Americans show growing signs of wanting to withdraw from an increasingly complex and frightening world. Is the isolationism of earlier decades about to return? And what would the consequences be?
by Melvin Rhodes
For the last 18 months I have been serving on the Lansing [Michigan] State Journal's Community Advisory Board (CAB). This has meant attending regular monthly meetings, and it has given me the opportunity to write a monthly article for the paper.
Recent meetings have been particularly interesting.
Like most newspapers, the State Journal's readership is declining as younger people prefer to get their news electronically, rather than the old-fashioned way. That is, of course, if they are interested in news at all. Declining readership also means declining advertising revenue as advertisers look to other media outlets to try to reach those who are younger and have higher disposable incomes. Some time ago, an article I read predicted that the last American newspaper would go out of business in 2030, based on current rates of decline in readership.
The paper's response to this has been to increase local news coverage at the expense of national and world news. Local news now dominates the front page every day. "Local news sells!" we've been told repeatedly. It makes sense. People can easily get their national and international news elsewhere, but local papers remain the best source of in-depth local news.
Not only financial pressures are driving newspapers toward a more parochial outlook. Readers are also becoming more withdrawn, increasingly desiring isolation from the rest of the world. This has been evidenced at recent CAB meetings.
One board member summed it up very well. "I'd much rather read about the rescue of the cat stuck up a tree on the other side of town, than read news from Iraq or Afghanistan. Why should I care about what goes on in those places? That news doesn't impact me!"
