THE NEWS
Last week, the Google News Initiative launched Project Oasis, a new research initiative that seeks to equip local news startups with tools to grow a digital business. The Facebook Journalism Project also announced that it will donate a total of $1 million in grants to local newsrooms in the U.S. and Canada that are covering the coronavirus.
SO WHAT
The new support comes at a difficult moment for local news. Over the past 15 years, 2,100 newspapers have shut down in the United States, according to Penny Abernathy from the University of North Carolina. Now, the coronavirus outbreak threatens to shutter more. As the coronavirus crisis deepens in the U.S., many local news organizations, alt weeklies in particular, are struggling to stay afloat and face what one atl-weekly publisher calls “total annihilation.” Last week, over 100 employees across a range of alt-weeklies were laid off. So far, according to Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton, nine alt-weeklies have had to suspend print publication, including Oregon’s The Portland Mercury, Seattle’s The Stranger, and Massachusetts’s DigBoston. Others such as the Salt Lake City Weekly are hoping to offset losses by soliciting donations. Some publications like the Pittsburgh City Paper are launching membership programs.
Local news coverage, particularly from weekly papers, was already shrinking in the U.S. before the virus. According to Abernathy, who oversees The Expanding News Deserts project from the UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, roughly 70 dailies and more than 2,000 weeklies shut down between 2004 and 2019. This has resulted in an increase in news deserts, a term for communities with limited access to local newspapers. In fact, Abernathy’s 2018 study found that 171 counties (out of a total of 3,143 counties) did not have a local newspaper.
Local news outlets have seen an overall increase in online consumption due to the coronavirus, but many alt weeklies are still increasingly imperiled. As Benton points out, alt-weeklies are 1) generally physically distributed and 2) rely more on ad and newsstand revenue as well as events — revenue streams that were already at risk of collapsing even before COVID-19. Unlike alt-weeklies, daily newspapers might be able to cushion the impact of lost ad revenue with subscription revenue. That said, daily newspapers are facing considerable ad revenue difficulties: Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that year-over-year declines in local advertising spending could potentially amount to more than $30 billion.
In light of these waning conditions, tech companies have been pumping funds into the local news ecosystem. Google’s Project Oasis (as the name hints) emerged as a response to the UNC report on news deserts and will be a partnership between GNI, LION Publishers, the University of North Carolina’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Media, and consultant Doug Smith. Oasis will consist of a database of existing digital native local news outlets, case studies, and a “Starter Pack” for those interested in launching a local news startup. Meanwhile, along with the grant it created with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Local Media Association, the Facebook Journalism Project is also launching a separate $1 million grant in partnership with Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network to support fact-checkers verifying coronavirus content.
LOOK FOR
Whether tech companies will increase their investments in the local news space as conditions worsen. Among other local initiatives, including Oasis, the Google News Initiative partnered with McClatchy on a three-year project starting in 2019 to provide local news coverage to three, mid-sized underserved communities in the U.S.
Also, look for whether increased local news consumption will translate into more subscriptions. Gannett’s Vice President for Local News Amalie Nash reported that digital subscriptions increased 72% over the past week compared to a year earlier. Relatedly, The Boston Globe’s digital subscriptions tripled the week of March 9–16 compared to the year before.
And lastly, look for the resources Project Oasis provides to local news start-ups that are navigating this moment, if any. Though the local news ecosystem has been suffering for some time now, the coronavirus outbreak has exacerbated many of the financial strains publications were already grappling with and presents a unique set of challenges.
