Local journalism: What to do about its death spiral?

A November 2023 study by Northwestern University confirms what America’s news consumers have seen as they watch local news coverage evaporate: “[B]y the end of next year, the country will have lost a third of its newspapers since 2005.” Journalism boosters often take heart in philanthropic investments in online alternatives, but the study confirms that “the growth in alternative local news sources … has not kept pace with what’s being lost.”

Another problem the data does not touch on is the declining number of reporters. Many surviving newspapers rely heavily on wire services and other outside sources. They rarely have the resources to provide local watchdog and investigative journalism or even routine coverage of city councils and municipal budgets. Many newspapers provide only scant coverage of critical local-government decisions. In metro areas, suburban readers find little coverage about their specific communities.

Per The Washington Post, “Newspapers lost 77 percent of their jobs over the past 20 years, the single steepest dive among any of the 532 industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” During that same period, the total number of U.S. jobs increased by 20 percent. Looking only at editors and reporters, job numbers have fallen by 56 percent and 63 percent respectively. Journalism is a labor-intensive business, so this is a disaster for government oversight.

Large parts of the nation have no regular coverage whatsoever. As the Northwestern report states, “There are 204 counties with no local news outlet. Of the 3,143 counties in the U.S., more than half, or 1,766, have either no local news source or only one remaining outlet, typically a weekly newspaper.” Some major U.S. cities no longer have a daily print newspaper.

Americans have access to more information than ever before. The internet has spawned an almost limitless number of sources. Access to original source material—court cases, city council meetings, legislative hearings, official reports—is unparalleled. Yet surveys show they increasingly get their information from social media influencers or continue to rely on the limited in-depth coverage provided by television stations.

Some free-market thinkers essentially throw up their hands and say this is just the marketplace in action. Others in that camp actually celebrate the decline in traditional newsgathering. One analysis at Libertarianism.org gloated, “This is, admittedly, bad news for the professional journalism class, the over-​educated and over-​indebted journalism school graduates who don’t necessarily have that kind of local expertise.”

That article points to Substack and other independent online publishers as the likely replacement for newsrooms and editors, although it notes that most of these successful newsletter operations are national in focus or run by opinion writers. Nevertheless, it believes this development “may result in the most significant and salutary transformation of journalism in our lifetimes.”

Alternative media sources (e.g., hyper-local newsletters) are a promising development, but this myopic approach amounts to just accepting the loss of fair-minded informational coverage of local government behavior.

Meanwhile, many liberals and progressives are pushing for the government to get involved through a variety of ideas that involve public funding, tax credits, or regulations that require social media companies to pay when linking to news articles.

The Canadian government passed the latter type of law, which mainly has resulted in companies refusing to link to those articles. This approach raises serious concerns about government control of the media, as funding sources invariably impact story selection and coverage.

R Street celebrates the new, wide-open journalism world, which provides readers with more opportunities to access alternative viewpoints and information. At one point, Americans had to rely on three TV networks and a daily newspaper delivered to their doorstep.

There was too much gatekeeping and too little opportunity for a broad range of voices and stories. But now that the gates have been thrown open, Americans have trouble sorting truth from fiction—and local, nuts-and-bolts coverage of the governments that affect them the most has been lost in the process.

So what are some solutions? Before delving into that key question, it is crucial to examine why local news coverage is so important. The market might be sending signals that consumers are no longer interested in having reporters cover local-government spending and malfeasance—at least not interested enough to pay the cost of such operations.

But at R Street, we believe that vigorous, nonpartisan local reporting is fundamental to democracy. We could not sum it up better than the American Journalism Project did:

Research shows that the loss of local news is having an insidious effect on our democracy – contributing to polarization, decrease in voting, and government accountability. Local news is an essential lever to a healthy democracy; it helps communities understand what’s at stake in local elections, equips them to get involved in the political process by voting, contacting officials and running for office, reduces political polarization and holds public officials accountable.

Anecdotally, I have seen the issue play out in the community that I have reported on since the mid-1990s in Orange County, California. When I worked full-time at The Orange County Register, we had a bustling newsroom. During journalism’s heyday, the Los Angeles Times had a dedicated Orange County edition and the OC Weekly was a widely read alternative newspaper.

Today, there are far fewer reporters and editors. The Times’ local edition no longer exists. The OC Weekly has gone out of business. The county now has a quality online publication, VoiceofOC, but residents simply do not see as much local coverage in a county with 38 cities and 3 million residents. Orange County has experienced a variety of major government scandals in recent years, which might have seen the daylight earlier with a larger number of muckraking journalists.

At R Street, we do not pretend to have the solutions; however, we do believe in exploring them. As free-market supporters, we understand that the marketplace changes. We oppose heavy-handed government interventions. But journalism—especially gumshoe reporting, day-to-day coverage of governmental (and private-sector) actions, and investigative/watchdog oversight—is key to a healthy democracy, especially at the local level. We are committed to exploring market-based solutions that could revive this crucial industry.