Amid a wave of industry-wide economic disruption, we’ve found that local news organizations with committed, entrepreneurial owners and founders are more likely to develop sustainable new business models. And those based in more affluent communities with diverse sources of for-profit and nonprofit funding are better equipped to weather the storm and survive. This year we took our State of Local News project to the next level, using predictive modeling to identify emerging local news trends and help community leaders, policy makers, philanthropists and others take steps to prevent the collapse of their local journalism.
When communities lose their local newspapers — and a corresponding loss of journalist jobs — they also lose vital information about what’s happening in their own backyard. They lose a watchdog that holds local government accountable and they miss a forum for civil debate and discussion.
This year’s report finds that 204 counties have no local news source at all and 1,562 are served by just one remaining outlet, usually a weekly newspaper. Many of these are poorer, isolated communities with limited access to high-speed broadband that would enable them to connect to the national news ecosystem. This year’s report places 228 of those towns on a “watch list” at risk of losing their only locally produced news source.
Even in these fading local news deserts, community-focused nonprofit journalism continues to fill in the gap. This year’s report includes examples of innovative storytelling strategies, like solutions journalism and restorative narratives, as well as collaborations between smaller and larger newsrooms and with multiple reporting partners.
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