[Scubabear68]

In my experience, local reporting has stagnated so badly that they now survive by kissing up to whoever is in power. The majority of pieces are puff pieces commissioned by the subject or friend of the subject, be it a school superintendent or local town council or what have you.

And yes, the bias is heavily to the left. I am very centrist in my views so a left or right leaning bias would be upsetting.

We live across the river from Bucks County PA in NJ, Bucks County journalism and the NJ equivalent are just shills.

[alephnerd]

Local journalism has always been like this even before the "death" of local journalism. No local publisher would dare risk access to local politicans nor risk public ad revenue.

This is also why I'm not convinced about public owned or funded journalism that isn't a cooperative, because that only gives additional power to the incumbent who holds the purse strings.

[thunderfork]

If the bias is towards power, why would it ever be towards the left?

[bpt3]

Because they live in NJ, generally a Democratic stronghold and particularly in the area he described.

There are many parts of the US where the local government is 100% controlled by Democrats, so they are in power in those areas.