Justin Pot

How does one exist online, right now, without being a constant mess of anxiety? It’s what I’ve been working on lately. I’ve told you about rejecting anxiety bait and not getting your news from social media, and both of those can make a big difference. But there’s something even simpler that I think can help: focusing more on local news. 

Now, to be clear, I would never argue that there’s no point to following national news—it’s important to know what’s going on. But almost all of us aren’t paying enough attention to local issues, and that’s part of why we’re constantly freaking out. 

The stakes of the national news constantly feel existential at the moment, mostly because they are. It also feels like there’s very little you, as one person, can do about it. Local news is helpful because the stakes are generally much more tangible and you can generally do something very concrete in order to change things. 

There are reasons that we all read less local news than we used to. At one point “the news” was delivered to your house on physical pieces of paper, generally produced locally and including a mix of local and national news (called a “news paper”). Now most people get their news from the internet. In theory this could mean more local news but in practice it has meant the opposite. There are all kinds of reasons for this, from local newsrooms gutted due to disappearing advertising revenue to the tendency of social networks to flatten culture into the few news stories that go viral nationally or internationally. Overall people read less local news now than they used to. 

And that’s too bad. Anxiety about the news is rooted in a feeling of powerlessness. Local news offers an anecdote to that feeling. You, personally, can have a much bigger impact on the political direction of your city and state than you can on the direction of the country. 

Part of this is just math—fewer voters means your vote has more impact. But another part of it is the relative level of engagement. Your local city government, for example, probably doesn’t get nearly the number of phone calls or letters from residents that your senator or member of congress does, meaning any phone call you make expressing concerns is going to have a much bigger impact than calls you make to your national representative. And you have even more power than that: you can just show up. City council meetings are public. In most cities you’ll even have a chance to speak. 

This is going to take some effort on your part. First, you are going to need to find a way to stay informed, which can be difficult in our current era—there just aren’t a lot of small (or even medium) town journalists anymore. You are going to need to be pro-active. I recommend regularly checking the homepage of any local media publications regularly, or even paying for a physical subscription. You can also start following local journalists and politicians you support on social networks—it’s a great way to add some local content to your feeds. Or learn when your city or county council meetings are and what they’ll be talking about—the agenda is public and typically available online.

The specifics don’t matter. Just take steps to ensure that more of the things you’re reading, watching, and listening to on a regular basis are talking about your local community. You’ll feel better for it.