What are news deserts?

Local reporting is growing increasingly scarce across the United States, according to researchers at the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. The group’s third annual report, published Oct. 23, found that a total of 127 newspapers closed in the past year alone. More than 7,000 newspaper jobs dried up between 2022 and 2023, including nearly 2,000 positions mostly held by reporters and editors. It’s a concerning trend, since local media outlets provide readers with important information about their community’s government, schools, businesses, and daily life.

What makes a region a “news desert”? News deserts are areas with no consistent source of local reporting: The Medill initiative found that about 55 million people in the United States have no or only one source of local news. More than 200 counties have no local media options, and 1,500 have only one source. Since 2005, some 3,300 newspapers have either stopped printing or been consolidated with other papers.

What factors have contributed to the decline? Tim Franklin, Medill School’s senior associate dean who oversees the local news initiative, said many communities don’t have the audience or advertising opportunities needed to support a local newspaper. Print and digital circulation across the country has dropped by more than 60 percent in the last two decades, and some of the largest daily and weekly publications lost about 2 million readers in the last year alone, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. A 2024 Pew Research Center report found that Americans are increasingly getting their news from websites and apps instead of print or radio sources.

Which communities are most affected? Rural counties are far more likely to lose their local news outlets, according to the report. The vast majority of digital news sites researchers tracked are located in metro areas and are more heavily concentrated in high-income counties. Media geared toward ethnic minorities are also less likely to serve rural communities.

How have print publications shifted operations? More than 180 formerly daily newspapers now print fewer than three times a week. Some papers have suspended printing altogether and shifted to online-only publication. According to the report, two newspapers in Texas and Vermont stopped producing print editions due to costs and difficulties sourcing paper. In Hawaii and Arkansas, newspapers transitioned to digital-only formats following natural disasters.

What other shifts did the researchers observe? The report found a net increase of 81 stand-alone digital news sites last year, though more than 30 of those are newspapers that converted from print to digital. Researchers also expanded their database to include more than 700 sites from news networks like Patch, Axios Local, States Newsroom, and TAPinto. Such sites have grown rapidly in recent years, although they are mostly located in metropolitan areas and none cover counties designated as news deserts.

Have Americans given up on local news? Pew Research found that, despite declining trust in the media as a whole, a majority of U.S. adults say local news is at least somewhat important to their community. Respondents also said they believe local journalists are mostly in touch with their area, report accurately, and cover the most important stories.