No silver bullet will magically solve our democracy crises. But without viable communication and information systems, the long slog toward reconstructing democratic institutions is rendered insurmountable. Any hope of a democratic future requires that we reimagine and rebuild local media infrastructures. What might this look like during Trump 2.0?
While federal-level initiatives are mostly nonstarters for the immediate future, possibilities exist at the state and local levels. Recent years have witnessed a wide range of creative policy measures — in states like California, New Jersey, and New York — aimed at bolstering local media. Democrat-controlled state legislatures could redouble efforts toward working with grassroots groups to support local journalism initiatives. Even some Republican lawmakers might wish to salvage what’s left of rural and small-town newspapers.
Progressive cities can also build out local media infrastructures, from funding municipal newspapers and subsidizing community media to guaranteeing affordable and reliable broadband services. News voucher programs are another exciting arena for publicly supporting local media, with innovative plans currently taking shape in Seattle and Washington, D.C.
A more long-term and ambitious project calls for establishing what I refer to as “Public Media Centers“: multi-media hubs in public spaces like post offices, public broadcasting stations, public access outlets, or public libraries. A real-world inspiration for this model is the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, a thriving vestige of the Independent Media Center (IMC or Indymedia) movement of the early 2000s, now housed within a downtown post-office building it purchased nearly 20 years ago.
Finally, media owners themselves can do their part by transitioning their commercial holdings into nonprofit or public-benefit alternatives, especially before hedge funds and their ilk swoop in to pick apart struggling newspapers. Examples of such alternative ownership structures are found in The Salt Lake Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the LNP newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, we must defend what still exists, especially public media. Although U.S. public broadcasting is primarily funded by private sources, phasing out the $535 million annual congressional allocation to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as Elon Musk advocates, would devastate a proven method for protecting democracy. Public media enjoys surprisingly high levels of trust and reportedly reaches more than 98% of the country, an information lifeline within America’s ever-widening news deserts. We should significantly expand — not dismantle — this public infrastructure.
Clearly, there’s much to do in the coming year and beyond, and it’s tempting to remain in a defensive crouch. But it’s precisely during dark political times when we should articulate bold visions for the future, forge diverse coalitions, and prepare for a terrain of struggle that anticipates new opportunities for structural change. Focusing on local media infrastructures to reimagine how they should serve democratic needs is an excellent place to start.
Victor Pickard is the C. Edwin Baker professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.
