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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We just talked about the gutting of local news generally in the United States at the hands of hedge funds and digital economy market forces. Here's one attempt, small in the scheme of things but maybe groundbreaking, to aid in the survival and creation of local news organizations in New Jersey, and help democracy in the process. New Jersey State Assemblyman, Roy Freiman, introduced a bill last week that would offer a $250 tax deduction to many New Jerseyans who subscribe to a local news organization.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman is a Democrat who represents the 16th assembly district, that's south of I78 in Western Jersey to the Pennsylvania line, Princeton, South Brunswick, Hillsborough, Flemington, Hunterdon, round there. Assemblyman Freiman joins me now. Assemblyman, thanks for your patience as we went a little long with McKay Coppins there because it was so interesting. I hope I got the district lines mostly right. I know they change. Welcome to WNYC.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: Thank you, Brian. Yes, you nailed it perfectly. It was a fascinating conversation you just had with McKay. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: If your bill were to pass, who would get what kind of tax deduction for doing what exactly?

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: It's an attempt to address an issue around that you talked about before, which is the decline of journalism. It's not a very complex bill. I'm not sure that it's, candidly, Brian, a perfect bill, but it's meant to begin the conversation of, can you make it more affordable? Can you make it more attractive for people to invest in journalism? By doing that, by offering a tax credit, if they were to get a subscription to whether it's an online or print version based in New Jersey covering New Jersey news.

Brian Lehrer: Is there something that you were seeing about New Jersey news coverage in particular, which was never so robust, because New Jersey is caught between the New York media market which mostly covers New York, and the Philadelphia media market, which mostly covers Philadelphia? If so, despite some really good news organizations, Bergen Record and The Star-Ledger, some others, New Jersey has been caught in between forever, have you seen a further decline? Is that why you're doing this?

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: The short answer is yes. There has been a consistent decline, I think, in journalism, and more importantly, the reporting of news. There is no decline, and as matter of fact, that's quite the opposite of information. We know that information is readily available, it doesn't necessarily mean that news is available. That is left up to professionals, the journalists that go after and report in the news.

I think if we have conversations, like your previous one, among friends and family and saying, "Well, where do you get news these days?" There's the silence because it's not as prevalent. You can certainly turn on a multitude of cable channels or go online and get all sorts of information, but that's more of an echo chamber than it is reporting of news.

We know that the impetus behind this, Brian, is the fact that in the First Amendment, it says the free press is sacred and the idea that the press protects democracy is really what this is about, how are we going to have the protection? How are we going to have the investigation, the reporting, the scrutinization, if it doesn't exist? That's what's driving this intent.

Brian Lehrer: When you make that interesting distinction between information, which is all over the place, and news and people in their bubbles and echo chambers, you didn't know it, but you really anticipate our next segment, part three of this hour, McKay Coppins, you and then our own Kai Wright is going to come on, and listeners, get ready to participate in an experiment if you want. Either today on the air, later this hour, or on Thanksgiving Day with your family, Kai Wright is going to come on in just a few minutes with a filter bubble experiment, an echo chamber experiment that you can participate in. Stay tuned for that and we'll explain.

Listeners in New Jersey, do you support the idea of a $250 tax deduction for a local news subscription? How do you see the New Jersey news landscape? Where do you get your New Jersey news, and has that changed in recent years? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-96924. Assemblyman Roy Freiman, you're a Democrat, the assembly has a Democratic majority, the bill is only a week old, I see, but do you have an indication it could pass?

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: I have an indication it can pass. We're going into the last three voting sessions of our assembly, and I don't know if this will reach the prioritization of within those last three voting sessions going through committee that it needs to go through. I don't know if it's going to be short-term. As I mentioned before, I'm candidly saying, are there other solutions?

This is a complex issue that you're doing a deep dive in and you're dedicating your show to, and I suspect, you're going to sit back and realize there are a multitude of contributing factors around what is happening to journalism compared to prior decades. I am not naive to think that there is a singular solution to solve this, nor am I trying to pick winners and losers on the business model associated with how to report out news, how to keep people properly informed, how to protect democracy.

We know that it was William Paley, who's of the CBS network fame, recognized that the news network in the new side of his business was not intended to generate huge revenues and profits. He left that up for the entertainment side but felt that it was critical to have both. You talked about public broadcasting. There are other models, there is cooperative ownership like you have in markets and farm markets and things like that, that might be a solution here. I'm not naive, and Brian, I'm not going to say that this piece of legislation is the nirvana and the elixir that's going to solve this issue, but if--

Brian Lehrer: Any reaction from your Republican colleagues? You might not need them because of the Democratic majorities in the assembly and State Senate in New Jersey, but any Republican colleagues' reaction? Their last president, as I don't have to tell you, called most journalism, the enemy of the people.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: I'd rather not talk about that last comment, but talk about your first question, which is, yes, I do have support from my colleagues. I try very, very hard to make sure that my legislation is not just rushed through or as a partisan measure but it's supported on both sides of the aisle. To me, the idea of how do you grow true news reporting is something that is, I would think, universally supported.

Those that push against and supported with the prior presidents, his attitude, was the fact that they didn't feel like the journalism was truly balanced. That's a separate show for you to do whether or not that was true, but this is like, why wouldn't you want appropriate, authentic news reporting versus just as you're going to cover the next topic, spewing of information.

Brian Lehrer: Georgina in Red Bank, you're on WNYC. Hi, Georgina.

Georgina: Yes, good morning, Brian. Good morning. This topic is very interesting. We moved from Ocean City, New Jersey, and there's a newspaper that comes out once a week, The Sentinel, and the editor is just an extremely principled human being. He covers all the local politics and issues and when Van Drew, Congressman Van Drew, slipped parties, a local contributor to the newspaper wrote a scathing article about him and David Mayhem, the editor, published it.

Meanwhile, he didn't know, but the contributor called Van Drew personally and insulted him and his wife. The City Council of Ocean City voted to drop The Sentinel as the newspaper of choice, the official newspaper for the city. That's in the midst of COVID when there was a drop in advertising, is a steady income for David. What does he do? He's been blackballed.

Brian Lehrer: Is this a story you're familiar with, Assemblyman? Of course, that again raises a question about government power over private news organization.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: I'm not familiar with this particular situation. The idea of having your local community papers, I believe, is central to protecting democracy, having them report out what's happening in zoning and board of education. I think we lose something when we do not have that kind of reporting going out. Even if it's uncomfortable, isn't that the whole concept of journalism and the press and where it's been with government that there's always been a natural conflict that exists?

Brian Lehrer: Of course, we can't instantly confirm a caller's sequence of events, but very troubling if true. Stephanie? No, I'm sorry. Simon, who I think is a local news publisher in Bloomfield. Simon, you're on WNY, hello.

Simon: Brian, a pleasure to be here. Hi, Representative Freiman, great to hear from you. Yes, I run the Bloomfield Information Project. We're a lab in the Hills in Essex county. There's also a grantee of the New Jersey civic information consortium, a body created by the state legislature to fund the local news and information projects in the state. I want to just speak out and say, Representative Freiman, thank you for thinking about this. He's being concerned about this issue as being open to alternative public funding models, which is, I think, really one of the things I heard in this conversation and in your conversation earlier with McKay, Brian, that might be missing, I think there's a lot of opportunities to reimagine this local, hyperlocal news and information in the 21st century and how we can support it publicly. I'm just like saying thankful for the conversation and happy to answer your questions and any insight I was able to add.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Assemblyman?

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: I do appreciate it, thanks very much. I would ask you a question of how do you feel about, since the dawn of time, we've had for-profit news organizations. I've been getting pushback actually from people saying, "Why is that a bad thing?" I'm not, again, trying to pick winners or losers on a business model. Of course, I realize I'm on a public station right now, but why is it one or the other, what has happened, in your opinion?

Simon: Certainly. In my opinion, the binary is actually a false binary because if you look at the way non-profit news organizations are run as compared to for-profit news depositions, largely, they're still a centralized decision-making process that doesn't center the needs of the community like community members their news and information needs.

I think really the future is in organizations that start with communities, that start with engaged journalism, that starts with information needs rather than like I'm a capital J journalist making a decision about what is or is not important for folks. Now that is inherently problematic, but like what you described as that top-down is that fast routes new and information.

In Bloomfield, we created a process called the news harvest that has allowed us to like take what was a news desert, typically defined as a news desert, and now we have a daily newsletter, 15 pieces of news and information, and every day reaching people, helping improve information equity in town, so people can get engaged, live better lives here. That really, again, that grassroots stuff that I think you described when you talked about a community newspaper and what it accomplishes.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Simon, thank you very much for your call. When we talk about non-profit versus for-profit news, when I started in public radio, Assemblyman, we would do pledge drives and stuff on the idea that we were an oasis in the marketplace of so much infotainment and a lot of commercially funded news. We were just trying to be an alternative

It was a little bit boutique in that respect, but it's gotten to the point because the market has changed so much, classified ads went to Craigslist and product and retail store ads went to Google and things like that, that there is no massive commercial media market anymore, and public radio, for whatever reason, the combination of listener support and foundations and the sponsorship that we have as well, has been able to step up and become some of the news organizations of record.

We heard the story in the last segment about the Chicago NPR station now acquiring the Chicago Sun-Times. Whoever thought that a public radio station, which was in a corner over here, because the commercial marketplace was dominant everywhere else, would become the thing that's financially viable, but that's what it's become.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: It's fascinating, but I was unaware of the Sun-Times, scenario, the idea that people, there is a significant calling in need. I think it's personally growing around authenticity in the news reporting, on authenticity in journalism where it's not the echo chamber. It's not clearly if you want to get a particular point of view, this is where you go. It is meant to be, as I mentioned before, authentic.

I turned to people like you and Simon and others to find out what else needs to be done on this topic. Do we need to support careers and having people look to the careers? I know we're doing this, for example, with STEM and sciences, where we're encouraging educators in the field. Is that also part of the equation to protect journalism?

Brian Lehrer: We're going to leave it here and go on to part three of this hour with our Kai Wright to talk about an experiment that he's got for you to do. Right now, we'll take a few calls to participate in Kai's experiment. He's also got a version you can do around the Thanksgiving dinner table. Stay tuned for that. My guest in this segment has been New Jersey State Assemblymen, Roy Freiman, a Democrat from Hunterdon and around there, who is proposing a $250 tax deduction for a subscription to local news. I guess I would be remiss if I didn't ask you if that would also go to people who became members of New Jersey public radio, which is part of us.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: I see. If there is a subscription associated with it, yes. Are you based in New York City? I'm in New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: We have four New Jersey public radio stations.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: Yes, if someone subscribes, then it would also cover it as well.

Brian Lehrer: But that bill isn't law yet. Assemblyman Freiman, thank you so much for engaging it. By the way, where do you get your news? What do you consume mostly if local news is dwindling in New Jersey? How do you get coverage of you and your colleagues in the legislature?

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: That is a multi-part question because there are various different online publications for what's taking place on a frequent basis that are almost like a blog or newsletters that are for the political type stuff, but I also turn the more traditional print newspapers, even though I get them digitally, I also get them in print and the Star-Ledger and The Times, and in those papers, as well as I subscribed to the community-based paper.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks again for coming on.

Assemblyman Roy Freiman: Thank you.

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