In another life, I worked in local radio.
I was the afternoon drive-time all-news anchor and reporter on a news/talk radio station in Brunswick, Maine (one of several jobs I had in my radio days). I also provided top of the hour newscasts for our FM, which played country music. This was the kind of place where someone coming out of college with a broadcast journalism degree could break in, make the mistakes all beginners make, learn a lot, and, with a little luck, move on up the career ladder.
We also provided a service to the community, providing information about the activities of local city and town councils, school boards, planning boards and the relationship of national and state stories to the local area.
For the most part, this kind of radio station no longer exists, a victim of deregulation that both removed the requirement that stations actually operate "in the public interest" and removed most limits on ownership of multiple stations, resulting in national chains owning hundreds of stations, many in the same community, with no obligation except to be as profitable as possible.
The result is a dearth of local news operations or even local announcers. It's cheaper to satellite in a national talk or music show than pay someone locally to provide the same entertainment. Even programs that sound "local" are often computer driven with "voice tracks" provided by a "disc jockey" working out of some major city recording the breaks between songs.
Where I live, in Loudoun County, Virginia, we're lucky. We still have a locally owned and operated station which believes local news is something worth doing. But the number of stations like WAGE is diminishing. That will continue unless we demand our government take back regulation of the "public airwaves" for the benefit of all the people. The rollback of last year's increase in national ownership is a start, but a feeble one. When I worked in Brunswick, the limit was seven AM and seven FM (and five TV) stations. This promoted local ownership of most radio and television, with a resulting devotion to the local economy and community. Stations were required to provide a certain amount of time for public interest programming, which many filled with local news.
I think the time has come for the people of the United States to take back control of their airwaves from national corporations interested only in the bottom line. We need to tell the FCC local control of local broadcast outlets is in the public interest, and nothing else is. We need to tell the FCC that if we are going to loan the public airwaves to someone to run their business, they have an obligation to the community to provide programming in the public interest, not just in their self-interest.