Imagine, it’s the upcoming mayoral election, and you are excited to go vote. However, no news organization has been reporting on the candidates, and now you either must not vote or vote poorly informed.
Imagine, you’ve been anxiety-ridden throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but you’ve felt so relieved after hearing the news about the vaccine. However, you are not sure where you can get the vaccine in your town as no news organization has reported on it.
Imagine, you hear on your local Facebook group that the local playground was decorated with lead paint, but you aren’t sure if that’s true. You don’t want to endanger your children, but you also need an environment for them to release their energy. No news organization has reported on this issue, and you are left conflicted.
For many Americans living in news deserts, these are relatable situations. A news desert is a community (typically defined by county in the United States) with no local reporting. According to an American Heritage article, out of 3,143 counties in the United States, nearly 200 of them do not have a local paper.
News deserts continue to grow into a larger problem. According to a Northwestern Local News Initiative article, since 2005, around 25% of local newspapers have closed their doors, and, if this trend continues, that number will rise to 30% by the end of 2025. On average, the US loses two newspapers weekly.
Yet, the local news industry once did thrive. The classic model of journalism was a print newspaper, which had advertisements inside them. These advertisements from local businesses are what largely made the newspaper profitable. However, with the birth of the internet, these newspapers faced competition for advertising dollars online, and the news industry simply did not modernize fast enough. Popular platforms, like Facebook and Google, were able to plug local reporting to their feed—therefore attracting advertisements to their platform while profiting from local journalist’s work. According to an article from Brookings, nationally, these two platforms—Facebook and Google—account for 58% of digital advertising revenue, and 77% of local advertising revenue is earned by Facebook and Google.
It’s important to note that local news does not affect America equally. News deserts are prevalent in low-income communities—both in rural and urban areas—and communities of color. According to an American Heritage article, since 2004, more than 500 newspapers in rural communities have closed down with a majority of these papers in lower income communities. For reference, Lake Forest Academy is located in Lake County—which has a median income of nearly 80,000 and 12 newspapers. There are two news deserts in Illinois in Hamilton County—which has a median income of about 45,000—and Pulaski County—which has a median income of about 32,500. The connection between wealth and access to information is evident.
Furthermore, I had the chance to talk to Dr. Yonty Friesem—a journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago. When asked about the root cause of news deserts, he replied “The economic [feasibility] is a secondary kind of cause. It's all about discrimination.”
News deserts might appear like a champagne problem compared with other global and and national issues, but news feeds democracy at the grassroots level. New deserts decrease local governmental accountability to their citizenry and lead to underrepresentation. These communities are either not portrayed at all in mainstream media or presented in a negative manner such as crime-ridden. All global issues—whether sexism, racism, poverty, or more—begin on a local level. When no one is there to share these stories, they often go untold and thus unaddressed.
Communities in news deserts are frequently mis-represented by other news organizations in wealthier nearby towns. In discussion with Mariah Rush—a Report for America reporter covering mainly the South side of Chicago—she mentioned that mainstream coverage of the area paints South Chicago as a hub of crime and not much else. Rush described how she makes a pointed effort to cover “good things you don’t know about or bad things that you are ignoring.” I spoke to another Report for America reporter Melody Mercado who works for Block Club Chicago, a non-profit newsroom that does ground-level reporting in potential news deserts in Chicago. Mercado described the people in her community “deserve not only a voice but also a local news that represents them and includes them in the conversation.” When these low-income communities of color do not have local reporting of their own, they are often distorted by the media that caters to their white, wealthier counterparts. This can lead to a larger division between these neighborhoods, prevent potential relationships from forming, and encourage discrimination against the people living in these news deserts.
Additionally, the rising division in political ideology can be tied to news deserts. When local news organizations close, people still need news, so they increase their consumption of national news, which is frequently more polarizing than local news. Rush commented on polarization in the news saying, “it’s easier to see a lean in national news...in local news, it’s more nuanced than that.”
I also had the chance to talk to Isabelle Chapman, an alumna of Lake Forest Academy who is currently a national producer for CNN investigates. Chapman said, “A lack of local news has lead to polarization, there’s a lot reasons that happened, but I think a big one is that people used to live next door to journalists, they knew them, and I think there is less interaction between the public and journalists now because there are fewer journalists and fewer local papers. I think that trust in journalism is built on local journalism.”
However, this is not only the opinion of the few journalists I had the chance to interview. In 2018, Dr. Joshua Darr, an associate professor of political communication at Louisiana State University, found that communities without local news outlets that were forced to turn to national reporting were more likely to vote for a single party, rather than split ticket voting, compared to communities with local reporting.
A multifaceted issue like news deserts require a combination of solutions. One possible solution for news deserts could be tax credits—one of the biggest barriers for local news is the economic feasibility of producing news. Recently, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act proposed a $250 tax credit for purchasing a local new subscription, a tax credit up to $5,000 for small businesses to advertise with local news outlets, and a tax credit for hiring newsroom employees. Unfortunately, this act did not pass, but it provided a possible governmental solution that still protected the independence of journalism.
However, there are still other popular solutions that the government can implement. As discussed previously, with the dawn of the internet and platforms like Google and Facebook many local news outlets lost advertisements. The government could force Google and Facebook to pay for the content that they plug from local news outlets. The government could also grant an antitrust exemption that would enable news organizations to collectively bargain with companies that share their articles online.
Beyond the concerns of the news outlet itself, local journalists are also struggling to earn enough money to fund their lives. According to a Columbia Journalism Review article, between 2008 and 2021, the number of journalists in US newsrooms was cut by 50%. The government could help encourage young, aspiring journalists through government funded fellowships. This has already become a reality in California where $25 million was granted for fellowship at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism with the goal of increasing journalistic representation in underserved communities.
However, some are wary of encouraging any government involvement with journalism. There are some more independent measures that have been proposed to solve new deserts. the most popular of them being a non-profit model. In fact, there is a successful nonprofit news outlet right next door called Block Club Chicago. This organization focuses on ground level reporting in potential news deserts in Chicago and was formed after a different news organization called DNAChicago closed down. Block Club Chicago relies on different nonprofit governmental benefits, donations, and subscription fees. Some of their articles are free to access, subscription offers fuller coverage, and there are different levels of subscription that cost varying amounts to help ensure that everyone has access to news. According to a The Progressive article, These different subscription levels are important as according to a recent Gallup/Knight Foundation survey only wealthier audiences are likely to pay for news.
Another prominent nonprofit called Report for America which directly addresses the lack of reporters in news deserts. Report for America matches young journalists to larger, independent news organizations. Report for America covers 50% of these young journalists salaries for up to 3 years. These journalists go on to report in news deserts, and the discounted salary is an incentive for these larger news organizations to prioritize serving underrepresented communities.
Similar to concerns with journalistic independence when involving the government, one of the largest concerns when relying on the nonprofit model is the long-term sustainability of it. News desserts are complex and impact communities differently. What works for one community may not work for all communities. Just like local reporting is important, localized solutions are important.
While everyone shares the same fundamental rights to information, local news in America is a privilege which makes staying informed a responsibility.
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