the product does not affect its use or benefit to another person.”37 If one watches a local newscast, it does not preclude the ability for another person to watch the same newscast. This differs from an apple: if I eat an apple, someone else cannot eat the same apple. Second, public goods are nonexcludable, meaning “any purchaser and each nonexcluded beneficiary get roughly the same type of benefit from the good.”38 In other words, public goods “cannot be effectively excluded from use by consumers who do not ‘pay for them.’”39 We are still able to access local news even if we do not pay for it directly (e.g., watching a newscast at a neighbor's home or accessing local news through a Google search). Third, public goods possess positive externalities, or “the value some item has to someone who does not participate in the transaction.”40 News benefits those who do not directly consume it. For instance, when I watch a newscast and then inform my neighbor of an impending city council vote, my neighbor benefits from my news consumption and democracy benefits from us being better informed.

Public goods, like local news, are thus democratically and “socially desirable.”41 Other examples of public goods include national parks—non-commercialized spaces that we benefit from regardless of whether or not we go (because we always have the possibility of going)—or national defense, where it is inconceivable for the private market to sustain such an expensive endeavor. Public service broadcasting (PSB) is often trumpeted as the quintessential example of a media-related public good. Journalism's designation as a public good underscores the belief that news is much more than a commodity, but rather an essential component of democracy.42

Despite these democratic benefits, the challenge for public goods is that they are often expensive to produce, provide little financial return, and therefore are under-produced by the commercial market. As noted, “market failure” is the term given to this under-production of public goods by the commercial market, and often government intervention is needed to remedy the situation.43 Neoliberal capitalism often fails to produce adequate levels of public goods because the market is unable to account for what is known as the “free rider” problem, whereby the nonexcludable qualities of public goods mean that consumers can use the good without paying. “Why would consumers not want to pay for goods that are so beneficial?” asked the FCC's 2011 report on local media ecosystems. “The short answer is: because they do not have to. They can receive the information or the benefit of the information's creation regardless of whether they have paid for it, essentially getting a ‘free ride.’”44 This and other factors have led media organizations—notably television and newspapers—to pull back from investigative, high-quality local journalism. Digitally native sites like the Patch network in the United States have not been able to pick up the slack.45

Local journalism has thus come to represent both a public good and a market failure. Pickard provides an apt example of this dynamic: “The recent demise of the New Orleans Times-Picayune—which reduced staff by nearly a third and delivery to thrice-weekly in a city where 36% of residents lack internet connection—serves as a stark example of market failure and its negative impact on local communities.”46 Dramatically, the crisis of journalism, of which the evisceration of the Times-Picayune and so many other daily newspapers and local television stations make up, has been dubbed not only a “crisis for journalism” but a very “crisis for democracy.”47 The market has clearly failed to deliver these democratically important goods, but heretofore a solution has not been found to stem the evacuation of local accountability reporting. To be sure, the growing popularity of hyperlocal news sites such as Charlottesville Tomorrow (US) and East Grinstead Online (UK) suggests a potential future model for local journalism, most notably in the coverage of community events and city council meetings. These sites have also mobilized social media to distribute local information,48 while local news aggregators like EveryBlock, Topix, and Fwix collect this disparate assortment of news and information for easy access.49 Still, the most recent reports on online hyperlocal media clearly state that the challenges of discoverability and sustainability continue to plague these emergent platforms.50 The microscale of these sites also means that they “are not large enough or self-sustaining enough to fill the gaps left by newspaper layoffs.”51 Equally, while users continue to gravitate online for their local news, “social networks have yet to become a main source for most areas of local information,” according to the Pew Foundation.52

As part of this effort to resuscitate local journalism, I argue that the discourse of public goods is insufficient to fully capture the social democratic importance of local news. In place of public goods I argue that local journalism and local news are better positioned as merit goods.53 Allan Pulsipher, a supporter of merit goods theory, argues that if we are to “use merit goods theory … to recommend policy, it is important and legitimate that this theory be stated explicitly and as clearly and consistently as possible.”54 In this spirit, I use the following pages to explain merit goods and explicate the theory's applicability to local journalism.

From Public Good to Merit Good

The concept of merit goods was first proposed by Richard Musgrave in a 1956 article and expanded upon in his 1959 book, The Theory of Public Finance. Here, Musgrave designated those goods (or “wants”) that are so socially valuable (“meritorious”) that they should be provided “through the public budget over and above what is provided for through the market and paid for by private buyers.”55 A merit good is something that is under-produced by the market and underinvested in by consumers, but should nonetheless be provided. This requires government intervention through the public budget. Previous examples of merit goods include free school lunches, education, vaccinations,56 higher education,57 museums,58 and even organic foods.59

Merit goods rest on the same basic principle as public goods: correcting market failure. From this point, however, two factors delineate the concepts. First, the discourse of public goods is often misrepresented. Indeed, public goods, as a set of specific economic principles, are often conflated with “the public good”—a general philosophical and moralistic idea. Colloquially, we often refer to the “common good,” the “social good,” and the “public interest” in the same breath as public goods. Rooted in Aristotelian philosophy, these connote notions of community and collectivity—a shared existence, or koinonoi.60 In the strictest reading, however, public goods as a set of economic concepts are more about the provision of goods and services requested by consumers and under-produced by the market than they are about the normative common good.

Second, the theory of public goods is bound by respect for consumers, consumer choice, and consumer sovereignty. Public goods are “goods which the government provides with the intention of respecting the wishes of consumers.”61 If individuals do not consume public goods to some extent, then they should not be provided. In contrast, merit goods are based on the belief that the good should be provided regardless of consumption habits. They represent those goods “which the government provides by a method or at a level which disregards the wishes of consumers.”62 Merit goods, by definition, violate the principle of consumer sovereignty in order to provide a good deemed essential by society. There is a strong normative value system inherent within the discourse of merit goods, which assumes that individuals should have access to certain goods regardless of their consumer behavior.

Musgrave stressed that one of the reasons consumers may not understand the value of certain goods is because of erroneous information. As Head describes, merit goods are “those of which, due to imperfect knowledge, individuals would choose to consume too little.”63 Both Head and Musgrave label this the “preference distortion problem.”64 It is understood that “information is costly to acquire; and as a result, the preferences of a rational individual will rarely if ever be based upon complete and accurate information.”65 Put another way, consumers may not always directly express their wishes, know the societal benefits of certain goods, or even be aware that the option exists.66 In its most vulgar context, how are we supposed to know if we prefer local news if the channels are filled with The Real Housewives? The market does not take these intangibles into account. Koch (2008) uses the example of diphtheria shots in that “one individual is helped by another individual's diphtheria shot even if he isn't aware of that fact.”67 For our purposes, then, I suggest that consumers do not recognize the larger values engendered within local news. It is certainly true that I benefit from local news even if I do not consume it. For instance, those who do consume local news may share information about local politics with me. At the very least then I would be a better-informed voter. If I do consume local news, I benefit even more.68

Echoing Musgrave's moral philosophy, Ellen Goodman calls the under-production of public interest programming a “broad market failure” that necessitates public intervention. It is worth quoting Goodman at length to understand the relationship between merit goods and local news (which I am equating with public interest programming):

But perhaps the diversity deficit has another source, namely the failure of consumers to demand the range of expressive goods that democracy requires … In this case, if there is a market failure, it is a broad failure of markets to do what markets are not designed to do: produce goods for which there is insufficient consumer demand, but important civic value. The appropriate policy response to this kind of market failure is proactive, in that it seeks to expose people to content that they do not, at least initially demand.69

Goodman suggests here that (a) consumers cannot demand what they do not know exists; (b) the market is incapable of providing goods that consumers do not demand; and (c) that public interest programming ought to be available. In sum: a merit good.

It is true that Musgrave himself was ambiguous about his idea of merit goods, concerned with how much intervention is necessary, the authoritarian potentialities of the concept, and what goods qualify for merit good status (meritorisieren).70 Subsequent scholars, most notably Wilfred Ver Eecke, Allan Pulsipher, John G. Head, and Norbert Andel,71 expand and clarify the idea of merit goods as a theory to correct for market failure. All agree (as do I) that the theory provides sound justification for market intervention. As Ver Eecke reminds us, economics is more than quantification and equilibrium.72 Rather it has a telos to it—an ethical and moral discourse that is all too often neglected. Merit goods reinsert this ethical discourse into economic discussions of local journalism.73

Taking up this mantle, some media scholars have begun to pay more attention to the connection between journalism and merit goods, and we have seen the term sneak up in a number of recent publications. Des Freedman, for instance, notes that media products writ large are “merit goods, products or services of significant social value but in which individual consumers are likely to under-invest.”74 This is particularly true of investigative journalism and current affairs programs. Similarly, Victor Pickard makes reference to public goods, market failure, and merit goods in his recent book on the media reform movement in the 1940s:

Goods that produce such tremendous positive externalities are sometimes referred to as “merit goods,” which society requires, but that individuals typically undervalue (are unable or unwilling to pay for), and thus the market under-produces. As an essential public service with social benefits that transcend its revenue stream, journalism is such a good.75

Going further still, Cunningham et al.'s 2015 book Media Economics tests the boundaries between public goods and merit goods in two ways. First, they point out that a rise in interest in merit goods theory can be read as an example of attempts by neoclassical economics to

grasp intangibles, estimate economic value for nonmarket activities and to “value” cultural activities in its disciplinary terms…. Such efforts can include the development of measures of the value of beauty (Bakhshi, 2010) and of intrinsic value (Bakshi et al., 2009). They also include concepts such as merit goods (those that society might regard as necessary because of need rather than want and ability to pay).76

Second, Cunningham et al. question the ongoing applicability of public goods theory (which tends to create silos between “markets, households and civil society”) when the information economy clearly blurs the boundaries between what Murdock identifies as Capital (commodities), Government (public goods), and Civil Society (gift giving).77

The best example of the use of merit goods vis-à-vis journalism comes from a 1997 report on the social role of broadcasting in the United Kingdom written by Andrew Graham and Gavyn Davies. Graham and Davies argue that broadcasting is a merit good, “analogous to eating sensibly or receiving preventative health care. No matter how much someone tells us in advance that we need it, the evidence is that, in general, we underinvest in it.”78 While it is lamentable that this report has been all but forgotten in the United Kingdom, it, along with the other examples discussed, illustrates that the theory of merit goods has gained traction amongst media policy scholars and political economists of media. Despite these inroads, however, we continue to lack a sustained conversation about the applicability of merit goods theory for journalism.

Pragmatism, Not Nomenclature: Examples from Media Policy

To be clear, my intervention is not an argument about nomenclature (“public” or “merit”). Instead, public goods and merit goods connote two related but different sets of values—one based on the market the other based on moral philosophy. To be sure, many scholars use the term “public goods” deliberately as both a reference to economics and as a reference to the broader public good. Many also use “public good” to describe exactly what Musgrave is getting at with merit goods, especially since “merit goods” have yet to gain strong traction in economic theory. They are not wrong to do so. The fact that policymakers themselves are starting to use the term “merit goods” to describe journalism, and have subsequently begun to ask the questions typical of merit goods thinking, however, signals that it is time we have a larger conversation about placing merit goods at the center of economic rationales for local journalism.

In a 2010 Notice of Inquiry, for instance, the Federal Communications Commission in the United States asked the following questions: Is local news and information “socially valuable in itself, regardless of variations in consumer interest in such programming? If so, would measures of civic engagement such as voter turnout or civic knowledge be useful to measure achievement of the localism goal?”79 A second American example comes from the 2011 FCC report on the “information needs of communities” where the author acknowledged, “Markets usually respond to consumer demand. But what happens if consumers don't demand something they essentially need?80 Echoing Goodman's notion of broad market failures, this is a fundamental dilemma for media in the public interest, and is furthermore complicated by the Internet, which exacerbates the free rider problem—allowing those who do not wish to pay for news to do so. While in both cases the question was left unanswered, it nonetheless rests on a thought experiment that asks the reader to consider local news as a merit good.

Other examples of regulators considering local news as a merit good come from the United Kingdom, where communications regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom) and its predecessors have long acknowledged the externalities of news beyond revenue. In its first review of PSB in 2004, for instance, Ofcom argued that PSB possesses qualities of a merit good whereby “individuals themselves can get more value from a programming, for example, in terms of news and information than they realize.”81 A policy approach based purely on market fundamentalism would fail to recognize such positive externalities, as viewers do not always “appreciate that value [and therefore] would not necessarily choose to pay for such a programme in an open market.”82 In subsequent reports and investigations into local news, Ofcom continued to acknowledge these intangible qualities and recognized a “prima facie case for public intervention to support digital local services” since “many of the potential benefits of local services are social benefits that are unlikely to be taken into account by the market: social cohesion, democratic engagement, better-informed and more active citizens.”83 Public intervention to support digital local services specifically through subsidy was a major recommendation by the Center for Community Journalism and NESTA in a 2015 report on hyperlocal media in the United Kingdom.84

While it is encouraging that the discourse of merit goods has entered the lexicon of policymakers, that some have also misconstrued or misunderstood the definition of merit goods demonstrates an even more pressing need for a spirited and better informed conversation on the matter. A recent report by the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications of the Canadian Senate on the future of the public service broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada exemplifies this point.85

Early in its report, the Committee went out of its way to classify “quality broadcasting” as a merit good (in contrast, broadcasting more generally was labeled a “public good” without explanation). In its words, “Canadian cultural programming is an example of a merit good, which is a good that has a social value above the value the market places on it. Education and health are two examples of merit goods.”86 On the next page, the Committee added:

The rationale for today's CBC/Radio-Canada is based on the need to fill market gaps, especially in serving remote areas and providing merit goods. Although the two needs are related, a distinction is sometimes made between the emphasis on the market in broadcasting, its failure or efficiency, as relating to Canadians as consumers; in contrast, the emphasis on merit goods relates to providing value to Canadians as citizens. This distinction often amounts to dividing policy that emphasizes economic factors from policy that emphasizes political and social factors.87

In this section of the report, appropriately titled “Market Gaps, the Efficiency of the Market and Merit Goods,” the Committee correctly applied the terminology of merit goods to public broadcasting noting that a merit good is one that is socially valuable above and beyond market indicators. The value of public broadcasting, particularly in a country like Canada that has historically struggled for a national identity independent from that of the United States or the United Kingdom, cannot be fully captured by the private market.

In a subsequent section, however, the Committee demonstrated an inconsistent interpretation of merit goods in relation to high-quality news:

Canadians certainly benefit as citizens from having high-quality news, but it is difficult to draw the line between high-quality news as a merit good and as a luxury. Some may, of course, bridle at the suggestion that high-quality news is a luxury, but in a world of scarce resources and competing merit goods, the CBC/Radio-Canada must determine what to sacrifice to improve the news—or any other type of programming—above what would be offered by private broadcasters.88

Demurring with the agreed-upon definition of merit goods, the Senate Committee implies first that high-quality news may not constitute a merit good, and second, that it is appropriate to ignore merit goods. Third, and most importantly, it is not in keeping with other examples of merit goods. By definition merit goods must be of high quality. We would remiss to speak about “high-quality diphtheria shots” or “high-quality higher education.” These should be taken as a given if they are to be provided at all.

Nevertheless, for policymakers normally beholden to neoliberal interests to consider local news as a merit good at all intimates the potential for more socially democratic media regulation. With policymakers starting to realize that individuals may not be consuming democratically important media content despite the benefits, we need to consider the implications of characterizing local journalism and local news as merit goods.

Implications: Universal Accessibility

Stakeholders recognize that local news is vital to the democratic health of a nation-state and the everyday lives of citizens, but also note its decline in production and consumption. If local journalism were recognized as an a priori merit good it would certainly require a substantial overhaul of the way in which regulators approach local news within their respective media systems. Legislators and regulators would have to ensure that local news is universally accessible on a variety of media platforms—not just those under their immediate jurisdictions (i.e., broadcasting, cable, satellite). Regulators would also have to enter into a serious conversation with multiple stakeholders about how to define regulatory categories such as “local,” “local news,” and “local programming,” something we know they have historically been reluctant to do.89

Second, it would require a greater emphasis on local media ecosystems rather than on individual platforms. While regulators are only able to regulate those industries under their immediate jurisdiction, it is nonetheless vital for them to be aware of the entire local media ecosystem.90 How can a regulator set an appropriate number of hours of local news per week for a television license if it is unaware of the amount of local news published by the other media platforms in the ecosystem? Numerous reports, for instance, have documented the rising interests in hyperlocal news websites, which of course fall outside of traditional regulatory jurisdiction. In the United Kingdom, NESTA has noted that these sites are valuable resources for community events and local politics—two areas that mainstream local news has gravitated from.91 While still struggling for both sustainability and visibility, regulators would be wise to be aware of the multitude of platforms that comprise a local media ecosystem and a communicatively integrated community.92

A merit goods approach would also change the way we fund local news and would necessitate increased public support to deliver on the promise of universal accessibility. Aligning local news and information with merit goods provides another layer of rationalization for increased public funding of local media in addition to the arguments supplied by critical political economists.93 Such an approach is also consistent with those in the United States arguing for a shift in funding for public broadcasting to encompass the larger idea of “public media” and a multitude of communicative platforms beyond simply broadcasting.94 It is important to recognize, however, that this stance does not eschew the public/private mixed media systems incumbent in the United Kingdom and Canada (and to a limited extent in the United States), but rather would seek to realign the balance of these economic models. Public, private, community, and citizens' media all have a role to play in ensuring the universal accessibility of local news and information. The benefits of a merit goods approach to local news are numerous for all stakeholders. For consumers, a healthy and competitive local media ecosystem is the prize. For local news organizations, sustainability and the ability to forecast long-term economic models are possible. And for regulators and government, a stable news industry without the need for continuous stopgap measures is achievable.95

Deliverables: Cross-Media Subsidy

Delivering on the promise of universal accessibility in an era of economic austerity requires both innovation and sustainability. A concrete application of merit goods theory to local news and local journalism in a time of reduced public expenditures is cross-media subsidies. To be sure, greater investment in public media is warranted and tax incentives, particularly in the United States, would go a long way toward creating a sustainable future for nonprofit local journalism.96 But cross-media subsidies represent a realistic compromise between full regulatory intervention and market fundamentalism. Typically mandated through regulatory action, cross-media subsidy requires the diversion of revenues from one part of the media sector, like cable or satellite distribution, to another, like broadcasting. This does not require government intervention through the public budget, but rather intervention through regulation to set up the necessary policy framework. Successful examples are visible in both the United States and Canada. In Canada, the Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF) and the Small Market Local Programming Fund (SMLPF), both created by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), diverted revenue from broadcast distribution undertakings (cable and satellite providers) to local broadcasters to bolster local news production.97 In the United States, the Universal Service Fund, furnished with contributions from telecommunication companies, subsidizes rural telephone infrastructure. Similar proposals are now being heard to support universal broadband.98 The authors of a 2009 report on American local news and information echo this suggestion in their call for “A national Fund for Local News … created with money the Federal Communications Commission now collects from or could impose on telecom users, television and radio broadcast licensees, or Internet service providers and which would be administered in open competition through state Local News Fund Councils.”99 Given the neo-liberal climate in which media and media policy operate, cross-media subsidies mandated and overseen by communication regulators (rather than by self-regulation) are a realistic compromise between public and private funding of local media.

The ideal outcome of meritorisieren100 is that it is distanced entirely from the purview of the commercial market. In the case of local journalism, however, we remain far away from this ideal type. Nevertheless, cross-media subsidies assist in this endeavor by securing adequate funding for local news, all the while working within the political economic framework of contemporary media systems. Nelson reminds us that government intervention can take place both in the form of direct funding and in the form of subsidizing “competitive for-profit firms.”101 Cunningham et al. agree, adding, “a private provider can also achieve a public good” and point to Google Books as an example.102 While more radical political economists of communication103 might prefer a novel paradigm to replace the current capitalist system, my proposal seeks instead to alter the status quo from within. Here, I agree with Cunningham et al. that the market cannot be so easily dismissed.104 In Canada, for instance, the CRTC worked within the market to require that all broadcast distribution undertakings (cable and satellite companies) contributed 1 percent of their gross revenues derived from broadcasting to a fund that could be accessed by local television stations serving populations of less than a million people.105 The fund was created by the regulator but administered by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. At its peak, stations saw an increase in profit and viewers saw an increase in local news production. Framing local news as a merit good lends justification based on sound economic theory for cross-media subsidy and for increased public support through regulation.

Conclusions: Policy Parlance

The obvious critique of local news as a merit good is that it is paternalistic, in that for something to be deemed a merit good, someone needs to label it such. Consequently, it is vulnerable to the same critiques as PSB.106 Musgrave seems to channel Walter Lippman here in his willingness to surrender democratic decision-making power to an “informed group.”107 In our case, however, we might look for a multi-stakeholder approach to local media policy frameworks to mitigate concerns of paternalism and to acknowledge that relying solely on political elites is undesirable.108

For the moment, what we all can agree on is that local news and information is necessary for a healthy democracy. The next step will be to recognize that it should be assured, regardless of market conditions: “If all television is elicited by the market,” write Graham and Davies,

there is a very real danger that consumers will under-invest in the development of their own tastes, their own experiences and their own capacity to comprehend. This is not because consumers are stupid but because it is only in retrospect that the benefits of such investment become apparent.109

I have argued that to remedy this underinvestment, local journalism must be treated as a merit good (“meritorisierung”) rather than a public good, and that it is time for a larger conversation about the benefits of merit goods theory in local journalism and media policy. We can no longer repeat the mantra that “local news matters” and expect something to change. Regulatory and discursive intervention—what Freedman calls “corrective surgery”—based on merit good theory is necessary “if the range of individual and collective benefits that the media may potentially offer is to be guaranteed.”110

It is clear, albeit discouraging, that communication regulators give greater credence to neoclassical economic analyses than to normative, critical, or qualitative interventions.111 “The key challenge for media reformers” write Cunningham et al., “[is] to speak the language of market economics, in order to better present arguments grounded in ‘social value’ norms and assumptions.”112 Merit goods theory is one such way that media reformers and critical media policy scholars can bridge the gap between “market economics” and “social value” and gain traction in the debate over the future of journalism in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.113 It is in this way that we can foster the positive externalities of local journalism and public policy.

Footnotes

Parts of this article appear in Ali, Media Localism. Permission given by the University of Illinois Press for republication of these parts in the Journal of Information Policy.

1.

See, for example, Waldman; Ofcom, Ofcom Review; Knight Commission; Downie and Schudson.

2.

McChesney and Pickard.

3.

Carey, “Journalism and Democracy,” 2–3.

4.

Baker; Pickard, America's Battle.

5.

McChesney and Nichols.

6.

Ali, Media Localism; Downie and Schudson.

7.

Franklin.

8.

Traynor.

9.

Ofcom, Local.

10.

Radcliffe, Here and Now, Where Are.

11.

Schaffer.

12.

Carr.

13.

For more on market failure, see Bator; Baker; Pickard, America's Battle; Cunningham et al.

14.

Pickard, America's Battle, 216.

15.

McChesney and Nichols.

16.

McChesney and Nichols; McChesney and Pickard.

17.

Musgrave, Theory of Public.

18.

Ver Eecke, Ethical Dimensions.

19.

Cunningham et al., 25.

20.

Pickard, “Social Democracy.”

21.

Waldman.

22.

McChesney and Nichols. While defining what constitutes “local” cannot be taken for granted, this epistemological debate is beyond the scope of this article. For more on this question, see Ali, “Critical Regionalism.”

23.

See, for instance, Carlson and Lewis; Curran; Carey, “Journalism and Criticism”; Deuze.

24.

See Allan and Thorsen; Lowrey et al.

25.

For more on the idea of local news, see Franklin; Kaniss; Aldridge; Mair et al.; Ali, Media Localism.

26.

McChesney and Nichols, 81–82.

27.

Ali, Media Localism. There also important differences between local journalism and local information. Arguably, we are not experiencing a crisis of local information in the form of data (for more on this, see Kavanaugh et al.), but rather have seen a gross reduction in local journalism in the form of in-depth investigation and narrative (for more on this, see Curran).

28.

Social democracy “elevates a positive liberty in which universal and collective rights—like those pertaining to publics and audiences and communities—are at least as important as the individual freedoms most cherished within libertarianism” (Pickard, “Social Democracy,” 342).

29.

Lowrey et al.

30.

Ewart; Hutchins; Cowling; Kaniss.

31.

Knight Commission, xiv.

32.

Oberholzer-Gee and Waldfogel, 2120.

33.

Friedland.

34.

Ibid.

35.

Rosenstiel et al.

36.

For more on public goods and journalism, see Pickard, “Social Democracy” and America's Battle; McChesney and Nichols; Baker; Freedman; Starr.

37.

Baker, 8.

38.

Ibid., 310.

39.

McChesney and Nichols, 101.

40.

Baker, 10.

41.

Pickard, “Social Democracy,” 338.

42.

Pickard, America's Battle; Baker.

43.

For more on market failure in media, see Pickard, “Social Democracy,” America's Battle; Baker; Bator; Starr; Cunningham et al.

44.

Waldman, 126.

45.

Loc. cit.

46.

Pickard, “Social Democracy,” 337.

47.

McChesney and Nichols, ix.

48.

Radcliffe, Where Are.

49.

Kavanaugh et al.

50.

Radcliffe, Where Are.

51.

Waldman, 16. Continues Waldman: “In a recent survey of 66 local news websites, half reported that their organizations drew in annual income of less than $50,000, and three-quarters reported annual income of less than $100,000. That is not a typographical error; it is annual income for the whole website” (Waldman, 16).

52.

Rosenstiel et al.

53.

Musgrave, Theory of Public.

54.

Pulsipher.

55.

Musgrave, Theory of Public, 13.

56.

Loc. cit.

57.

Koch.

58.

Fullerton.

59.

Mann.

60.

Kane.

61.

Ver Eecke, “Concept,” 5.

62.

Loc. cit.

63.

Head, quoted in Pulsipher, 156.

64.

Head; Musgrave, Theory of Public.

65.

Pulsipher, 157.

66.

Goodman, “Proactive”; Baker. A concrete example of the distortion problem and local news is the rising trend of “native advertising” and “pay-for-play.” Waldman, 93.

67.

Koch, 369.

68.

Oberholzer-Gee and Waldfogel.

69.

Goodman, “Proactive,” 336, emphasis added.

70.

Pulsipher; Head. Musgrave was a German immigrant, and the concept of merit goods is significantly more nuanced in the German language. For instance, “meritorisieren … means ‘making something a merit good’” while “meritorisierung … means ‘the act by which a good is treated as a merit good’” and meritorisiert means “declared a merit good” (Ver Eecke, Anthology).

71.

These can all be found in Ver Eecke, Anthology.

72.

Ver Eecke, Ethical Dimensions.

73.

Ibid., 19.

74.

Freedman, 9.

75.

Pickard, America's Battle, 214.

76.

Cunningham et al., 115–17. Emphasis added.

77.

Murdock, 114. To be fair, Cunningham et al. also describe information as “the best example of a public good we have,” adding, “without public goods (and public ‘bads’, such as pollution) it would be difficult to justify much more of a role for government action in the economy apart from its establishment and enforcement of property rights” (Cunningham et al., 117).

78.

Graham and Davies, 20.

79.

FCC, In the Matter.

80.

Waldman, 125–26.

81.

Ofcom, Ofcom Review, 72.

82.

Loc. cit. Market fundamentalism “assumes that the market is the most efficient and therefore the most socially desirable means for allocating important resources” (Pickard, “Social Democracy,” 337).

83.

Ofcom, Local, 68.

84.

Radcliffe, Where Are, 20.

85.

Canada.

86.

Ibid., 13.

87.

Ibid., 15.

88.

Ibid., 19.

89.

Ali, Media Localism.

90.

Ibid.

91.

Radcliffe, Where Are.

92.

See Waldman; Ofcom, Local, on these points.

93.

McChesney and Nichols; McChesney and Pickard.

94.

Goodman, “Public Media”; Clark and Aufderheide.

95.

In contrast, the Canadian government and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has investigated or intervened in local broadcasting no less than seven times since 2003. See Ali, Media Localism.

96.

Waldman.

97.

The LPIF program was eliminated in 2013 under the pretext that the market was strong enough to support local television journalism. CRTC.

98.

FCC, Connecting America.

99.

Downie and Schudson, 36.

100.

“The act by which a good is treated as a merit good” (Ver Eecke, “Introduction,” 3).

101.

Nelson.

102.

Cunningham et al., 134.

103.

For instance, Smythe; Fuchs.

104.

Entman and Wildman also make this point.

105.

This was subsequently elevated to 1.5 percent of gross revenue. CRTC.

106.

For more on the critiques of paternalism in public service broadcasting, see Ouellette.

107.

Musgrave, Theory of Public, 24. Musgrave was more convinced that government should provide public goods, and less clear about who should provide merit goods. Wildavsky.

108.

On the danger of relying solely on political elites, see Head. For more on local media policy frameworks, see Ali, Media Localism.

109.

Graham and Davies, 20.

110.

Freedman, 9.

111.

Cunningham et al.; see also van Cuilenburg and McQuail; Entman and Wildman.

112.

Cunningham et al., 25. Drawing specifically on the work of Entman and Wildman (see note 105).

113.

Entman and Wildman; Cunningham et al., 25.

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