The Feb. 27 episode of “60 Minutes” takes a look at the crisis in local news and how hedge funds and other financial firms have swallowed up newspapers, closed newsrooms and slashed staff.
The show features Report for America as one answer to the crisis and the threat it poses to democracy. Report for America is a national service program that places emerging journalists into local newsrooms across the country to report on under-covered issues and communities. By bolstering local journalism, Report for America is seeking to shore up local journalism as the cornerstone of our democracy.
The segment includes interviews with Steven Waldman, Report for America’s co-founder and president, and five of the nonprofit program’s current and former reporting corps members.
WFAE's Race & Equity reporter Gracyn Doctor is a Report for America corps member and is featured in the episode. WFAE has hosted five Report for America corps members over the last few years. Their addition to the WFAE staff has expanded our coverage of immigration, the Latino and Black communities, issues related to equity, voting and more. They also helped deepen WFAE's relationship with communities of color.
According to studies, the number of reporters in the country has declined 60% since 2000, a job decline similar in scale to the coal industry. Some 1,800 communities now have no local news outlet and the vacuum is being filled by misinformation—largely shared via social media that leads to polarization.
Report for America is working to reverse this decline, to rebuild trust in the media and to strengthen democracy. The organization has placed about 300 journalists in more than 200 local newsrooms across the country.
Full "60 Minutes" segment on the crisis in local news
Watch Gracyn talk more about her work
“60 Minutes” airs Sunday 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and Paramount+. To learn more about Report for America, visit www.reportforamerica.org.
To support the work of Gracyn and other WFAE journalists,donate here.