There is no denying that America took it in the teeth with the COVID-19 pandemic and related financial crisis, a one-two combination that was disproportionate in its impacts. And it had particularly dire consequences for journalism, adding to strains on a business model that relies on advertising and readers to stay afloat.
Between 2008 and 2019, nearly 1 in 4 newsroom jobs disappeared, according to the Pew Research Center. Since the onset of the pandemic, one-third of large-city newspapers reported fresh layoffs. And that doesn’t measure the hits endured by freelancers as outlets’ budgets dried up.
That’s a lot of journalism not getting done, investigations not conducted and important stories left untold. Los Angeles litterateur David Kipen has been pushing one possible solution. He envisions a new version of the Federal Writers’ Project, the Depression program that gave work to thousands of writers, historians, librarians and others whose skills fell outside the scope of the New Deal’s public works projects.
Kipen raised the notion in an article for The Times more than a year ago, which caught the interest of U.S. Reps. Ted Lieu of California and Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, who have introduced the 21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act to allocate $60 million in grants through the Department of Labor to colleges, nonprofit organizations, news outlets and unions with experience in journalism and report writing to chronicle the impacts of the pandemic.
It’s a bold proposal that is worth serious consideration. The immediate benefit would provide some work and relief to journalists and creative writers still trying to eke out a living in this fractured business landscape.
The public would benefit from their output, as well. The original Federal Writers’ Project produced more than 1,000 reports and books across a range of subjects, led by the American Guide Series with such titles as “California: A Guide to the Golden State” (1939). It also sent interviewers to sit down with thousands of people to record their personal stories and folklore, a project that also collected the oral histories of formerly enslaved Americans.
The current proposal calls for using the new Federal Writers’ Project to hire “individuals who are unemployed or underemployed in order to document in writing and images American society and the broad impacts and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.” There are countless stories to tell, a panoply of experiences during the pandemic and as the nation continues to recover. The bill before Congress requires the chronicle of this dark age to be archived at the Library of Congress and made publicly available.
The COVID-19 pandemic will resonate far into the future as families deal with crushing losses, as survivors struggle to regain full health, as communities stage their revivals and build their futures. Our national repository would not be complete without a chronicle of it all.
This editorial first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Friday. This commentary should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.
