A perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes, and a shriveled local media ecosystem. Heather and Emily are joined by Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan and Texas Tribune founder John Thornton to unpack the tricky problem of how to save local news from bankruptcy and bias.

Reading list:

• Not Necessarily the News — A 2005 GQ article on Sinclair’s news takeover.
• Big Media Companies and their Many Brands—In One Chart — A 2016 NPR visualization on media consolidation. Right now, the vast majority of media brands are owned by the “Big 6:” National Amusements (aka Viacom), Disney, TimeWarner, Comcast, News Corp, and Sony.
• America’s Growing News Deserts — An recent interactive from the Columbia Journalism Review.

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