Local news learns to love the arts again

Local arts and culture coverage as we’ve known it is all but non-existent in local news platforms. It was among the first topics on the chopping block amid consolidation and “vulture capitalization” of local news in the early days of digital. It was in need of innovation, to be sure, but it was cut before real, concerted efforts to try new things got off the ground.

Because of those cuts, many communities lack any common resource for the activities and culture that establish a sense of place and that bring neighbors together in their everyday lives.

As longtime Colorado arts and culture journalist John Moore has written, “When you have fewer journalists covering the arts, it’s bad for journalists, and it’s bad for local arts organizations. But more than anything, it is bad from everyone…who is becoming increasingly oblivious to the cultural lifeblood of their communities.”

Without this coverage, local news neglects one of its fundamental roles: supporting a robust quality of life for communities.

Covering local culture — the values we share, the opportunities to gather together to share experiences — is vital to combating isolation and polarization as these shared experiences, be they restaurant openings or rock concerts, allow for the construction of social capital that makes the discussion and deliberation essential to functional democracy possible.

Additionally, with the $1.1 trillion that the arts contribute to the U.S. economy, arts and culture coverage represents an important story of community sustainability, and an opportunity for enterprising journalists to grow and diversify audiences and revenue streams.

In the last few years, we have started to see some small green shoots emerging that have made me hopeful that we’re on the cusp of a reimagining and renewal in local arts and culture coverage.

The SHOUT in Wichita, Kansas, came into being in April 2024. With two co-founders steeped in the local arts scene and careers spent writing about the arts, The SHOUT first launched with an arts and culture events calendar — something that community members asked for in listening sessions before the site’s launch. The calendar has evolved and is now one of the most popular parts of their site. It also has a local sponsor: the City of Wichita’s Division of Arts & Cultural Services.

Beyond the calendar, the site presents an expansive view of covering arts and culture. They provide traditional reviews and arts criticism, but their audience also sees value in how they cover everyday arts and creative people of all kinds. That has included stories about a fiber arts exhibit at a senior living center and a eulogy for an independent sewing shop that closed. The latter showed how the store was part of the fabric (no pun intended) of the community and served as a place where people learned new skills and met new friends.

In Texas, editor and publisher Nancy Flores runs Austin Vida, which focuses on the arts and culture of the Austin Latinidad. Each month, she delivers a Cultura Guide featuring local cultural happenings focused on the Austin gente. Earlier this year, she introduced the My Austin Vida essay series in which community members wrote essays about their experiences through the lens of resilience. She then hosted an event spotlighting these writers in a live reading of their personal stories. Through shared experiences, she is building a community of readers and supporters who have been turned off by traditional news and who want to connect with others through the arts.

The common thread of these and other burgeoning local arts-focused outlets is how they put their communities at the center of their work. That includes local artists, cultural nonprofits, lovers of music, theater and fine arts and people for whom art is a meaningful personal pursuit.

These outlets have their own personalities, much like traditional alt media, and they know how to have fun and find ways of reaching people through humor. These are all salves in this time of turmoil, and they might just be the thing that gets us through.

So let’s look to 2026 as the year that we all agree how necessary local arts and cultural coverage and connections are to communities and the journalists who serve them. And then let’s get to building!