Over the past two decades, there has been a steep decline in the number of surviving local newspapers across the country. Nearly 2,000 communities across the United States that once relied on a single local newspaper to report on what is happening in their community have now been left without one at all. These so-called “news deserts” often leave the poorer, older and less educated communities of America with nowhere to go for their news updates.
In 2023, an average of 2.5 local newspapers were closing per week, a dramatic increase from previous years, which would see two newspapers per year closing their doors.
Although there has been an increase in digital exclusive news startups to replace dying newspapers in the last decade, these tend to be located in more metropolitan areas, still leaving small communities with no source of local media coverage tailored to what is pertinent in their area.
On top of dwindling newspapers, existing news organizations are rapidly losing reporters for their newsrooms. Newsroom employment has dropped by nearly 30% from 2008 to 2020, with a deficit of more than 30,000 newsroom jobs, leaving once bustling newsrooms vacant.
In addition to the thousands of newspapers that have fallen, an estimated thousand more newspapers across the country have become “ghost newspapers,” with less than half of their original staff remaining.
Rebuild Local News, a coalition dedicated to revitalizing local news outlets across the country, states that these staffing issues have resulted in a major gap in local news reporting. Smaller, local papers are suffering much greater losses in local coverage than major newspapers, with a 300% cut in local coverage at smaller outlets compared to a 30% drop from the country’s biggest papers.
Existing newspapers have also experienced significant consolidation and change in ownership over the past several years. Very few independent newspapers still exist, most of them having been bought out by one of the major news outlets. The country’s top 25 newspaper chains own more than a third of all of the newspapers in the country, encompassing two-thirds of the country’s just over 1,000 daily newspapers. While consolidating and selling smaller newspapers to be a part of larger networks of newspapers allows them to keep reporting, a change in ownership can drastically change the face of a newspaper.
The loss of community newspapers does not reflect a decrease in government spending — in fact, the opposite is true. From 2004 to 2020, as local newspapers were forced to permanently close their doors and reporters were left with no job, state and local government spending increased by 76%. The number of reporters per $100 million spent by local governments has dropped nearly 70% as of 2020.
Fewer local newspapers keeping the public up to date and politically informed has resulted in greater political polarization and an even more rampant spread of misinformation. Lack of political awareness as a result of fewer newspapers to report on political current events has also led to a lack of civic engagement and low voter turnout, a major issue targeted by both candidates in the recent general election.
The problem of fewer newspapers has resulted in a less educated, less active and less united community. At the core of the functioning of this country are local newspapers and the spread of news. Without them, communities suffer.
mkane10@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of Madison Inouye, Pexels
