Report Details the Expansion of News Deserts Across the US

A new study of the local news ecosystem in the U.S., released Wednesday by the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, details the troubling expansion of news deserts across the country. The report, the fifth since 2016 and the first since the pandemic, compiled data from an analysis of more than 8,000 newspapers and digital sites. The document builds on research that Penny Muse Abernathy, its principal author and a visiting professor at Medill, began documenting in 2004. According to the analysis, the country is losing roughly two newspapers every week, and more than 360 publications across the country have closed between late 2019 and May 2022. Since 2005, the country has lost more than 25% of its newspapers and is on pace to lose 33% by 2025. As a result, more than 20% of Americans––70 million people––now live in news deserts or in communities at risk of becoming news deserts, the report found. Axios Local Tops 1 Million Email Subscribers as it Eyes Its 24th City The ramifications of these closures extend beyond the commercial into the civic: When newspapers shutter, they leave the communities they once served without access to a reliable source of information. This absence can lead to declines in voter participation and increases in corruption, according to Abernathy. “This is a crisis for our democracy and our society,” Abernathy wrote in a statement. “Invariably, the economically struggling, traditionally underserved communities that need local journalism the most are the very places where it is most difficult to sustain print or digital news organizations.” While no one model has yet proven a sure bet, the decline of local legacy news has created a vacuum that a number of enterprising publishers have taken as a potential opportunity. Axios Local, which will reach 24 U.S. cities by July, has taken a hub-and-spoke approach to the issues. Other city-specific solutions, like Block Club in Chicago or The Oaklandside in California, have focused on serving specific metropolitan areas. Declining advertising weakens local news and invites consolidation The report paints a sobering portrait of a news economy in decline, one starved of its financial lifeblood due to tectonic shifts in the advertising industry caused by digital transformation. Since 2005, when newspaper revenues topped $50 billion, overall newspaper employment has dropped 70% as revenues declined to $20 billion. This cratering has invited consolidation, and the largest 10 newspaper chains now own more than half of all daily publications. Four corporations in particular––Gannett, Lee, Tribune and Alden––have garnered scrutiny for their expanding footprints; after selling and shuttering 120 newspapers over the last two years, Gannett alone still owns 494 papers in 42 states. But the report raises the concern that a new suite of newspaper chains has emerged. Three of these privately owned regional chains, CherryRoad Media, Paxton Media and Ogden Newspapers, own 63, 115 and 101 newspapers, respectively. Digital-only and nonprofit outlets offer an imperfect but welcome solution The Local News Initiative offers a dose of cautious optimism. While they reach far fewer readers and tend to serve more metropolitan areas, the rise of digital-only state and local news sites offers a potential roadmap for the future of the industry. Over the past two years, the number of new digital-only state and local news sites, 64, slightly exceeded the number of such sites that went dark, the report found. In 2022, there are 545 digital-only state and local sites, most of which employ six or fewer reporters. These sites have shown a greater propensity to adopt a nonprofit model, a business structure finding sway in the industry as it mitigates the economic challenges of operating a newspaper in the digital era. Four out of 10 local sites are now nonprofit, according to the report. While the footprint of these digital outlets pales in comparison to that of its predecessor, the increasing stability of the model suggests that lean, sustainably built news organizations could help ameliorate the spread of news deserts. “It is critical to understand what is working and where there are still gaps in the flow of reliable, comprehensive and timely news and information,” wrote Tim Franklin, senior associate dean, John M. Mutz Chair in Local News and director of the Medill Local News Initiative, in a statement. “That way we can build solutions to sustain local journalism in communities that have, so far, been overlooked by entrepreneurs and potential funders.” Publishers’ Affiliate Revenues Are Flagging—These 4 Charts Show Why