A Partisan Future for Local News?

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Local news in America has long been widely trusted, and widely seen as objective. But as traditional local papers struggle, there have been attempts across the political spectrum to create more partisan outlets. Few can have been as ambitious or widespread as the nationwide network of 1,300 websites and newspapers run by Brian Timpone, a television reporter turned internet entrepreneur. He has said that he sees local news as a means of preserving American civil discourse. But a Times investigation has found that Republican operatives and public relations firms have been paying for articles in his outlets and intimately dictating the editorial direction of stories.Today, we speak to the Times journalists behind the investigation. Guests: Davey Alba, a technology reporter for The New York Times covering online misinformation and its global harms; and Jack Nicas, who covers technology for The Times from San Francisco. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Here’s the full investigation into a nationwide operation of 1,300 local sites that publishes coverage ordered up by Republican groups and corporate P.R. firms.

Transcript

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0:25.6	From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro.
0:32.6	This is a daily.
0:35.6	Today, a Times investigation finds that as the local news industry collapses, a secretive
0:48.4	network of paid-to-play news sites is seeking to take its place.
0:54.8	My colleagues, Davey Alba and Jack Nickas, on the company trying to rewrite the rules
1:02.0	of American journalism.
1:07.6	It's Wednesday, October 28th.
1:22.3	First of all, I was a little kid.
1:23.3	I had a newspaper probably when I was six and I would go up the street and interview.
1:28.5	I still remember there was a lady from Sweden and an eye doctor and a priest from Ireland
1:35.3	and I would interview them and get their life stories and would put up my little newspaper.
1:43.9	And then when I came of age, it was the Vietnam War.
1:47.8	And I got into it, frankly, because I think truth is important.
1:53.5	And I also, at that time, very naively, I believed that people were uninformed.
2:01.7	And once they knew the truth, then they'd act differently.
	...

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