Hello from Washington. I'm Chuck Todd, and this is the Chuck Todd cast. So my guest today is Paul Fari. He's a media reporter who I've known for a long time. He was at the Washington Post. But he recently caught my attention when he wrote about how voters in news deserts moved voters in the 2024 election. Currently, Paul is an advisor for the

Northwestern Medill School on a local news initiative that they have been working on. In his PC

observed, Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular vote margins in U.S.

history. But in news deserts, counties lacking

a professional source of local news, that's the definition of news desert in here, it was an avalanche.

We're going to get into this with Paul in a minute. Before we get started, remember to stick

around for an audience question and keep sending us your suggestions for this year's what if series.

If you have a what if you'd like us to explore or just a question you want to see if we can

answer, email me at the chucktodcast at gmail.com. Don't forget the the,

but with that, Paul Farie, welcome to the Toddcast.

Look, a lot of people know on this podcast that I've been spending a lot of time sort of

secondarily trying to figure out how we can repopulate the media landscape.

As I say, you know, we can we can complain about the five tech companies that control our distribution or we can

try to improve the marketplace uh i think i'm i want to get in and trying to improve the marketplace

it's clear i've come to the conclusion that the reputation of national media is only as good as

the local media and as local media disappeared, so did our reputation.

I am fully convinced to this, that we, national media has never had the trust of local folks.

They just got the respect if the local folks confirmed what we reported.

I think those are two separate worlds, the two separate universes.

You grow up with a local newspaper. You grow up with a local newspaper.

You grow up with a local TV station.

You have that relationship with, you know, them covering the fires and the cops and the mayor.

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