When local news dies, so does our democracy | Chuck Plunkett | TEDxMileHigh

Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." In this jaw-dropping talk, Chuck Plunkett, former Denver Post Editorial Page Editor, whistleblower, and leader of the Denver Rebellion, explains why the greatest threat to democracy is not fake news – but the catastrophic decline of local news. Chuck Plunkett, a professional journalist for more than 22 years, is the director of CU News Corps, a capstone program at the University of Colorado Boulder. He joined The Denver Post as a reporter in 2003, led coverage of the Democratic National Convention in 2008, and later served as the editorial page editor. Plunkett made international headlines for leading a team of writers who called out The Post’s owners, Alden Global Capital, for their business practices. He’s passionate about plant-based foods, distance running, and playing the piano.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

I've been a journalist
for more than 23 years,

at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette,

the Pittsburgh Tribune Review,

and most recently, The Denver Post.

(Applause)

Being a journalist has shaped
every aspect of my identity.

We're trained to evaluate
the evidence from all relevant angles.

We seek credible, reliable sources,

double-check and triple-check
our information,

and then check it again.

When we do make mistakes, we correct them.

It's made me careful,
disciplined and thorough.

I distrust ideological purity

and vote for Republicans
and Democrats alike.

I've tasted pepper spray,
covering protests,

but I've never participated in one.

Perhaps, the most
radical thing I've ever done

was getting my ear pierced.

(Laughter)

But as journalist,

it is ingrained in us

that when something goes terribly wrong,

you sound the alarm.

And that's why I'm on this stage today,

because when it comes
to the state of local news,

something has gone terribly wrong.

(Applause)

So consider this talk a protest.

(Laughter)

When I started at The Denver Post in 2003,

it was among the country's
10 largest newspapers,

with an impressive subscriber base
and nearly 300 journalists.

Before my wife and I
could even unpack from the move,

they sent me to Eagle, Colorado.

A young hotel desk clerk

had accused basketball superstar
Kobe Bryant of rape.

The Denver Post showed up
in force, with a big team

that covered the story and its aftermath

from seemingly every conceivable angle.

At the time, I was in my 30s.

Any ambitious journalist that age

aspires to work for one
of the big national papers,

like The New York Times
or The Wall Street Journal.

But I was simply blown away

by my first few weeks at The Denver Post,

and I thought, "This
is going to be my paper.

I can make a career right here."

Well, seven years passed,

and we were sold to a hedge fund:

Alden Global Capital.

Within a few years,

buyouts ordered by past and present owners

would reduce the newsroom by nearly half.

And I understood,

the rule of thumb used to be
that 80% of a newspaper's revenue

came from pricey print ads
and classifieds.

With emerging giants like Google
and Facebook and Craigslist,

those advertising dollars
were evaporating.

The entire industry
was undergoing a massive shift

from print to digital.

Alden's orders were to be digital first,

take advantage of blogs,
video and social media.

They said that one day,
the money we made online

would make up
for the money we lost in print.

But that day never came.

In 2013, we won a Pulitzer Prize

for covering the Aurora Theatre shooting.

Alden ordered
that more journalists be cut.

Again

and again

and again

and again,

we were forced to say goodbye

to talented, hardworking journalists

we considered not just friends,

but family.

Those of us left behind
were stretched impossibly thin,

covering multiple beats

and writing rushed articles.

In 2016, I was promoted
to my dream job:

the editorial-page editor.

And the access I had ...

On any given day,

I talked to senators,
billionaires, mayors, chiefs of police,

the leaders of large grassroots
organizations and nonprofits.

People of influence across the state

started their day
reading our editorial page.

I've never loved a job more.

I turned 50 that January.

At any other time
in the history of journalism,

I would've had every right
to believe I had it made,

but that dream job
wouldn't even last two years.

Inside a windowless
meeting room in March of 2018,

we learned that 30 more would have to go.

This paper that once had 300 journalists

would now have 70.

And it didn't make sense.

Here we'd won multiple Pulitzer Prizes.

We shifted our focus from print to digital.

We hit ambitious targets.

An email from The Brass talked up
the Post profit margins,

which industry experts
pegged at nearly 20%.

So, if our company was so successful
and so profitable,

why was our newsroom
getting so much smaller and smaller?

I knew that what was happening in Colorado
was happening around the country.

Since 2004,

nearly 1,800 newsrooms have closed.

You've heard of food deserts.

These are news deserts.

They are communities,

often entire counties,

with little to zero
news coverage whatsoever.

Making matters worse,

many papers have become ghost ships,

pretending to sail with a newsroom

but really just wrapping ads
around filler copy.

More and more newsrooms
are being sold off

to companies like Alden,

and in that meeting, their intentions
couldn't have been clearer.

"Harvest what you can.
Throw away what's left."

A reporter cried out, and I thought,

"They just killed The Denver Post."

I fell into major depression.

A lot of us did.

In a journal entry, I wrote,
"I wished I had died in my sleep."

My entire career,

this institution I so believed in

were disappearing.

I thought I had nothing to live for.

And that's when I decided to go rogue.

(Laughter) (Applause)

I realized I could use the paper

to call out the owners
before the city and the world.

So, working in secret,
with a team of eight writers,

we prepared a special
Sunday Perspective section

on the importance of local news,

where the bare-knuckle editorial
aimed directly at the owners!

Either invest in a quality newsroom,

we argued,

or sell us to owners who would.

(Applause)

Well, I knew the publication
of the package

would end my ten year at The Denver Post.

(Laughter)

Surely I would be fired
or forced to resign.

But when the now-or-never moment arrived,

I wrapped the wall
next to my standing desk -

the signal that we had
published the package.

"Post it to Twitter! Post it to Facebook!

Post it everywhere! Be digital first."

(Laughter)

The Denver rebellion
launched like a missile

and went off like a hydrogen bomb.

(Laughter) (Applause)

Clearly, we weren't alone in our outrage.

But, as expected, I was forced to resign.

(Laughter)

And a year later, nothing's changed.

The Denver Post
is but a few lone journalists

doing their admirable best

in this husk of a once great paper.

Now, at least some of you
are thinking to yourself,

"So what?" right?

"So what? Let this dying industry die."

And I kind of get that.

For one thing, the local news
has been in decline for so long

that many of you may not even remember

what it's like
to have a great local paper.

Maybe you've seen "Spotlight"
or "The Paper,"

movies that romanticize
what journalism used to be.

Well, I'm not here
to be romantic or nostalgic.

I'm here to warn you
that when local news dies,

so does our democracy.

(Applause.)

And that should concern you

regardless of whether you're subscribed.

Here's why.

A democracy is a government of the people.

People are the ultimate
source of power and authority.

A great local newsroom
acts like a mirror:

its journalists see the community
and reflect it back.

That information is empowering.

Seeing, knowing, understanding -

this is how good decisions are made.

When you have a great local paper,

you have journalists
sitting in on every city council meeting,

listening in to State House
and Senate hearings;

those important but - let's face it -

sometimes devastatingly boring
committee hearings.

Journalists discover the flaws
and ill-conceived measures,

and those bills fail because
the public was well-informed.

Readers go to the polls,

and they know the pros and cons
behind every ballot measure

because journalists
did the heavy lifting for them.

Even better:

researchers have found
that reading a local paper

can mobilize 13% of non-voters to vote.

13 percent!

(Applause)

That's a number that can change
the outcome of many elections.

When you don't have a great local paper,

voters are left stranded at the polls,

confused,

trying to make their best guess
based on a paragraph of legalese.

Flawed measures pass,

well-conceived, but
highly technical measures fail.

Voters become more partisan.

Recently in Colorado,

our governor's race had more candidates
than anyone can remember.

In years passed,

journalists would've thoroughly vetted,

scrutinized, fact-checked,
profiled, debated

every contender in the local paper.

The Denver Post did its best,

but in the place of past levels
of rigorous reporting and research,

the public is increasingly left

to interpret dog-and-pony-show
stump speeches

and clever campaign ads for themselves.

With advertising costing what it does,

electability comes down to money.

So, by the end of the primaries,

the only candidates left standing
were the wealthiest and best funded.

Many experienced
and praise-worthy candidates

never got oxygen.

Because when local news declines,

even big-ticket races become pay-to-play.

Is it any surprise
that our new governor

was the candidate worth
more than 300 million dollars?

Or that billionaire businessmen
like Donald Trump and Howard Schultz

can seize the political stage?

I don't think this is what
the Founding Fathers had in mind

when they talked
about free and fair election.

(Applause)

Now, this is exactly why we can't
just rely on the big national papers,

like The Journal
and The Times and The Post.

Those are tremendous papers,

and we need them now -
my god - more than ever before.

But there is no world
in which they could cover

every election in every county
in the country.

No! The newsroom best equipped
to cover your local election

ought to be your local newsroom -

if you're lucky and still have one.

When election day is over,

a great local paper is still there,
waiting, like a watchdog.

When they're being watched,
politicians have less power,

police do right by the public,

even massive corporations
are on their best behavior.

Perhaps that's why
Thomas Jefferson once said,

"Were it left to me to decide

whether to have a government
without newspapers

or newspapers without a government,

I would not hesitate a moment
to prefer the latter,

newspapers without a government!"

(Applause)

What Jefferson knew and we've forgotten

is that it is the press

that is the check and balance
for our democracy.

(Applause)

If you think that the politicians

and the corporations
and the special interests

are out there getting away with it,

this is why this mechanism

that for generations has helped
inform and guide us

no longer functions the way it used to.

You know intimately

what the poisoned
national discourse feels like,

what a mockery of reasoned
debate it has become.

This is what happens
when local newsrooms shutter

and communities across the country
go unwatched and unseen.

Until we recognize
that the decline of local news

has serious consequences for our society,

this situation will not improve.

A properly staffed,
local newsroom isn't profitable,

and in this age of Google and Facebook,

it's not going to be.

If newspapers are vital to our democracy,

then we should fund them
like they're vital to our democracy.

(Applause)

We cannot stand by
and let our watchdogs be put down!

We can't let more communities
vanish into darkness.

It is time to debate
a public-funding option

before the Fourth Estate disappears,

and with it, our grand
democratic experiment.

We need much more than a rebellion.

It is time for a revolution!

Thank you.

(Applause)