Broken Ground Season 6
About Season 6
As the media landscape continues shifting and more and more news outlets close, writers, editors, and photographers across the South are reconsidering how communities stay informed. This season host Leanna First-Arai talks with journalists and creators committed to keeping environmental information in communities’ hands.
Episodes
Lyndsey Gilpin and Tajah McQueen on Empowering Community Reporters
Cameron Oglesby on Collecting Community Stories
Victoria Bouloubasis and Paola Jaramillo on Bridging Language Barriers
Cornell Watson on Justice Through Photography
Take action to support local news
If listening to this season inspires you to act, here are some steps you can take.
1. Follow and subscribe to the outlets we’ve mentioned this season, including: MLK50, Enlace Latino NC, Earth In Color, The Margin, the EJ Oral History Project, Scalawag, and Grist. And let your friends know about them, too.
2. Identify who makes local news in your area. Engage with them across all their channels – social media, website, print – and donate, even if it feels small, as often as you’re able. Share their stories. Attend their events.
3. Raise awareness about news deserts as a systemic issue. Did you know: Unlike other democracies, the U.S. invests a mere $1.40 annually per resident on public media outlets like NPR and PBS, in comparison with $50-$100 per resident annually in Japan, France and Canada. Federal legislation that would earmark public money to support local newsrooms, such as the Local Journalism Sustainability Act and the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act could help steer investment into journalism like the “infrastructure that it is.”
