Local news serves many functions: keeping citizens up to date on important local issues, holding officials accountable, providing a forum for public discussion and civic engagement, and even promoting economic development. In addition to covering daily events, local news outlets also help residents deal with community challenges such as natural disasters and the aging population.
Yet local newsrooms have struggled to adapt to the shift away from print and toward digital news consumption. In recent years, hundreds of weeklies have been shuttered and thousands of communities have lost their local newspaper or now are served by “ghost papers” that provide little or no local news coverage at all.
In 2022, the majority of Americans still got their local news from newspapers (74%), though fewer did so in print and more via online platforms such as websites, apps or social media posts. But the decline in local newsrooms has not been uniform, with some communities seeing a rebirth of locally owned and operated news organizations that are finding new ways to deliver local news.
When it comes to how local journalists should cover community issues, a majority of Americans (69%) think that local journalists should be neutral on community matters, reflecting more traditional journalistic norms. However, younger adults are more likely than older people to say that local journalists should advocate for change in their communities (39% vs. 29% among those ages 65 and older). A variety of different policy ideas can help address the crisis in local news, including digital privacy rules, public broadcasting policies, government incentives to encourage family-owned newspaper chains to donate their assets to nonprofit groups committed to providing significant local journalism, tax credits for advertising on local sites, and antitrust laws that support community ownership of media.
About the Author
