Some Good Local Media

Local journalists are often better than DC or "national" journalists

Author

mister mix
December 18, 2025

I’m writing this on Wednesday evening because we’re traveling tomorrow. I’m aware that Trump is probably going to declare war on Venezuela tonight, or he might just go on an unhinged racist rant about Ilhan Omar and Somali refugees, who knows. Maybe Kay or Joe will write something about that.

Following up on Joe’s post from yesterday, and my post, too, I wanted to highlight some more good local journalism. First, Kyle Clark at Denver’s channel 9 is a great journalist, and he has a news show called Next. Here’s a snippet of his piece on Trump’s attempt to pardon election subverter and former Mesa County, Colorado clerk Tina Peters.

NEW: Tina Peters is rejecting a J6er's call to storm a Colorado prison and free her. Peters is distancing herself from the jailbreak scheme and violent actions after allies and her attorney talked about using force or violence to free her and punish those keeping her in prison.

— Kyle Clark (@kylec.bsky.social)2025-12-17T03:33:52.085Z

Peters’ lawyer and others are calling for the violent removal of Peters from the prison where she’s housed in Colorado, though Peters herself isn’t. Of course, Peters, who is 70 years old and a year into a nine-year sentence for her crimes, doesn’t want to screw up her possible parole.

Clark, unlike a lot of reporters, is willing to get down in the muck with shitty MAGAts, and the quotes in that clip are disgusting and chilling. Steve Bannon asks Peters’ lawyer why Trump shouldn’t send the 101st Airborne to a Colorado prison and free Peters, and others are talking about massive violence. Here’s the whole show if you’re interested.

Clark will probably be out of a job and his show cancelled when Nexstar finally takes over Channel 9, which they acquired a couple of months ago.

When I was writing a blog on the election in New York’s 29th Congressional District almost 20 years ago (!), I grew to respect local TV journalists. At that time, the hollowing out of print media was happening, but TV was still pretty well financed, and TV websites don’t have paywalls. Rochester reporters like Rachel Barnhart and Evan Dawson did excellent work. TV is still limping along, but the combination of declining ad revenue and acquisitions by conservative media companies is going to silence the good reporters and turn TV stations into propaganda outlets.

Another source of decent journalism is alt weeklies, which are also on the skids. Phoenix New Times was first with the story of how Kyrsten Sinema’s lobbying for an AI data center in Chandler (outside Phoenix) was a big factor in the opposition that ultimately caused the city council to vote to kill it:

More than three dozen members of the public spoke forcefully against giving New York-based Active Infrastructure the green light, with just two speakers in support of the project. Several speakers either name-checked Sinema or made reference to her support of the development. One Chandler resident identified himself as a tech worker and mentioned a litany of issues surrounding data centers — the lack of jobs they produce, the massive amounts of energy and water they consume and the speculative nature of the industry. 

“Will you follow Kyrsten Sinema, who sold herself to push for this plan, or will you do the right thing and choose us – the people in this room?” he asked. “You only have two options, big business and the billionaires, or the working class.”

Another resident noted the unsettled issue of how much water the project would utilize and the “dangers of an AI bubble” bursting, leaving Chandler to hold the bag. “I know you have weathered lobbying from AI industries and senators looking for a second act,” he said, “but I ask you to not look at them today, but to turn to us and see the popular mandate behind you.”

After the vote, as attendees eased out into the chilly night, several told New Times that they had been unaware of the proposed data center until they saw footage of Sinema’s appearance before the council in October. A mustachioed gentleman declined to give his name but told New Times that Sinema’s involvement had “created more outrage” and “drew more people in opposition” to the data center.

Alt weeklies are closing left and right, but the ones that are surviving are still doing good local journalism. I had forgotten where I found this story, so I googled it, and I saw that the big Hill outlets (Axios, Politico, etc.) had stories dated a couple of days ago, when the vote happened on December 12. Also, this sign shows how hated Sinema is in Arizona:

Hand in glove, the sun shines out of her behind

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