1,300 communities across the US don’t have local news coverage
About 1,300 communities across the US no longer have local news coverage, according to a new report from the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism. The study found that about 20 percent of all metro and community newspapers in the United States have merged together or gone out of business since 2004. Many more local news papers have scaled back coverage so much that they’ve become what the researchers call “ghost newspapers.”
“The stakes are high,” the report says. “Our sense of community and our trust in democracy at all levels suffer when journalism is lost or diminished. In an age of fake news and divisive politics, the fate of communities across the country — and of grassroots democracy itself — is linked to the vitality of local journalism.”
The report underscores the importance of media diversity and localism -- and highlights the risks of further media consolidation. Read the full report here.
Links:
About 1,300 U.S. communities have totally lost news coverage, UNC news desert study finds (Poynter, Oct. 15, 2018)
The Loss of Local News: What It Means for Communities (UNC’s School of Media and Journalism, Oct. 2018)
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