| ▲ | rendall 3 hours ago | |
On the contrary, I think we are entering a new golden age of local journalism in the US, but it does not look like the old one, so we do not recognize it yet. What is collapsing is the legacy institutional model. What is emerging is a procedural one: individuals showing up locally, documenting power directly, publishing primary evidence, and forcing accountability through visibility rather than prestige. Projects like Honor Your Oath, Long Island Audit, Guerilla Media, and even single-person operations with a camera and FOIA literacy are doing real journalism. They attend meetings, record encounters, publish receipts, and focus on consequences that are immediate and specific. The cost of presence is now low. The cost of obscurity for local officials is higher. Credibility increasingly comes from raw evidence rather than narrative authority. These outlets are not trying to inform everyone. They are informing the people affected directly. It feels messy, personal, and sometimes abrasive because it is not professionalized in the old sense. Historically, that is what journalism looked like before it was institutionalized. For example, Jeff Gray quietly stands in public with a “God Bless Homeless Vets” sign. People often assume he is homeless and attempt to violate his rights, frequently including police officers. The resulting interactions, all on camera, expose how poorly basic constitutional rights are understood or respected at the local level. https://youtu.be/-um41lMH3c4 Ronald Durbin of Guerilla Media is a muckraker in the classic sense, repeatedly confronting local power structures in person. He recently had a gun drawn on him at a town council meeting. https://youtube.com/@guerrillapublishing Sean Reyes from Long Island Audit has been arrested multiple times for filming inside police station lobbies despite clear New York law allowing it, and has been physically attacked and had firearms brandished at him while attempting interviews, all documented on video. https://youtube.com/@longislandaudit There are so many others. This is what local journalism looks like now. https://youtube.com/@lacklustermedia https://youtube.com/@audittheaudit https://youtube.com/@amagansettpress https://youtube.com/@susanbassi Many, many others. Here are lawyers giving their perspectives on these interactions: https://youtube.com/@southerndrawllaw https://youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer | ||