Lost Storytellers: The Information Apocalypse in the Modern Newsroom

Community journalism in the era of clickbait

An incisive and firsthand
look at the landscape of community news today, Lost Storytellers argues that the decline of local journalism
threatens the future of democracy. Award-winning photojournalist John
Pendygraft asks: How did Americans lose trust in the media, and how can their
local newsrooms earn it back?

Pendygraft uses his own experiences at Florida's largest
newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, to
illustrate why trusted local reporting matters more than ever in the era of
"fake news," clickbait, conspiracy theories, and social media. Through
interviews with his colleagues, the history of his own paper, journeys into the
evolutionary psychology of storytelling, and examples of the ways
multinational media conglomerates hook readers on news cycles of chaos and
crisis, Pendygraft argues that community journalists can reclaim their roles as
local storytellers--and that the public good demands that they try. Lost Storytellers offers insights for
all who feel confused about the media, politics, and the well-being of their
communities in the information age.