News and brews: How beer can save local journalism

Trivia night at a Maine brewery offers a glimpse of how beer can save local journalism.

While brewery hopping during our Maine vacation in October, we stopped long enough to participate in Maine Public’s “News & Brews” trivia night at Rising Tide Brewing Co. in Portland.

Our team (my sister, brother-in-law, Sara and I) finished third, earning us bragging rights and American-made Maine Public pom hats from the broadcast news organization.

But there’s a far greater prize awaiting at the confluence of hops and headlines: beer could save local journalism.

‘Promulgate ideas’

It’s a notion that I, as a former newspaper reporter and ardent beer consumer, have kicked around for some time. But we’re way past the deadline for doing something.

Given the cesspool of disinformation that is social media and the news deserts caused by the decline of daily and weekly newspapers, we need innovative new business models to support and sustain local journalism.

I haven’t worked in a newsroom for more than 20 years, but the nearly decade I was a reporter continues to inform much of the work I do, whether as a public relations professional or storytelling via Stay Apparel Co. Writing this blog is only one of the most obvious examples.

I believe we need to make more products in the USA, which is Stay’s raison d’etre, for the sake of American workers, American communities and American unity. Likewise, rebuilding our news-reporting infrastructure is essential to our country’s future.

Since 2005, according to Northwestern University, the United States has lost one-fourth of its newspapers, a figure that could reach one-third by 2025. More than 360 newspapers closed just between late 2019 and May 2022.

And with those closings have come declines in civic engagement and increases in government waste and political polarization.

Our democracy needs independent local journalism more than ever. So rather than playing taps for the news industry, how about pulling beer taps to revive it instead?

Beer, America’s most popular alcohol beverage, is at its best when it brings people together as a community as in a beer garden. The news business, in its purest form, is a lot like that, too, informing and educating the public and encouraging a healthy exchange of ideas.

These are concepts that pre-date the American Revolution, as noted in warontherocks.com:

“In taverns across the colonies, literate patriots drank and read the news of the day aloud to their fellow revelers, thereby stoking revolutionary fervor. The network of taverns not only provided travelers with a place to rest and enjoy a beverage, but also a place to bring news from other colonies, and promulgate ideas from the likes of Thomas Paine, James Chalmers, and Thomas Jefferson.”

Brewing’s renaissance

We need a newspaper revolution.

Revenue challenges aside, too much of what’s left of local journalism has lost touch with the people and communities it is intended to serve. Media conglomerates have gutted newsroom budgets, resulting in less and lower-quality local news.

Local newspapers are no longer even a part of most people’s lives. But if you think that no news is good news, think again. What you don’t know can hurt you as a taxpayer.

From a 2018 story in the Columbia Journalism Review:

County government employee wages (as a percentage of all wages in that county) increase, as does the number of government employees as a percentage of all county employees. (That is, more tax dollars flow to government positions after a newspaper ceases to monitor governmental activities.) Costly financial transactions by local governments, including negotiated municipal bond sales and advance refundings of callable municipal bonds, also appear more likely.

It doesn’t have to be this way, as evidenced by the resurgence in American brewing. Consider that in 1983, there were just 80 breweries in the United States, what beerhistory.com calls the “low-water mark” in the 20th century.

Brewing rebirth

Local journalism can take inspiration from brewing’s comeback, from fewer than 100 breweries in the 1980s to more than 9,000 now.

But by 2021, there were more than 9,000 breweries, nearly double the number in 2015, most of them giving back to their communities in one way or another. In Portland, Ore., Ex Novo Brewing donates 100 percent of net profits “to organizations building a better world.”

A 2018 New York Times article noted: “Across the country, in once-bustling manufacturing centers, breweries are giving new fizz to sleepy commercial districts. If alcohol-based businesses were blamed for a breakdown of society in the Prohibition era and beyond, breweries are now being seen as a force for good.”

Surely there’s an opportunity for at least one brewery to operate in support of a local news organization: the sale of lagers and IPAs underwriting the cost of having a talented team of reporters and editors who craft thoughtful stories of real significance to people’s lives.

And what if those reporters and editors worked in offices overlooking the brewery’s taproom, making the newspaper a part of the public’s everyday life again and giving the newspaper staff ready access to the civic mood.

The newsroom could facilitate more shared experiences within the taproom, from local history lectures and author appearances to live music (think NPR’s “Tiny Desk” series) and story telling. Would you be more likely to attend a meet-the-candidates forum if you could enjoy a cold beer at the same time?

The taproom, its decor a celebration of local history, could be a comfortable place to enjoy a bite and a brew, to get to know neighbors or quietly read the newspaper. Or customers could purchase beer to go, can graphics depicting important local people, places and things of yore.

Like any good brewery, this one could offer a retail store. But in addition to cool tees and hats (all made in the USA, of course), it could sell other products that complement its mission of telling local stories, such as photos and books.

The news team could host trivia nights, too. Competition would be keen, of course, a benefit of how much better informed the community is thanks to its vibrant local newspaper.