剑桥正在考虑一种有争议的拯救地方新闻的方法：让城市为之买单
【中美创新时报2024 年 6 月 24 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）马萨诸塞州剑桥市的一项新提案将使用纳税人的钱来支持社区新闻业。《波士顿环球报》记者斯宾塞·布尔（Spencer Buell ）对此作了下述报道。
当地媒体现在陷入困境并不是什么新闻。对于马克·莱维（Marc Levy ）来说当然不是，他是《剑桥日报》（Cambridge Day ）的创始人、出版商和主要作者，他自 2005 年以来一直在这里运营这个新闻网站。
广告已经枯竭。读者的付费意愿也是如此。去年的 GoFundMe 活动帮助他的业务维持运转，他正在寻求转变为非营利组织。但是，尽管他几乎每天都在尽可能多地报道新闻，并管理着一批自由撰稿人和无报酬的公民记者，但他表示自己没有给自己发工资，也无法完成他认为这座拥有 12 万人口的城市所需要的那么多报道。
“我认为剑桥应该得到更好的待遇，”莱维说。
现在，一种新的、未经检验的、有争议的策略已经出现，这可能会帮助莱维和其他像他这样的新兴地方新闻机构：不仅向读者或捐助者求助，还要向城市本身求助，以支持当地新闻。
剑桥市议会正在考虑一项提案，该提案将要求该市每年支付 10 万美元来支持当地新闻，指出强大的自由媒体在监督城市政策以及让居民了解并参与影响他们社区的决策方面发挥着作用。专家表示，如果实施，这项努力将是美国前所未有的，并引发了有关新闻独立性的道德问题：一个依赖市议会资助的新闻编辑室能被信任揭露市政厅的不法行为吗？
但倡导者表示，在地方新闻报道迅速消失的时代，谨慎、小心地使用城市税收可以成为维持地方新闻报道的典范。
剑桥是马萨诸塞州第四大城市，没有自己的地方报纸曾经是不可想象的。《剑桥纪事报》曾经是一个强大的新闻来源，是全国历史最悠久的周报。现在，这份由甘尼特旗下的报纸没有记者，也没有定期发布有关该市的新闻。
“我真不敢相信剑桥已经成为新闻荒漠，但事实确实如此，”剑桥居民兼公共广播制作人玛丽·麦格拉斯说。
麦格拉斯本月在市议会会议上发言，支持一项政策命令，该命令将使该市每年从自己的金库中拿出 10 万美元给一个由独立第三方监督的地方新闻基金，作为长达三年的试点项目的一部分。市议员计划最早在今年夏天晚些时候就此进行投票。
麦格拉斯还是剑桥新闻事务组织的成员，该组织由关心此事的公民组成，其中一些公民具有媒体背景，他们一直在研究加强社区报道的方法，并计划在未来几周内发布他们的研究结果。
“我们清楚地听到，高质量的当地新闻对民主至关重要，没有知情的公民，就不可能拥有一个有凝聚力的社区，”她说。“提供这种新闻的商业模式已经崩溃。”
剑桥的新闻生态系统确实不同寻常。《剑桥日报》发布有关市议会会议和其他当地事件的文章，并分享一些艺术、文化和美食新闻。撰稿人是莱维本人，还有学生、志愿公民记者和受薪自由职业者。《剑桥日报》去年还发行了每周印刷版，并在其页面上刊登了法律广告和公共通知。
其他新闻报道来自哈佛大学本科报纸《深红报》的学生，他们近年来加强了对当地问题的报道。去年，《波士顿环球报》指派了一名记者——本文作者——撰写有关剑桥和萨默维尔的文章。《波士顿环球报》还有一份以坎伯维尔为重点的通讯。
剑桥新闻事务的成员表示，他们计划从捐赠者、大学、企业和城市中的其他人那里筹集大量资金。他们希望加强对城市生活、政府和学校的密集、超本地化报道，由于受众相对较少，这种报道很难获得资金。总有一天，成员们希望看到一个以剑桥为基地的实体新闻编辑室。
他们的目标是雄心勃勃的：第一年筹集 80 万美元，第三年筹集 150 万美元。
这笔资金将由一个基金会监督，该基金会将把资金分配给值得信赖的当地新闻机构，无论是《剑桥日报》还是其他报纸、博主、播客或其他愿意对当地问题进行有意义报道的记者。
根据该计划，来自市政府的资金只占基金总额的一小部分，但它将是最具争议的部分，尤其是那些担心它会使记者无所畏惧、不偏不倚地报道的职责变得复杂的人。
“我们希望当地新闻机构能够报道政府和其他机构，并密切关注它们——并不总是以对抗的方式，而是始终以独立的方式，”东北大学新闻学教授兼媒体评论家丹·肯尼迪说。“如果你要把钱直接从地方政府转移到当地新闻机构，你就失去了这一点。所以我认为这不是一个好主意。”
近年来，其他政府资助当地新闻的计划也获得了支持，主要是在州一级。纽约和伊利诺伊州现在为新闻编辑室提供巨额税收抵免，以抵消当地记者的工资。在新泽西州，一家由州政府资助但由大学监督的非营利组织发放补助金，用于支持当地新闻和信息，包括向记者提供补助金。华盛顿特区官员正在考虑一项计划，为该地区的登记选民提供“新闻优惠券”，他们可以用这些优惠券订阅当地新闻媒体。
但专家表示，将市政府资金转移到市新闻编辑室的做法尚未尝试过。
波因特研究所媒体分析师里克·埃德蒙兹说，这个概念可能曾经让人觉得不雅，但人们的态度正在改变。
“如果你回溯到 10 年前，各方对政府援助都非常怀疑，”埃德蒙兹说。但当地新闻的财务状况“变得更糟了”，他说，“温度”也变了。
许多剑桥市议员并不完全相信。
在 6 月 10 日的听证会上，几位民选官员表示，他们认为他们的城市需要更多的新闻报道，但对政策命令中概述的计划持怀疑态度，该计划要求使用城市资金，得到了议员 Burhan Azeem、Patricia Nolan 和 Joan Pickett 的支持。
“我并不反对这个想法、努力和意图，但我不认为我们应该为此花费城市资金，”议员 Paul Toner 说。
议员们还表示，不清楚以这种方式从城市预算中向非营利组织提供资金是否合法，或者，如果合法，其他专注于不同紧迫问题的非营利组织是否应该得到类似的付款。
剑桥新闻事务组织成员 Rick Harriman 表示，该组织意识到，当涉及到市政资助地方新闻时，它的想法将开辟新天地。
“当我们看到全国各地的地方新闻所面临的极端问题时，”Harriman 说，“我们需要考虑一些创新方法。”
《剑桥日报》的莱维则表示，虽然他对这个想法有些谨慎，但如果能得到纳税人的资金，他“肯定不会拒绝这个实验”。
“这些都不是理想的，”他说。但是，“我认为我们正处于需要尝试各种事情的时刻，尝试这些事情是有意义的，以找到一种可能有效的模式来实现保持新闻活力的必要目标。”
题图：剑桥市政厅。DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF
附原英文报道：
Cambridge is considering a controversial approach to saving local news: Having the city pay for it
A new proposal would see taxpayer funds spent to prop up community journalism
By Spencer Buell Globe Staff,Updated June 19, 2024
CAMBRIDGE — It’s not breaking news that local media outlets are struggling right now.
Certainly not to Marc Levy, the founder, publisher, and primary author of Cambridge Day, the news site he has run here on and off since 2005.
Advertising has dried up. So has readers’ willingness to pay. A GoFundMe campaign last year helped keep his operation afloat, and he is pursuing a conversion to nonprofit status. But despite spending nearly every day covering as much news as he can — and managing a stable of both freelancers and unpaid citizen journalists — he says he does not pay himself a salary and can’t do nearly as much coverage as he believes his city of 120,000 needs.
“I think Cambridge deserves better,” Levy said.
Now, a new, untested, and controversial strategy has emerged that might help Levy, and other upstart local journalism operations like his: turning not just to readers, or donors, to support local news, but to the city itself.
The Cambridge City Council is weighing a proposal that would see the city pay $100,000 each year to support local news, pointing to the role a robust free press plays in monitoring city policy and keeping residents informed about and involved in the decisions that impact their neighborhoods. If enacted, the effort would be unprecedented in the United States, experts say, and raises ethical questions about journalistic independence: Could a newsroom that relies on funding from a city council be trusted to reveal wrongdoing at city hall?
But advocates say thoughtful, careful use of city tax dollars could be a model for sustaining local news coverage at a time when it has rapidly faded away.
That Cambridge, the state’s fourth largest city, could be without a local newspaper of its own was once unthinkable. The Cambridge Chronicle used to be a formidable news source, notable for being the longest-running weekly newspaper in the nation. Now the paper, owned by Gannett, does not have a reporter or regularly publish news about the city.
“I can’t quite believe Cambridge has become a news desert, but it has,” said Mary McGrath, a Cambridge resident and public radio producer.
McGrath spoke at a City Council meeting this month in support of a policy order that would see the city give $100,000 annually out of its own coffers to a local news fund that would be overseen by an independent third party, as part of a pilot for up to three years. Councilors plan to vote on it as soon as later this summer.
McGrath is also a member of a group called Cambridge News Matters, an association of concerned citizens — some with a background in media — who have been researching ways to bolster community reporting and plan to publish their findings in the coming weeks.
“We heard loud and clear that quality local journalism is critical to democracy, that you can’t have a cohesive community without an informed citizenry,” she said. And ”the business model to deliver this kind of journalism is broken.”
The ecosystem of news in Cambridge is indeed unusual. There is Cambridge Day, which posts articles about City Council meetings and other local happenings, and shares some arts, culture, and food news. Contributors are Levy himself, along with students, citizen journalists who volunteer, and freelancers who are paid. Cambridge Day for the last year has also distributed a weekly print edition, which is supported by the legal ads and public notices that appear in its pages.
Other news coverage comes from students at Harvard University’s undergraduate newspaper, The Crimson, who have stepped up coverage of local issues in recent years. The Boston Globe last year assigned a reporter — this reporter — to write about both Cambridge and Somerville. The Globe also has a Camberville-focused newsletter.
Cambridge News Matters’ members say they are planning to raise large sums of money from donors, colleges, businesses, and others in the city. They hope to bolster the kind of intensive, hyperlocal reporting on city life, government, and schools that is hard to fund, given the relatively small audience. Someday, members would love to see a brick-and-mortar newsroom anchored in Cambridge.
Their goal is ambitious: $800,000 in the first year, then up to $1.5 million in the third.
The money would be overseen by a foundation, which would distribute cash to worthy local news outlets, be they Cambridge Day or some other newspaper, blogger, podcaster, or other journalist who steps up to provide meaningful coverage of local issues.
Money from the city, according to this plan, would make up a fraction of the fund’s total, but it would be its most controversial component, particularly among those concerned it would complicate journalists’ duty to report without fear or favor.
“We want local news organizations to be able to cover government and other institutions and keep an eye on them — not always in an adversarial way, but always in an independent way,” said Dan Kennedy, the Northeastern journalism professor and media critic. “If you’re going to have a direct transfer of money from local government to local news organizations, you’ve lost that. So I just don’t think this is a good idea.”
Other government funding schemes for local news have gained steam in recent years, mostly at the state level. New York and Illinois now offer newsrooms hefty tax credits to offset local journalists’ salaries. In New Jersey, a nonprofit that is funded by the state, but overseen by universities, gives out grants that support local news and information, including to journalists. Washington, D.C., officials are considering a plan to give registered voters in the district “news coupons” they could use to subscribe to local news outlets.
But a transfer of city funds to a city newsroom has not been tried, experts said.
The concept might have once felt unseemly, but attitudes are changing, said Rick Edmonds, media analyst for the Poynter Institute.
“If you go back even 10 years, all sides of the equation were very dubious about government assistance,” Edmonds said. But the finances of local news have “gotten a lot worse,” he said, and the “temperature” has changed.
Many Cambridge city councilors are not quite convinced.
At a hearing on June 10, several elected officials said they believed their city needed more news coverage but were skeptical of the plan outlined in the policy order calling for the use of city funds, which is backed by Councilors Burhan Azeem, Patricia Nolan, and Joan Pickett.
“I’m not opposed to the idea and the effort, and the intent, but I don’t believe we should be spending city dollars on this,” Councilor Paul Toner said.
It is also, councilors said, not clear whether giving money from the city budget to a nonprofit in this way would even be legal, or, if so, whether other nonprofits focused on different pressing issues might deserve similar payments.
Cambridge News Matters is aware that, when it comes to municipal funding of local news, its idea would be breaking new ground, said Rick Harriman, a member of the group.
“As we look at the extreme problems that local news is having around the country,” Harriman said, “we need to consider some innovative approaches.”
For his part, Levy, of Cambridge Day, said that while he is somewhat wary of the idea, he “certainly would not reject the experiment” if taxpayer funds were made available to him.
“None of it is ideal,” he said. But, “I think we’re at a moment where a variety of things need to be tried, and it makes sense to try them, to find a model that might work in the pursuit of the necessary goal of keeping news alive.”
