Putting the bundle back together?

[Commentary] It seems like ambitious new journalism projects are everywhere these days. The announcement that former New York Times editor Bill Keller will lead a nonprofit startup covering the criminal justice system arrived just as Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media launched its first “digital magazine” and as Ezra Klein begins staffing up his “Project X” venture at Vox Media. Meanwhile, powerful incumbents like The Washington Post, The New York Times and ESPN are producing new branded online initiatives that move away from traditional newsgathering and reporting routines.

As we watch these projects unfold, however, it’s worth remembering that the staid local newspaper still offers specific civic benefits that the new models will be hard-pressed to replace, especially at the local and state level. Despite all the flaws of the traditional newspaper -- and there are many -- the bundling of hard news and civic information with soft news, sports, comics, and more is amazingly effective at supporting broad-based political and civic engagement. And interestingly, many of the new media entrants seem focused, in one form or another, on recreating the news bundle in a digital environment. However, these bundles are not well-designed to deliver the particular civic benefits newspapers traditionally offer. First, they seem likely to attract an elite audience, which risks further exacerbating existing inequalities of political knowledge and engagement. They also, obviously, focus on national and international events, which can actually cause educated audiences to tune out of local news.

[Nyhan is an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College]