Report Shows Local News Deserts Expanding

The number of local news deserts expanded in the U.S. this year with 127 newspapers shuttering, leaving nearly 55 million Americans with limited to no access to local news, according to the Medill State of Local News Report 2024 released this week.

Medill researchers also discovered some reasons for optimism in their annual study of local news outlets: There’s been a net increase of more than 80 stand-alone local digital news sites in the past year.

For the third consecutive year, the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, conducted a nationwide, county-by-county study of local news outlets to help quantify trends in the fast-changing local media landscape.

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This year’s report is the most comprehensive undertaken by Medill, with the research including the growing number of national network news sites providing local coverage. The Medill database includes newspapers, digital-only local sites, ethnic media and public radio stations providing original local reporting.

Key findings from the Medill study:

• The nation has lost more than one-third of its newspapers since 2005. With 127 newspapers closing in the past 12 months — nearly two and a half per week — the U.S. has now seen a decline of 3,300 since 2005 as of September. The pace of newspaper closures did not slow appreciably in the past year.
• As a result of those losses, the number of news desert counties rose to 208 this year from 204 in 2023. News deserts are counties without any locally based source of local news. In addition, the number of counties with only one news source rose to 1,563. Taken together, those counties include nearly 55 million people with limited or no access to local news. More than half of the nation’s 3,143 counties have little to no local news.
• More than 7,000 newspaper jobs vanished between 2022 and 2023, compared to a few hundred the year before.
• The number of newspaper mergers and acquisitions skyrocketed 43% this year, with 258 papers changing hands in 75 transactions. Smaller and newer chains, including Carpenter Media Group, are leading the acquisition surge.
• Using predictive modeling developed by the school’s Spiegel Research Center, the Medill team substantially increased the number of counties on its “Watch List” — those at high risk of losing local news — to 279 from 228 last year. That’s a 22% percent rise.
• For the first time, Medill tallied the growing number of national networks providing original local reporting. Researchers counted 740 network digital sites, but none of them are covering previous news desert counties.
• There’s been a net increase of 81 stand-alone local digital news sites, the biggest one-year gain in recent years. About one-third of them are less than five years old. That gain, however, includes 30 newspapers that converted from print to digital. Nearly 90% of them are in metro areas, not in hard-hit rural counties.
• For the second consecutive year, Medill mapped every local news startup in the U.S. And the Medill Local News Initiative identified 12 “Bright Spots” news outlets that are showing promise after receiving more than 60 nominations for that designation. The Bright Spots map was developed with support from Microsoft.

“This research shows that the crisis in local news is deepening, and fewer Americans have access to news they need about their communities to be informed citizens,” said Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative and John M. Mutz Chair in Local News. “At the same, this report includes glimmers of hope in the growing number of local digital news sites across the country.”