The crisis of local news deepens as 'news deserts' spread
The decline of local newspapers left growing numbers of communities without dedicated coverage, with worrying consequences.
The crisis of local news deepened this year as the long decline of local newspapers left growing numbers of American communities without dedicated coverage, creating what researchers call news deserts and raising worrying questions about the consequences for civic life and democratic accountability.
For more than a decade, local newspapers had been battered by the collapse of their traditional business model, as advertising revenue, long the lifeblood of the industry, migrated to digital platforms, and as readers increasingly turned to the internet for news, leaving many papers unable to sustain their operations.
The result had been a wave of closures, mergers and deep cuts, as thousands of newspapers folded or shrank dramatically, newsrooms were gutted, and the number of working journalists fell sharply. Many surviving papers became shadows of their former selves, with little capacity for original reporting.
The spread of news deserts, communities left without a local newspaper or with only minimal coverage, carried significant implications. Research suggested that the loss of local news was associated with reduced civic engagement, diminished government accountability and the spread of misinformation to fill the void.
Local newspapers had traditionally performed essential functions, covering local government, schools, courts and community life, scrutinising local institutions and providing a shared source of information that bound communities together. Their disappearance left those functions unfulfilled.
Various efforts emerged to address the crisis, including nonprofit news organisations, philanthropic funding, new digital models and proposals for public support, but the scale of the challenge was daunting. The decline of local news stood as one of the most consequential developments in the recent history of the American press, a slow-motion crisis with profound implications for the health of communities and of democracy itself, and a central concern for all who valued the role of journalism in civic life.