Supporters Corner: March 27, 2022
Late last month, 60 Minutes ran a story with the digital headline “‘An attack on our democracy’: Financial firms gutting some local newsrooms.“
If you have 13 1/2 minutes to spare, I highly recommend taking the time to watch the piece. The main focus is the actions of Alden Global Capital, a Manhattan-based hedge fund that just so happens to now be the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country.
Alden’s playbook is to buy newspapers and then squeeze as much profit out of them as possible—with no concern about the actual quality of these newspapers. The result: Massive layoffs and cutbacks—which means less news produced in all of these newspapers’ communities.
After watching the piece, I was left with two main thoughts:
1. The news industry is a mess—and, as that 60 Minutes digital headline states, this is bad for our democracy.
2. I am not sure the vast majority of people out there know about the importance of local news publications to the communities they serve—because it seems like the people talking most about the importance of news publications are news people.
I am truly preaching to the choir here, seeing as everyone who is getting this cares enough about the Independent to have voluntarily given us financial support. However, this leads me to a question: How do we teach/convince the people not in this figurative choir about the importance of local journalism—and, even better, get them to actively support good local journalism?
I don’t know the answer to this question. If any of you have any ideas, send them my way, and perhaps we’ll continue this conversation in an upcoming Indy Digest, or in next month’s Supporters Corner.
Thanks, as always, for reading—and for the support. Forgive me for over-extending the metaphor … but I am very grateful to have y’all in the Independent’s choir.
—Jimmy Boegle
The April Print Preview
The thing I’ll remember about this issue: How happy I am to have the Music Issue back.
I am repeating myself here, seeing as I express this happiness in both a recent Indy Digest and in the print version editor’s note in this new issue. However, I can’t help but be struck by the fact that it would have been unfathomable before the pandemic—and even during the initial months of the pandemic—that something could come along big enough to wipe Coachella and Stagecoach off of the schedule for two consecutive years.
Yet that’s where we are.
I’ll never forget a walk some friends and I—masked and socially distanced—took in downtown Palm Springs on April 18, 2020. In a world without COVID-19, that would have been the Saturday evening during the second weekend of Coachella. But we live in the world with the pandemic—and downtown was eerily quiet. It felt abandoned, in fact. Post-apocalyptic.
Here’s a picture I took, on Palm Canyon Drive, just south of Tahquitz Canyon Way, looking south. Standing in the middle of the street was no problem, as there was absolutely no traffic. I get creeped out every time I look at this picture.
So, yeah, I am happy the Music Issue is back.
Thank You for Your Support
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