Is There Any Hope for Local Journalism?

Ok so I live in the desert (Phoenix). It’s a legit desert — boiling hot during the day and really cold at night. We’ve got rattlesnakes, crazy giant lizards, javelinas (think smaller boar-like pumpkin-eating pigs) and coyotes. All we need is a horse with no name to complete the picture. But the world of journalism has its own deserts — news deserts. 

According to a report from the Medill School of Journalism, the number of local news deserts expanded in the U.S. this year with 127 newspapers shuttering, leaving nearly 55 million Americans (USA total pop currently 340 million) with limited to no access to local news. —Yeah, that’s not great. 

The number of newspaper mergers and acquisitions skyrocketed 43 percent this year, with 258 papers changing hands in 75 transactions. Smaller and newer chains, including Carpenter Media Group, are leading the acquisition surge.

But one stat from their report does provide some hope — There’s been a net increase of 81 standalone local digital news sites, the biggest one-year gain in recent years. About one-third of them are less than five years old.

If the vaunted 4th estate of journalism is primarily supposed to the watchdog of government (local, state). What happens when the watchdog is no longer in the yard? Ithink the opportunity for local govt corrupt skyrockets and local news sites focused on their primary directive of staying alive might not investigate things as much as they should.

So how does this affect us?  I think it all depends on WHERE you live and if you have access to local news reporting. Some might say, “well journalism is very biased and horrible anyway so who cares?” But I think just having the threat of exposure and negative reporting can be enough to keep local politicians a little more in line. If no one is watching, it stands to reason that we’d see even more corruption at the local levels.

I will tell you from the marketing side that having fewer media outlets hurts local businesses, because they want to target local customers and maybe not get hit with heavy ad spending from major markets that happen to bleed into their markets. AOL’s patch.comlocal news feeds were designed to help with the news desert problem and while they don’t cover every market, they do cover plenty of them. From the PR side, businesses can self-publish events and news and have them sent right into their communities for very little cost.  

And maybe that’s part of the solution — as traditional local media outlets go away, maybe they get replaced by high-engagement local news sites, social media feeds, newsletters and micro-news sites like the patch ones.  

For the 55 million with no access to local news coverage, that’s gonna feel like a big drink of water in the news desert.  Just watch out for those javallinas!