“The 21st century has been difficult for printed news. This broad statement is true for printed news of all sizes, but is especially true for small papers. Economics makes it harder to sustain printing costs and advertisers dwindle as local businesses close. As the following list shows, the 5th District (composed of eight counties), bucks the trend. In fact, this list doesn’t include Hispanic news sources:
“I am a former professor of Political Science. I have a PhD in how Congress works. One of the findings is incumbency advantage and the fact that incumbents win at an extremely high rate. The general explanations are gerrymandering, constituency service, and making use of the federal bureaucracy in some way.
If I were to begin a new dissertation, I would focus on how local news is institutionally biased in favor of incumbents. Incumbents are the only individuals who are asked about programs. Incumbents are invited for interviews to explain their positions. Incumbents are sought after by reporters, and reporters complain when incumbents don’t return phone calls or fail to hold public appearances.
However, declared opponents are not given an opportunity to slowly introduce themselves to the public. The local press, biased toward the institutional stability of incumbency, only reports one side. Then, when the election comes, it is treated as a horse race where the challenger doesn’t have sufficient name id. It is a vicious circle.
It doesn’t have to be. Local reporters can reach out to challengers as a way of finding out policy differences. For instance, this story (by Craig Baracco) City of Jackson addresses flooding issues could also have a federal aspect regarding how Rep. McClintock has always been against properly funding FEMA or providing any federal funding to help prepare for something like this. Or this story (No author) Mariposa Pride group will once again hold celebration at courthouse in which a drag show will be included. Rep. McClintock and his Republican Party are vehemently (violently) against this. Maybe it would be good to point that out and include another voice? This article (Alex MacLean) $290K in grants now available for Tuolumne County art projects doesn’t directly apply but if you look at the Heartland Creative Corps website this is clearly a political project. I would argue that it is being organized and paid for privately because politicians, like Rep. McClintock, have starved arts funding for states and states don’t have funds for counties. Or this story (Kristina Hacker) Additional state funding to speed up rail projects. This funding is only available because of President Biden and the Democratic Party’s Build Back Better laws.
This local news institutional bias towards incumbents makes it almost impossible for new political voices to emerge in America. Candidates who don’t have resources or ready-made constituencies have to beat brick walls. I feel bad for people trying to emerge in local news deserts. I feel frustrated trying to emerge in the 5th District against a 40-year incumbent, when there are so many different news sources and it is such a vibrant news environment.”
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