January 3 Friday Roundup

Welcome to the New Year. It may already be a little broken, but it’s nothing that some duct tape and Band-Aids won’t fix. (Except for that Cybertruck that exploded in Vegas—I don’t see that coming back.)

For those of you inclined toward listening or watching rather than reading, this week’s podcast episode, “Making Our Own Luck,” covers past holiday celebrations in grim times and what we can make of a challenging new year. You can see it on YouTube or you can listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Other recommended reading this week includes “Wall Street Declares War on the Associated Press.” Matt Pearce has written about Gannett and Reuters looking to duplicate the kind of reporting network that the Associated Press built its name on (with a good note in the comments at the end by William, who offers some additional perspective).

Most of my journalism circle saw this post when it went up yesterday, but I’m not sure many of my other readers and listeners did. I think it’s worth noting, because a lot of the brain rot we’re seeing in the general public is, in my opinion, due to a lack of deep and substantive coverage by traditional outlets in so many areas right now. Celebrity news and national-politics-covered-as-celebrity-news are doing fine—a lot of other issues are under-covered or unable to get enough oxygen to get noticed when they do manage to get written up.

Good journalists are still out there reporting, but the numbers grow smaller every day. And often they’re assigned the same handful of stories.

The dearth of local news is hurting the country. In October 2024, the State of Local News Project announced 206 counties nationwide had no news source of their own at all, and 1,561 had only once source.

One important thing you can do in this new year is to support outlets that are actually covering school board meetings and city council votes, as well as local police, business, and government officials where you live. Corruption at the federal level will likely expand in the second Trump administration. You can help work to keep the same effects in check locally by making sure that someone will be monitoring powerholders close to home.

Thank you to those of you who supported this newsletter in 2024. Here’s hoping we’ll find amazing ways to persevere and make a difference in 2025.