California has the world's fifth-largest economy and is home to nearly 40 million people and some of the most diverse communities on Earth.
Yet across the state, the media and news institutions that help residents understand what is happening in their neighborhoods, schools, city halls, and communities continue to disappear.
Since the turn of this century, more than 70% of journalism jobs have vanished, and roughly 30% of local newsrooms have closed. Thousands of California communities now have a scarcity of original reporting on the news they need to know.
The result is a less informed public, weaker civic participation, and greater room for misinformation to take root and flourish. The drop in journalistic outlets provides space for bad actors to take advantage of our tax dollars, public offices, and more.
At L.A. TACO, we cover sides of Los Angeles that are often overlooked by larger media organizations. We report on immigration enforcement, police misconduct, public safety, labor issues, food culture, local government, abuses of power, and the countless stories that shape life in Los Angeles.
Like many independent news organizations, we do this work with limited resources while serving communities that are frequently underserved by traditional media.
Expanding this kind of coverage is why California's proposed $35 million investment in local journalism deserves support.
The funding package, which has been negotiated for what seems like years, would continue two programs that have already demonstrated real results for bolstering great journalism in our state:
The first is the California Local News Fellowship and Propel initiative, administered through UC Berkeley Journalism and the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Together, these programs help place early-career journalists in newsrooms throughout California while providing training, leadership development, audience engagement support, and business sustainability resources for local publishers.
The fellowship program alone places more than 70 journalists in newsrooms across the state. Collectively, those fellows produce more than 100 stories every week, covering everything from wildfire recovery and housing affordability to health care access and immigration policy.
L.A. TACO has benefited directly from this investment. Aisha Wallace-Palomares, a California Local News Fellow, joined our newsroom and quickly became a crucial contributor to our reporting efforts, particularly on immigration enforcement and other critical issues affecting our readers. Having Aisha in this crazy time in Los Angeles has huge benefits for us, our readership, and the greater community.
The second component is the California Civic Media Fund, a public-private partnership that would leverage state funding with matching contributions from Google to direct new resources into local newsrooms throughout California. The program would support publishers serving communities large and small, urban and rural, English-speaking and multilingual alike.
Importantly, these investments are not bailouts. They are investments in public infrastructure.
We often think of the platforms we use to consume news, like Google News, as open, but in reality, newsrooms have not benefited from the rise of new platforms and have often been harmed by changes that only benefit tech companies.
California already invests in roads, libraries, parks, schools, and emergency preparedness because these systems help communities function. Local journalism serves a similarly essential role. It informs residents, increases government accountability, strengthens civic participation, and creates a shared understanding of the challenges communities face.
When local news disappears, corruption becomes easier to hide. Public participation declines, and community trust erodes.
Research consistently shows that communities with strong local news ecosystems are healthier democracies. We know this is the right thing to do; we just need the state to bring things together and take decisive action.
The broad coalition supporting this funding request reflects that reality. News organizations, journalism associations, nonprofit leaders, community foundations, broadcasters, publishers, and civic organizations from across California have come together behind a common goal: ensuring that Californians continue to have access to trusted local reporting.
At a moment when democratic institutions face increasing pressure and misinformation spreads faster than ever, strengthening local journalism should not be controversial. Just this year, we’ve seen an impressive new crop of local news startups right here in L.A., but we want these new outlets to thrive, not just launch, then wither on the vine.
California has an opportunity to become a national leader in rebuilding local news. The proposed $35 million investment will not solve every challenge facing the industry, but it will help sustain reporting in communities that desperately need it.
For the sake of an informed public and a stronger democracy, state lawmakers should support it.
