Grove: A rallying cry for local news

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I‘ve gotten more emails and phone calls over the last month than at any time since I started at the Minnesota Star Tribune. With the world’s eyes trained on our state, people are looking at local news to understand the crisis that’s unfolded here. Some of the messages are full of compliments; others are full of criticism; but they all carry one underlying theme — that local journalism is more relevant than ever before.

The Strib is just one of the local outlets making sense of this moment for people. Journalists at the Sahan Journal, MPR News, MinnPost, the Minnesota Reformer, several local TV stations, business journals, dozens of local radio stations and countless online outlets are all covering this moment with bravery and clarity.

If there was ever time for a rallying cry for local news — this is it.

The ICE raids and their fallout in Minnesota might be the most well-documented crisis in American history, for several reasons. An influx of national and international media outlets is helping focus and inform in this pivotal moment in American life. Thousands of bystanders and concerned citizens are capturing and uploading footage and photos throughout the entire state. Videos of the tragic killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good have drawn global attention, as have untold numbers of other searing images now flooding our information ecosystem. They are letting the world witness the chaos of this moment with stunning clarity.

But I believe that local news organizations are poised to provide the most value in times of crisis. Our journalists know our neighbors and our neighborhoods. They know our leaders and organizers. They understand our history. The depth of familiarity and local nuance they bring to breaking and quickly evolving news is unrivaled. It’s been heartening to see so many national outlets praise the work of local media during their time in Minnesota.

Beyond our own reporting and analysis, news organizations like ours are bringing context and reporting to the images flooding online. The frame-by-frame analysis of bystander videos of the shootings of Good and Pretti has helped frame the national conversation in ways that the videos alone cannot. The same goes for thousands of other clips of online content. The combination of a flood of bystander footage, with local journalists to analyze them, is proving a powerful combination in this crisis.

Still, coordinated disinformation campaigns that exploit AI to doctor images or video are often traveling faster than real journalism, given the ways online platforms prioritize engagement over truth. Our journalists spend time fighting them back, bringing accuracy to the madness of online mobs who seek to capitalize on tragedy to drive their own dark agendas.

Journalists face down threats in the real world, too — even from the federal government. That includes the arrests this week of local independent journalist Georgia Fort and former CNN journalist Don Lemon in connection with coverage of a church protest earlier this month. That is wrong. In America, we do not arrest journalists for doing their jobs.

None of this work is inevitable. There are many places in America today that simply could not have responded to such a crisis with the level of exceptional journalism you’re seeing in Minnesota, by Minnesotans. This work is built and sustained by readers and supporters who understand what is at stake. Supporting trusted local journalism is how accountability survives.

For our part, we’ve moved quickly to create new ways to spread and support our journalism. Our live blog of every breaking news event is free and open to the public. We’ve also lifted the limit on gift articles that subscribers can share for free. And we’ve launched a family plan to expand the number of people who can log into a subscription.