Karin Dryhurst

Urban Echo Chambers

New York Mag has already shown itself to be a magazine that cares about the big issues--health care, Mike Bloomberg, and urban education--along with all things glitzy and foodie. But this week a city and regional magazine association named finalists for its 2010 awards and seemed pretty psyched about the coverage of unemployment and the Mexican border.

With urban reporters at the daily metros covering oh about 10 beats, it's easy to see where reporters at magazines like Texas Monthly and Los Angeles Magazine can step in even though their outlets often talk restaurants, shopping, and travel.

The same has been said about community newspapers that occupy a niche left behind by metro reporters covering an entire county rather than one city.

In this way, the breakdown of institutional journalism has resulted in a new diversity of voices in print media just as on the Internet. But just as media critics complain about the echo chambers of the Internet, niche audiences in local print media may mean echo chambers in urban communities.

The magazine association, which represents 97 city and regional magazines, commissioned a study, no doubt to entice luxury advertisers, that found subscribers had a median income of more than $145,000 and 71 percent had a college degree.

Metro dailies often fail to represent the diversity of the community, but niche media has failed to expose that diversity to different readers. And though niche media appears to be necessary to keep local coverage alive, but the worst echo chambers will be the ones separated by purchasing power.

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Posted at 3:26 PM, Mar 09, 2010 in Media
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