Report: A Third of U-S Newspapers As Of 2005 Will Be Gone By 2024

The decline of local newspapers accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that analysts now believe the U.S. will have lost one-third of the newspapers it had as of 2005 by the end of next year — rather than in 2025, as originally predicted, sccording to Sara Fisher at Axios.

Why it matters: Most communities that lose a local newspaper in America usually do not get a replacement, even online.

By the numbers: There are roughly 6,000 newspapers left in America, down from 8,891 in 2005, according to a new report from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

"We're almost at a one-third loss now and we'll certainly hit that pace next year," said the report's co-authors — Penelope Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Medill, and Sarah Stonbely, director of Medill's State of Local News Project.

Of the papers that still survive, a majority (4,790) publish weekly, not daily.

What's happening: Over the past two years, newspapers continued to vanish at an average rate of more than two per week, leaving 204 U.S. counties, or 6.4%, without any local news outlet.

Roughly half of all U.S. counties (1,562) are now only served with one remaining local news source — typically a weekly newspaper.

Abernathy and Stonbely estimate that 228 of those 1,562 counties, or roughly 7% of all U.S. counties, are at high risk of losing their last remaining local news outlet.

The intrigue: Hedge funds that bought up big chunks of the newspaper industry in recent decades have pulled back.

Those companies bought hundreds of newspapers seeking to squeeze extra profits from them at the margins as they declined.

But several industry shifts in the past year, including a dramatic advertising slowdown, have forced the funds to dump papers quicker than they expected.

The bottom line: The divide between those with access to quality local news and those who don't is growing in America.

The authors of the report argue that dynamic "poses a far-reaching crisis for our democracy as it simultaneously struggles with political polarization, a lack of civic engagement and the proliferation of misinformation and information online."