School board and city council meetings are going uncovered. Overstretched reporters receive promising tips about stories but have no time to follow up. Newspapers publish fewer pages or less frequently or, in hundreds of cases across the country, have shuttered completely.
The report, “Losing the News: The Decimation of Local Journalism and the Search for Solutions,” paints a grim picture of the state of local news in every region of the country. The prelude is familiar to journalists: As print advertising revenue has plummeted, thousands of newspapers have been forced to cut costs, reduce their staffs or otherwise close.
The authors of the report spoke to dozens of journalists, elected officials and activists, who described how cutbacks in local newsrooms have left communities in the dark and have failed to keep public and corporate officials accountable. Story continuesMany Americans are completely unaware that local news is suffering. According to a Pew survey earlier this year, 71% of Americans believe that their local news outlets are doing well financially. But, according to that report, only 14% say they have paid for or donated money to a local news source in the past year.
In Denver, a diminished local news presence — after the closure of the Rocky Mountain News and the shrunken Denver Post — has contributed to civic disengagement, one case study in the report says. Kevin Flynn, a former journalist turned City Council member, lamented the large number of people who seemed to be unaware of local elections and the relative handful of reporters covering a quickly growing city.
One case study in the report shared the experience of Greg Barnes, who took a buyout in 2018 after three decades at the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina.