Supporting Local Media Is Protecting Democracy
The lack of local information weakens democracy, mainly because spaces for accountability disappear and corruption takes advantage of that vacuum.
A few days ago, I wrote an article about the slow investigation into the murder of a journalist that occurred in 2022 in a small Colombian municipality. The victim, Mardonio Mejía, ran a community radio station and hosted a daily program that broadcast the main news from San Pedro, his hometown, and the surrounding areas. Many of the roughly 5,000 residents listened to him without fail. While working with sources for the article, one testimony struck me in particular: just a week after the crime, during a field visit to San Pedro, an interviewee was surprised by the silence enveloping a town known for its musical tradition. When he asked for an explanation, he was told that with Mardonio’s death, the only local radio station had gone silent.
A reality check: what happens to a community when the only media outlet connecting it to information and public life goes dark?
San Pedro’s story is not unique; it is repeated in many parts of the world, since murder is not an exception among attacks against journalists and media outlets. However, its meaning changes dramatically when it occurs in a small locality, where media and journalists are much closer to the population and become a key link between public affairs and citizens. That is why the rupture of this relationship seriously harms democracy.
Local journalism allows people in rural areas to stay informed about matters affecting their communities. In some towns, for example, messages broadcast by community radio stations become the only way to learn about road conditions, public works, or health campaigns. They are the means through which residents of riverside municipalities receive alerts about rising river levels or landslides caused by natural phenomena, as well as information about what is happening in other parts of the country.
Unfortunately, for many reasons, local journalism is currently facing a structural crisis. A study led by the Gabo Foundation on local news ecosystems in five Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru) showed that more than 65% of territories lack local news coverage. This means that most communities live in contexts where journalism is restricted, has failed to consolidate sustainably, or operates under precarious conditions.
Much is said about the difficult economic situation of media outlets, but very little about what it means to survive as a local journalist. Advertising is increasingly scarce and, in many cases, is used as a tool of control. This economic pressure, in turn, leads to self-censorship and causes media outlets to disappear. “The absence of news is bad news,” states the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), based on studies showing that the lack of local news fuels polarization, decreases voter participation, and reduces government accountability.
In some communities, local media are used to convene citizens to decide on development plans or to participate in hearings where complex and fundamental issues for their lives are discussed, such as prior consultations or permits for the entry of new companies. This participation in shaping their future is often mediated by radio stations, where people can hear different voices or even engage directly with public officials, learn about their actions, and demand transparency. In fact, the role of local communication can also be understood as a way to combat corruption.
When it comes to electoral issues, the situation becomes even more serious. These media outlets help communities understand what is at stake in local elections and can even provide civic education to encourage participation. However, they are also spaces that illegal actors seek to capture. In Colombia, as violence has intensified, illegal armed groups aim to exert stronger control at the local level, where information management is key. To achieve this, they rely on intimidation and threats.
So, without local media, where do voters in rural areas get their news? This is where academics increasingly agree that social media fills these information deserts, polarizing the political environment of communities.
The lack of local information weakens democracy, primarily because spaces for accountability disappear and corruption exploits this gap. We are therefore talking about a void that social media cannot fill. Relying on social networks for information while abandoning local media introduces an avalanche of content in which it is extremely difficult to distinguish what is real from what is false or malicious. It also forces community agendas to compete with the decisions of large platforms, compounded by violence and economic vulnerability—conditions that politicians seeking to manipulate information are quick to exploit.
It is not desirable under any circumstances for Bernardo Díaz Nosty’s “degraded democracy hypothesis” to become a reality at the local level—a hypothesis according to which the press would turn to mercantilism to survive and generate profits, thereby degrading democracy. Perhaps the main antidote to this, as well as to disinformation and polarization, lies precisely in local media.
The question remains: how can we create the ideal conditions to practice local journalism freely and sustainably? I believe the answer lies in a collective effort to protect and strengthen it. Which leads to another question: who is willing to do so?
Source: El País
Author: Dora Montero Carvajal
Picture: Marty O’Neill Unsplash