The local news business has been hit hard in recent years. Advertising revenues have plummeted and the journalism industry has struggled to adapt. Thousands of papers have closed. Private equity firms have taken over local newsrooms and trimmed editorial staffs. Craigslist has killed classified ads, while Facebook has deprived many newspapers of crucial traffic. Despite these grim statistics, the vast majority of Americans say they pay attention to local news and are satisfied with their local media sources.
Across the political spectrum, most people think that local media do a good job of keeping them informed about their community and serving as watchdogs over elected leaders. In fact, the public’s assessment of local news is much more positive than its evaluation of national or international news organizations.
Most people get their local news from a newspaper, local TV station or online. But the share of adults who read their local daily newspaper in print has declined significantly since 2018, and the number of Americans who get news from their local TV station on TV has also fallen. Americans are increasingly turning to online resources for their local news, especially through news websites and social media.
This is a problem, but it is also an opportunity for innovative for-profit and nonprofit ventures to develop viable economic and journalistic models for the future of local news. The solutions that are likely to succeed will involve partnerships between established for-profit and nonprofit outlets, local communities, the government, private foundations and universities. And they will need to address the broad array of policy issues that face the local media ecosystem, including digital privacy, public funding policies, labor protections and antitrust law.