This commentary was published earlier today on Phronesis in Pieces at billschmitt.substack.com. Bill Schmitt was interviewed about it this afternoon in hour one of Ave Maria in the Afternoon, a program nationally broadcast by Catholic radio stations.

After a long season on tenterhooks in the political arena, America now has more to-do lists than it knows what to do with. Newly elected government officials have busy agendas, as do their parties and partisans. Institutions must work to rebuild trust and efficacy. No group needs renewal more than our media.

November 5 got lots of people engaged—more thoughtful about what it means to be a democratically governed constitutional republic. Now, we need to find new instruments of creative compatibility to build consensus. Not via opinion polls, but in the public square, which nowadays is largely digital. Can the angst and anger of 2024 gradually be channeled into purposeful energy?

Journalists, the newsmakers who generate content, and the executives who decide how to deliver that content must sort out the lessons of Election Day realignments. Old business models are broken, and professional standards are weakened.

Here’s a brainstorm of actions for communicators who want to repair the patterns of delusion and confusion in news. They are first steps to emulate—and bolster—the openness to innovation we hope to see within multiple sectors of our political ecology.

1.     Go local. Reinvigorate media focused on “Main Street” as essential counterparts and complements to the “national news” which covers a wider map with narrower thinking.

The realm of national news now holds captive too much of the money, power, talent pool, and public attention which formerly fostered knowledgeable, meaningful conversations at the local level.

So-called legacy media organizations resemble the dinosaurs who left huge footprints before they went extinct. The industry’s leaders bond too readily with elites in other institutions as allies in their struggles for influence and survival. They also gobble up each other in corporate consolidations which shortchange employees and leave fewer voices in the marketplace of ideas.

The shrinkage of local journalism is grounded in mass-market, Darwinian rules which encourage neither macro-loyalty to the duty of informing our polity nor micro-loyalty to grass-roots values. We miss out on many real-life stories that bring meaning among individuals, families, neighborhoods, smaller-scale governments, and civil society. This erodes our essential identities and self-confidence as citizens.

“Newspapers that still maintain the largest—and sometimes the only—newsrooms of consequence in communities across the country are disappearing at an exponential rate,” wrote John Nichols in The Nation. “And the prospects for their replacement by online experiments remain dim.”

Last year, the MacArthur Foundation led a philanthropic partnership called Press Forward, which plans to invest $500 million to “support the reimagination, revitalization, and rapid development of local news.”

But Nichols fears that nothing short of a “Marshall Plan for journalism” could replace yesterday’s failed, ad-driven revenue models and install new resources. Advocates propose tax incentives, breakups of media conglomerates, and newsrooms run by non-profit companies. All these ideas require huge investments.

This big-picture complexity does not preclude individual and group efforts to refresh the values and skills of old-school journalism. Traditionalists tend to see local news—in print, broadcast, and digital—as the most fertile field for reteaching objectivity and fairness, as well as accountability and community-consciousness.

They also know that families love to see coverage of their kids as winners in high-school sports, plus other coverage people can talk about with their friends.

Local reporters avoid undue relativism, wokeness, and cynicism while embracing genuine curiosity. Those affirming this authenticity emphasize truths to be discovered, not ideologies to be preached, in honoring everyday life.

We do see glimpses of common-good enthusiasm in startup media outlets which are carving out their niches online. Fans of investigative entrepreneurship can promote this renaissance as paid subscribers. But will cities show the gumption to support news outlets with different perspectives suited to our diverse society, perhaps challenging a neighborhood’s cozy consensus?.

It’s time for the journalistic establishment to help swing the pendulum back toward a local-national balance, even as the Trump administration will expect more action among the “laboratories of democracy” —states experiencing such issues as immigration, education, abortion, and the sustainability of democracy. Well-established “Washington bureaus” lack the incentives or instincts to capture the insights percolating in communities nationwide.

2.     Get the public and its government chatting. Update FDR’s model of “fireside chats,” using new media and “show notes.”

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered a series of 31 addresses as “fireside chat” radio broadcasts between 1933 and 1944. This combination of format and technology was a breakthrough in the history of media. One might say the chats were a progenitor of podcasts.

FDR’s discussions, with subjects ranging from the Great Depression to World War II, had an informal style but were inevitably partisan and purposeful—seeking to ease public fears and build popular support with a mix of facts and opinions.

They co-existed with separate news coverage, in print and “over the air,” which presented Roosevelt a bit more objectively, as one among many newsmakers. His long-form chats, not ridiculed as propaganda or prejudice, shaped a closer relationship between the public and its president.

Today, strong relationships emerge from listening platforms like Apple Podcasts, which hosts more than 460,000 active, registered series of downloadable discussion, according to the Podcast Host website.

We shouldn’t be surprised when the Trump administration and various governmental units in Washington, DC, consider stoking a next generation of “fireside chats” in the podosphere. Think of them as legitimate revamps of a moribund press release culture, better able to start interaction.

The groundwork has been laid. Countless officials, influencers, and policy advocates already post text and videos on a range of social media apps. Don’t be dismayed that many in the president’s newly assembled cadre will be “telegenic” communicators. We all need to become comfortable with cameras, unafraid of long Q&A sessions sans teleprompters.

Expect to see more podcasts initiated by state and city leaders, too. Content kindled by officials at all governmental levels will add transparency, spread information, and spur both cooperation and multi-sided repartee with other leaders, as well as the general public.

These podcasts could evolve multiple formats to make government information, from the past and present, more accessible and dynamic.

One can imagine valuable magazine-style series that regularly update the story of an agency, a school board, or a particular initiative. They should always attach “show notes” with ample links to official statistics and statements.

Podcasts or streaming video channels could also become local or statewide versions of the C-SPAN network, providing live coverage of meetings or speeches.

Like C-SPAN, public-sector podcasters will need the spirit of an aggregator, not an aggravator. They should “keep it simple” to maximize truth and transparency, not pizzazz and “hot takes.” Keeping structure and mission in mind, they can be level-headed “influencers” who place a face on civic excellence and rebuild trust in a nation of skeptics.

Let’s acknowledge that this year’s elections revealed many outmoded remnants of “old-media” thinking in our politics. Millions of dollars were spent on shallow attack ads, and we learned that neither hosting celebrity concerts nor constructing show-biz sets are effective uses of candidates’ money.

One warning: Slippage into “fake news” or disinformation would be literally scandalous, corrosive to our politics and politicians. The Vatican’s 2018 World Communications Day message quoted a Dostoevsky character’s words of caution, “People who lie to themselves and listen to their own lie come to such a pass that they cannot distinguish the truth within them, or around them, and so lose all respect for themselves and for others.” Reality wins.

3.     Spark debate without demonization. Propagate online models of civil discourse and shared expertise about current events.

Television news programs used to be friendlier places for watching informed debates about important subjects. Many networks have replaced the “Point-Counterpoint” ethos, made famous during the early years of the CBS show 60 Minutes, with single-pointed punditry favoring the simplified viewpoint of the audience base they want to enrage. As theologians warn regarding Bible interpretation, a text without a context is merely a pretext.

Even when point-counterpoint debates were more common, formats generally offered too little time for much beyond soundbites. At least shows like CNN’s Crossfire (click for a classic clip) or The McLaughlin Group allowed a half-hour of informed opinions, although they too engaged audiences largely through conflict.

Throughout the 1990s, the University of Notre Dame produced a program called Today’s Life Choices for broadcast on PBS stations around the country. A multidisciplinary team brainstormed about contemporary issues, such as immigration and abortion, to plan mini-documentaries guiding viewers to ponder policy alternatives in both practical and moral terms

The strength of, and challenge for, the award-winning series was its use of expert interviews and on-location visuals to depict just how complicated various subjects were. The job of further research and discussion about prudential decisions was left up to the audience.

“My biggest contention with people these days is that we have become a country that is either unwilling or incapable of having a nuanced discussion about any topic,” comments Gary Sieber, a veteran broadcaster and long-time Notre Dame adjunct professor of journalism who served as lead writer for Today’s Life Choices back then.

Both the supply and demand sides of reporting have slipped further away from in-depth coverage, even at the all-news networks. “They’re doing commentary all day, all night,” Sieber told Phronesis in Pieces this month. “One [network] has become a cheerleader for the left, one has become a cheerleader for the right.”

Today’s viewers tend to cling to the easy answers and confirmation bias provided in social media. They have moved from welcoming uncomfortable truths to seeking what media critic John Zeigler calls “news as therapy.”

Programmers who want to reverse this trend must remind citizens of their freedom, and duty, to seriously integrate their faith-informed values with a range of perspectives if they hope to resolve problems. Again, presentations should provide show notes as bibliographies guiding audiences toward context and reflection. We notice that Morning Joe plans more bipartisan, less simplified input for its audience’s new agenda of repair. 

4.     Touch the third rail and realign spending. Reimagine the use of taxpayer funds, at least as a symbol of fairness, focus, and frugality.

One of the few mentions of media in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” Mandate for Leadership book, which this year may have become history’s most controversial think-tank publication, recommends a halt of taxpayer funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The most heated conflict over this funding, which of course is a minuscule part of the exploding federal budget, springs from complaints about content of the Public Broadcast System and NPR skewing left on the political spectrum.

Of course, to be fair, it should be stated that PBS remains a valued home for diverse perspectives—and was the platform willing to air Today’s Life Choices.

Popular programs on the scores of public TV and radio stations, which reap advantages from their originally mandated status as “non-commercial educational” broadcasters, are likely to survive the loss of their CPB funding, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Stations raise money directly through pledge-drive memberships; underwriting by corporations, foundations, and individuals; and sponsor-like contributions from local organizations.

Efforts to halt CPB funding could be tweaked for less controversy, perhaps by extending federal action over a few years. A “Downton Abbey détente” could include facilitating the transfer of shows to major streaming platforms, accompanied by a re-dedication of local stations to prime-time pedagogy.

This time, emphasize education for citizenship and the integration of more liberal arts, humanities, and STEM knowledge into our media diets.

These possibilities, as part of a bolder vision for national education reform and greater control at the state and local levels, could edify many young people; they are wary of big loans for college and possibly eager to fill the “skills gap” in vocational trades, so they want programs that foster inner strengthss which money can’t buy.

Global communications media are changing rapidly, and neither the companies, viewers, nor taxpayers can afford the inertia of programs that only add to the entertainment options on our screens.

These steal bandwidth from new approaches and information which could make our neighbors’ livelihoods more sustainable and stimulate a next generation of virtuous “creatives.” Even globalists will agree this kind of evolution is a good use of America’s digital innovation talents to raise awareness of worldwide priorities. 

5.     Get back to the basics of excellence. Challenge media professionals to play their part in a conversational culture.

The first four prescriptions above require innovation, planning, advocacy, and cooperation among organizations to accomplish structural change over time. Are there any steps journalists and communications executives can take right now to make improvements which proved necessary during the 2024 elections?

Yes. These simply require self-critical thought and accountability among all who call themselves professionals. One idea is as basic as a renewed mindfulness of the words and images presented on the “screens” used by old and young alike.

Profanity, crudeness, and sensationalism, even when deemed newsworthy, often constitute toxic distractions which don’t belong in the media mainstream.

Professionals shouldn’t taint our collective intellectual life with mockery, anger, and polarization. By whittling away at people’s trust in each other, they have prompted a massive loss of trust in their profession. The SPJ Code of Ethics, which is filled with robust standards for investigation and accuracy, also inserts humane advice relevant to our coarsened times.

An ethical journalist, says the code, “treats sources, subjects, colleagues, and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.” We are counseled to “balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.”

A puerile tone of disrespect disqualifies professionals from acting with authority. The failure to meet a polity’s need for meaningful, nuanced stories “softens the target” for even more disturbing dangers which today’s communicators must guard against.

These include deepfake videos, artificial-intelligence hoaxes, the numerous harms caused by social media addiction, and post-truth threats to the free marketplace of ideas, not to mention national security.

The entire project of post-election renewal in communications relies on respect, just as all the institutional to-do lists now emerging from our pre-election listlessness rely on better communication. Our local and national realignment, which could start with the proposals mentioned above, is personified less by the relaxation of Joe Rogan than by the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln.

As Pope Francis commented in the Vatican’s World Communications Day message, “Informing others means forming others; it means being in touch with people’s lives.” Educating citizens and breathing more wisdom into society’s interactions “are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.”

That’s a good benediction for our busy agenda.

Image from Microsoft CoPilot AI designer.