Literature Review: The Origins of America’s Local News Crisis
These five key issues highlight why local news is struggling
This is the second part in a series of work-in-progress articles outlining the background to the local news crisis in the United States and what can be done about it. This analysis will continue to be developed, added to, and refined, prior to publication of a more comprehensive report on this topic later in the year.
In the first part, we looked at local news in the USA through the lens of some of the main media policy issues. Here we take a step back and remind readers why media policy interventions may be needed.
Introduction
Despite its importance to community life and the wider media ecosystem, local journalism in the United States is on life support (Sullivan, 2021). The same dynamic can be seen in many other countries around the world, provoking concern among politicians, policymakers, researchers and communities alike (Cairncross, 2019; Scottish Government, 2021, Nielsen, R. K. (Ed.). (2015).
In the United States, the most obvious demonstration of the local journalism crisis (Hendrickson, C. 2019) is manifest in the finding that a quarter of all U.S. newspapers have shuttered in the past 15 years. By 2020 at least 1,800 communities that had a local news outlet in 2004 had become “news deserts,” areas bereft of local news and information from trusted journalistic sources (Abernathy 2020).
Of course, newspapers are not the only sources of local news, and this news and information crisis extends beyond this medium. However, newspapers remain the primary source of original local reporting in the USA (Napoli & Mahone 2019). Their absence — and the diminishment of local journalism in general — can lead to misinformation, as well as the emergence and growth of hyperpartisan websites (Bengani 2019, Mahone & Napoli 2020). There’s also a greater risk of news outlets focusing on clickbait (Harte 2021), and market-driven content. That is to say, content that is “controlled and guided by commercial considerations” (Collins Dictionary 2023). In turn, this can lead to a subsequent decline in public interest journalism; reporting that may not be commercial, but instead is focused on the needs and interests of citizens. Journalism that serves the public good (Iggers 2018).
One direct consequence of the weakened capacity for local reporting can be seen in a reduction in accountability and watchdog reporting, as areas such as City Hall and School Boards go underreported (Klas 2019). Commenting on a report by PEN America, Julie Bosman (2019) at The New York Times notes that “cutbacks in local newsrooms have left communities in the dark and have failed to keep public and corporate officials accountable.”
Moreover, as Penelope Muse Abernathy (quoted in Karter 2022) a visiting professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism explains,
“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.”
To help counter this, we have seen a range of potential remedies put forward and discussions about many more (LA Times Editorial Board 2020, Burns 2022, Waldman 2023). These efforts include interventions from Foundations and Associations (Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund, etc.) and State Governments (such as California, North Carolina and New Jersey), designed to help sustain local news by supporting major incumbent media operators, more niche outlets targeting specific groups such as ethnic communities, and new entrants (Armour-Jones 2019, Usher 2021, Konieczna 2022). Tech players such as Meta/Facebook and Google, have also provided funding for news, including local journalism.
Meanwhile, policymakers in Washington D.C. have also discussed the potential for national measures to help fund and sustain local news. Not long ago, such proposals would have been unthinkable (Kennedy 2021).
These efforts are welcome. But arguably more needs to be done. Without intervention, including financial support, the direction of travel is clear. More needs to be done if we are to arrest this decline and ensure that communities across the United States have access to the news and information they need (Radcliffe and Mathews, 2023).
“Ultimately, we face a stark choice,” argues Victor Pickard (2021) an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.
“Either we make public investments in journalism, or we accept a future in which entire regions and communities lack local news media. If we hope for any semblance of democracy, the correct path forward should be obvious.”
However, despite these clarion calls, the possibility of federal funding is retreating (Walters 2022). As a result, future interventions will most likely be at a state (Stonbely et al 2020) and philanthropic level (Creech & Parks 2022). States such as Oregon, Colorado and New York are among those currently exploring these possibilities. (For more on media policies being explored around the country, see the first part of this series.)
The State We Are In and Why Intervention Is Needed
In this section, we examine some of the key data pertaining to the local media ecosystem and media markets in the USA. These findings are an integral part of the equation that helps us to understand why foundations, funders and policymakers are exploring ways to support local journalism.
To do that, we touch on a number of structural dynamics including the closure of titles, job losses, issues of diversity and inclusion, as well as news and information deficits. Understanding these topics is important, as they provide the context — and evidence base — for potential interventions designed to strengthen local news and local journalism.
They also highlight emerging problems and longstanding concerns. Collectively, they highlight where more needs (or will need) to be done. In future articles, we will explore how we got here and some of the potential solutions that can be deployed to address these challenges.
Issue 1 - Closures
Although we have seen the emergence of new players and forms of local journalism, such as online hyperlocal news (Radcliffe 2012), the overarching narrative of the past 10–15 years is that journalism — and in particular local journalism — is a sector in freefall.
“If I needed to grade the US news media…” wrote media historian Robert W. McChesney back in 2012, “the best I could do is a D minus, and that is only because, being a magnanimous soul, I have instituted a generous curve.”
Despite initiatives such as Axios Local and the work done by members of organizations such as LION Publishers (local independent news publishers) and the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), these efforts cannot disguise the US-wide reality of a sector hard-hit by the closure of titles, reduced coverage and major job losses.
Penny Muse Abernathy, who has done much to track the state of local news, and in particular newspapers, reveals that since 2005, more than a quarter (2,500) of all U.S. newspapers have disappeared (Abernathy 2022). They continue to close at an average of two a week.
In an earlier study, Abernathy (2020) highlighted [see chart] how around 1,300 to 1,400 communities that had their own weekly or daily newspapers in 2004 now had no news coverage.
“No state has been spared the death of a newspaper,” she wrote.
Issue 2 — Ghosts in the Shell
Many remaining local newspapers tend to operate with fewer staff and produce less original reporting.
Too often the titles that have survived are a shadow of their former selves (Fu 2023). This can be seen (O’Connell 2019) in terms of thinner papers (with fewer pages), reductions in terms of frequency of publishing, increased usage of wire copy, press releases and materials produced outside of its coverage area. Others barely feature any news, giving rise to the term “ghost newspapers” (Lunzer 2018).
This waning of resources can be seen at the St. Cloud Times, in Minnesota. “Only two reporters remain to cover news and events in the central region in Minnesota of about 200,000 residents,” notes the Star Tribune’s John Reinan (2022). “In its prime, the paper had 40 to 50 people in its newsroom covering three counties and beyond, regularly winning state and even national journalism awards.”
Issue 3 — Job losses
It can be hard to measure how many jobs have been lost in local newsrooms. This information is not readily available due to the consolidated nature of most data. Nevertheless, we know that between 2008 and 2020, total newsroom employment fell in the United States by 26% (Walker 2021).
This finding, published by the Pew Research Center using numbers from the Bureau of Labor, covers all media platforms. Nevertheless, this aggregated figure will inevitably — given Abernathy’s findings — include thousands of local journalists, including at local newspapers.
After all, Pew notes, many of these job losses were in newspapers, the medium most impacted during this period. That includes national, regional and local titles.
“Newspaper newsroom employment fell 57% between 2008 and 2020, from roughly 71,000 jobs to about 31,000,” they observe.
Put another way, in 2008 newspapers were home to 62% of all U.S. newsroom employees. By 2020, they accounted for 36% of these positions.
Some of the job losses witnessed in newspapers have been offset by the emergence of new digital players. Many of these organizations — outlets such as Honolulu Civil Beat, LAist, The 19th, and Borderless Magazine — are doing great, award-winning, work. Typically, they are doing this with a fraction of the resources that legacy print publications used to enjoy.
As a result, for all of the great work many of these digital outlets are doing, the data makes it clear that their emergence does not counterbalance the losses that have been seen across the newspaper industry. As Pew observes, “the number of digital-native newsroom employees rose 144%, from 7,400 workers in 2008 to about 18,000 in 2020.”
Collectively, by 2020, there were around 30,000 fewer people employed in newsrooms across the United States, compared to 2008. Most of these losses have been at large legacy publications. Predominantly newspapers. Those affected include recent Pulitzer-winners like The Denver Post (Wenzel, 2018) and other large metro and regional state papers (Abernathy, 2018).
Aside from the loss of labor, these changes matter because research shows that most local news reporting happens at newspapers. In the local space, “the issue… is one of quantity,” Napoli and Mahone (2019) note. “Online-only outlets continue to produce a fraction of the journalistic output of their print counterparts.”
Of course, the volume of content is not a proxy for quality or impact, nonetheless as Napoli and Mahone reflect, “as policymakers and philanthropic organizations concerned about local journalism consider their next steps, and where to invest their efforts and resources, it may be worth keeping these numbers in mind.”
This downward spiral of cuts — especially in local newspapers — remains a trend that shows no sign of abating (Benton, 2023). The early days of the COVID crisis sparked a further spate of layoffs. Data collected by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism shows (Miller 2021) that 6,154 workers in editorial and noneditorial were laid off in American newsrooms between March 2020 and August 2021 as a result of the pandemic.
More recently, analysis from Press Gazette (Maher 2023) revealed that in Q1 2023 there were at least 3,340 job cuts reported or announced at publishers in the UK, US and Canada, driven by a range of factors including declining advertising revenues, as well as rising energy and paper costs.
Issue 4 — Consolidation and reduced media plurality
Alongside fewer news outlets and fewer jobs, a further characteristic of the contemporary US local news landscape is the reduction in media plurality. This manifests itself in two distinct ways: the first is in consolidation and the reduced number of media owners, and the second is access to a range of voices, stories, opinions and issues. We will explore some of the consequences of these developments later in this chapter.
In 1983, 50 companies owned 90% of all U.S. media (Bagdikian, 1983). Following the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the reduction of regulations on cross-ownership that this permitted, by 2012 six companies — Viacom, News Corporation, Comcast, CBS, Time Warner and Disney — owned 90% of U.S. media (Lutz 2012). (Although, that was up, by one, from 2004 when Bagdikian published “The New Media Monopoly,” the last of seven revised editions.)
The trend of consolidation and the concentration of our screen time to channels owned by a small number of media and tech conglomerates has only continued (Rani Molla and Peter Kafka, 2021 and 2022).
This consolidation can also be seen at a local level and across all platforms.
“Half of the nation’s counties — 1,540 — have only one newspaper,” notes Penny Abernathy (2020).
“Additionally, two-thirds — 2,000 — no longer have a daily newspaper, which means residents in those counties typically turn to social media or regional television stations in distant cities for daily news…”
And, in turn, those TV and radio stations, are increasingly moving towards consolidation (Fischer 2018).
In 2004, 179 local TV stations were owned or operated by five companies: Sinclair, Nexstar, Gray, Tegna and Tribune –full-power stations (Matsa 2017). By 2014 that number had grown to 378 and to 443 in 2016.
As with newspapers, studies suggest that consolidation leads to more syndicated content (Blankenship and Vargo, 2021) and a greater focus on national — rather than local — politics (Martin and McCrain 2019).
“Media consolidation is therefore not neutral with respect to the content of news coverage,” Martin and McCrain contend (2019b).
“Consolidation changes the incentives of news providers, shifting coverage towards topics that can be distributed in multiple markets rather than those — such as local politics — that are market-specific.”
Issue 5— Lack of Diversity
A vibrant local media sector should be representative — demographically and culturally — of the communities being covered (Radcliffe 2018). That’s seldom the case. Research has consistently shown that the industry is out of step with the rest of society.
A 2002 study found that journalists are much more likely to be college graduates than the rest of the population. At that time, 89.3 percent of full-time journalists working for traditional news media in the United States had a degree. This compared with 25.6 percent of the overall population (Mitchell 2003).
Jump forward to 2013 and that figure stood at nearly 92 percent (Indiana University Bloomington, 2014). The same survey also highlighted that only 7.1 percent of journalists identified with the Republican Party. This contrasted with 28.1 percent identifying with the Democratic Party, while about half of all journalists (50.2 percent) said they were political independents (up about 18 percentage points from 2002).
Similarly, the sector is also out of step when looking at other indices too. In 2003, the number of female journalists in newsrooms — a third of the workforce — had not changed since 1982. Fifteen years later, responses to the 2018 American Society of News Editors Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey showed that figure stood at just under 42 percent (News Leaders Association 2018).
The same survey found that people of color represented 22.6 percent of employees reported by the study’s sample, up from 16.5 percent in 2017. However, responses are not drawn from a random sample, so these trends have to be treated with caution. In fact, the difficulty with getting newsrooms to respond to the survey has led to it being put on seemingly indefinite hold (Scire 2022).
Yet, some research (Radcliffe and Wallace 2021) suggests that those working in newsrooms believe they are doing a good job — across multiple diversity indices — in terms of coverage and the make-up of their newsrooms.
Not everyone agrees (Ho, 2017; Williamson, 2020) particularly young journalists (Finneman et al, 2021) and the industry more widely when it comes to issues such as racial and ethnic diversity (Gottfried et al, 2022). There’s precious little data on journalists with disabilities (Luterman, 2021).
These are just five of the big structural issues that the U.S. media industry is contending with. Many of these issues are especially pronounced at a local level. The consequences of this — and an unpacking of how we got here — are the areas that we will turn to next.
About the Author
Damian Radcliffe is a journalist, researcher, and professor based at the University of Oregon, where he is the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism, a Professor of Practice, an affiliate faculty member of the Department for Middle East and North Africa Studies (MENA) and the Agora Journalism Center, and a Research Associate of the Center for Science Communication Research (SCR). Follow him on X/Twitter @Damian Radcliffe
This research is part of a wider project, supported by the Agora Journalism Center, looking at policy and funding possibilities to help rebuild — and develop a more robust, diverse and inclusive — local news system — in the United States.
