Friday, July 11, 2025

Index Tracks Journalist Desert In U-S


Muck Rack, in collaboration with Rebuild Local News, has released the Local Journalist Index in July 2025, highlighting a severe decline in local journalism across the United States.

The report reveals a 75% drop in local journalists per capita since 2002, with the number falling from 40 to 8.2 per 100,000 residents. Over 1,000 counties—roughly one in three—lack even one full-time local journalist, creating "news deserts" that leave communities without coverage of critical local issues like school boards, city councils, and local businesses.

This loss spans rural, suburban, and urban areas, with no significant variation in journalist density across these regions (averaging 6-10 Local Journalist Equivalents per 100,000 people). 

For example, densely populated areas like Los Angeles and the Bronx have journalist shortages comparable to rural counties like Falls County, Texas. Only 111 counties (4% of the total) meet or exceed the national average of local journalists from a generation ago.

Key factors driving this decline 
  • Sharp national decline: In 2002, the U.S. had about 40 journalists per 100,000 residents. Today, the national average is 8.2 LJEs — a drop of about 75%.
  • High population, low coverage: Nine counties with more than 2 million residents each, including those home to Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, Dallas and Queens, are even worse off. They have about half as many local journalists as the national average. In general, an area can have several local news outlets and grossly insufficient coverage.
  • Minimal journalism here: More than a third of the counties in the U.S., home to 20.6 million Americans, have less than one LJE covering the area.
  • Fast-growing suburbs underserved: Rapidly expanding counties such as Texas’ Fort Bend County, near Houston, and Oregon’s Washington County, near Portland, lack the journalistic capacity to keep pace with their population growth.
  • Some states fare far better than others: The best-performing states have roughly three times as many local journalists per 100,000 as the worst. Topping the list is Vermont, which has seen a surge of new journalism outlets to replace those that have disappeared. The bottom of the list includes Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, where proximity to major metro media markets may be crowding out local news.
  • Only one state exceeds half of the year 2002 benchmark: Vermont, with 27.5 LJEs per 100,000 people, is the only state above half the 2002 national benchmark.
  • The averages are about the same for rural, suburban and urban areas: Counties of different population sizes all average somewhere between six and 10 LJEs per 100,000 people
The report notes that 90% of digital news readers abandon paywalled sites, exacerbating the funding crisis. Rural and underserved communities, as well as low-income and diverse areas, are disproportionately affected, losing vital oversight of local institutions.

The study used Muck Rack’s database of over 3.5 million daily articles to create a "Local Journalist Equivalent" metric, adjusting for factors like publishing frequency and freelance work. The findings underscore a broader crisis in civic engagement, with communities losing accountability and connection due to the absence of local reporting. Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack plan to update the report annually to guide investments and policy changes.

For further details, the full report is available through Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News.

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