LoginThe Metro: The crisis of local news in the age of AI and Trump
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Artificial intelligence is entering nearly every profession. It can help gain insights into enormous, complex data sets, summarize technical writing and reports, and provide a bullet-point list of takeaways.
In other words, AI is a powerful, sharp tool, but it cuts both ways.
As much as it can aid us in our work, it comes with several risks, like inaccuracies, data security concerns, and job loss. So, how can we take the best of what AI has to offer, and avoid the worst of its pitfalls? The journalism profession is grappling with those very questions today.
More than ever, the question of how news organizations will use artificial intelligence seems existential. That’s because local news outlets continue to vanish across the country and the implications are huge.
It means fewer watchdog reporters — that is, fewer people holding local leaders accountable, from the powerful people sitting on city council to the school board. It means less accountability for law enforcement, who often try to operate with little transparency. It means less connection to our neighbors and less engagement overall with our community.
Journalism is a shield for democracy. Research on local news illuminates this. Voter turnout is higher in communities with a strong local news landscape. Meanwhile, in places with less local campaign coverage, voters are less likely to vote.
The crisis of local news feels more dire now in the face of an administration that is openly hostile to the press. The Trump administration has taken unprecedented moves against this country’s free press, and the effects on national outlets will be felt by local media, too.
Two guests joined The Metro to help us make sense of this moment.
Liam Andrew is the technology lead at the American Journalism Project’s Product & AI Studio, where he advises nonprofit newsrooms on adopting artificial intelligence into their work.
In the second half of the hour, Margaret Sullivan stopped by. She’s the executive director for the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University. She’s also a former media columnist for the Washington Post and a former public editor for The New York Times. Her Substack newsletter about journalism and democracy is titled “American Crisis.”
Use the media player above to hear the conversation.
More headlines from The Metro on Feb. 18, 2025:
- When “Sing Sing” was released last summer, it became the first film to be simultaneously released in theaters and in prisons through Edovo, a free online education platform serving over 900,000 incarcerated learners. Brian Hill is the CEO of the Edovo Foundation. He joined the show to talk about the significance of connecting incarcerated people to information and education.
- ShotStoppers is Detroit’s most prized crime reduction program. For a little over a year, the community intervention violence project has helped stop violence before it happens. But the program may not continue beyond 2025. ShotStoppers rests on federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars, which will soon fade. Producer Sam Corey sat down with interim Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison to learn more about the program and how he’s advocating for sustained funding.
- Detroit is one of the most important music cities in America. We’re finally getting some credit for being the birthplace of Techno music, sounds that came out of Motown can still be heard on rotation, and we often talk about Jazz and its influence on Motown. But there’s a common thread that weaves all this music together — the Black church. Debroah Smith Pollard is a professor emeritus of English literature at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is also the long-time host of ‘Sunday Morning Inspiration.’ Pollard joined The Metro to talk about the state of Gospel music and why Detroit is so influential to the genre.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
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