Environmental Experts Discuss Viable Options for Reversing Desert Expansion
I’ve always considered myself to be an optimist, a glass-is-half-full kind of guy. Yet in my role overseeing the Medill State of Local News Project for the past three years, I’ve had to suppress my inner sunniness when describing our research findings. If he were still alive, former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew would surely call me a “nattering nabob of negativism.”
This year, however, is different.
For sure, the new 2024 Medill State of Local News Report released Wednesday (Oct. 23) is sobering. The local news crisis is worsening. Newspapers are closing at an alarming rate, spawning new news deserts. Job losses last year were staggering. Nearly 54 million Americans have little to no access to local news. Grim stuff.
Yet even as arid news deserts expand, this new Medill report includes some green shoots. For the first time since we began tracking these statistics, we’re seeing a significant net increase in the number of standalone local digital news sites. It’s too early to call this a trend, but it’s certainly a welcome sight.
In our excavation of the local news landscape, Medill researchers hit a nugget that an optimist can seize.
Does this mean a historic, print-to-digital transformation is beginning to take hold? Or is it a statistical mirage? We need another couple of years to say for sure.
But here’s what I can say are my five key takeaways from our voluminous new report on the health of the local news industry.
The collapse of local newspapers is showing no sign of slowing. The nation lost 127 newspapers — nearly 2.5 per week — in the year ended Sept. 30. That’s the same pace as the previous year. The U.S. has lost more than one-third of its newspapers, about 3,300, since 2005.
News deserts are likely to grow in the next few years. The Medill “Watch List,” a predictive model developed by data scientists and journalism faculty, has 279 counties at high risk of becoming news deserts. That’s up 22% from last year. This gloomy forecast reflects the growing number of one-news-source counties, now 1,563, teetering on the brink.
The local news ownership landscape is shifting. There were 258 newspaper transactions in the past year, up a skyrocketing 43% from 2023. The big chains like Gannett and Lee are divesting, while the smaller and medium-sized chains like Carpenter and Paxton are getting bigger. Could this be the beginning of a reordering of who owns local news organizations, or is just a shuffling of the chairs?
After remaining basically flat in recent years, there’s been a major net increase of standalone digital local news sites in the past year, 81 in total. Thirty of the sites are print newspapers that converted. Still, even a net gain of 51 local news sites is significant. The majority of these are nonprofits. And we’re now tracking 258 local news startups in the past five years, an encouraging sign.
The gulf between those with local news and those without is widening. More than 90% of the local news startups in the past year were launched in metro regions, not hard-hit rural areas. And there are 740 national network sites producing local news, but those are highly concentrated in cities and the suburbs. The local news crisis in rural areas is acute, and there’s no apparent solution.
One other important note: It’s not just startups providing cause for optimism, it’s also some legacy news organizations.
Medill put out a call earlier this year for nominations for its local news “Bright Spots” designation. In reviewing those nominations, we were inspired by the entrepreneurship that we saw in experimentations with new models. We profile 12 of them in our “Bright Spots” feature in our new report.
In addition to some outstanding newer local news outlets, we highlighted three legacy local news organizations that are growing and innovating. They include Georges Media in Louisiana (led by LMA board member Judi Terzotis), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Salt Lake Tribune.
I hope you’ll check out these news organizations – and our report.
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Tim Franklin is the senior associate dean and director of the Local News Initiative at the Medill School at Northwestern University. He’s also the John M. Mutz Chair in Local News. He’s a member of the Local Media Foundation board of directors.
#GreenDeserts #ClimateAction #SustainableFuture
