What are news deserts?📰

Today’s newsletter is about news deserts, which are places in the U.S. where there is no source of local news.

News deserts are a growing problem, as financial challenges & technological change put pressure on the traditional business model of newspapers.

Newspapers are as American as apple pie, and they’ve been around for longer than the United States itself.

The first American newspaper, titled Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, was published in 1690.

And in the decade before the American Revolution, there were 24 weekly newspapers in the 13 Colonies.

Unfortunately, the newspaper industry has been in trouble for the last few decades.

The U.S. has lost 3,300 newspapers - more than a third of all U.S. newspapers - since 2005.

Why: As radio, television, and social media have grown in influence, people have more ways to get information about what’s happening in the world.

The rise of these mass media alternatives to newspapers has given advertisers other options.

As a result: newspapers’ main revenue source has been slowly drying up for half a century.

The big national newspapers are (mostly) fine, but the newspapers for small cities and rural areas have been hit the hardest.

The problem is that local newspapers play a vital role in small communities.

That brings us to today’s Concept: news deserts.

News deserts are U.S. counties without any locally-based source of local news.

National news networks are creating local news websites, but they don't have dedicated reporters covering news in the local areas.

They mostly republish national news from wire services.

The rise of news agencies (also known as wire services) has also played a role in the decline of local newspapers.

According to Wikipedia, the:

It’s easier for cash-starved local newspapers to simply reprint or repackage news prepared by the wire agencies.

But as a result, local newspapers tend to have less:

• original reporting

• local news

• voice in their writing

Local journalists play an important role in American democracy.

Imagine the city council of a small town slipped a provision into a routine budget bill that gave a major local businessman the right to build condominiums next to a beloved local park.

Local journalists, who have the investigative skills and contacts to scrutinize & report on this kind of localized corruption, are there to speak truth to power and tell the people about what their elected officials are getting up to behind the scenes.

Without local newspapers, it’s easier for the rich & politically connected to get away with actions that deserve public scrutiny.

What’s being done to save local journalism? 

Wealthy philanthropists and charitable foundations are investing tens of millions of dollars in renewing local journalism, and enterprising journalists are trying to cover local news in exciting new ways.

And some people are advocating for the government to invest in local news projects.

Digital media can also be part of the solution to this growing problem.

Email newsletters (like this one) also give journalists a way to speak directly to readers, and digital media allows writers to save on the overhead costs that are making it difficult to run a newspaper business.

The rise of social media and smartphones has made it easier for us all to get information, but we have an obligation as citizens to ensure that local journalism doesn’t die out.

Support your local newspaper!

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