Lost Storytellers

A chilling, incisive, and firsthand look at the landscape of community news today, Lost Storytellers argues that the decline of local journalism threatens the future of democracy. Lost Storytellers offers insights for all who feel confused about the media, politics, and the well-being of their communities in the information age.

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Community journalism in the era of clickbait

A
chilling, incisive, and firsthand look at the landscape of community news
today, Lost Storytellers argues that
the decline of local journalism threatens the future of democracy. Award-winning
photojournalist John Pendygraft asks: How did Americans lose trust in the
media, and how can their local newsrooms earn it back?

Pendygraft uses his own experiences at Florida’s
largest newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times,
to illustrate why trusted local reporting matters more than ever in the era of
“fake news,” clickbait, conspiracy theories, and social media. Through
interviews with his colleagues, the history of his own beloved paper, journeys
into the evolutionary psychology of storytelling, and examples of the ways
multi-national media conglomerates hook readers on news cycles of chaos and
crisis, Pendygraft argues that community journalists can reclaim their roles as
local storytellers—and that the public good demands that they try. Lost Storytellers offers insights for
all who feel confused about the media, politics, and the well-being of their
communities in the information age.