Despite Decline, Local News Remains a Valuable Barometer for the Strength of Our Democracy

Earlier this year, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a pioneer in supporting local news industries across the United States, released a series of articles that provide significant insights about the future of local news, especially at a time of heightened partisan divisions.

Notably, while trust in local news has “fluctuated,” it remains higher than national news across political parties. For example, while Democrats reported trusting local news more in 2021 than in 2019, “Republicans and independents reported trusting local news less over the two-year period,” according to the foundation. Despite that, “trust in national news declined from 2019 to 2021, with the decline among Democrats and independents larger than the decline among Republicans.” And while Republicans tend to approach all news sources with a lower degree of trust, Republicans trust local news over national news by a margin that is twice as large as the gap between local news and national news among Democrats.

In general, as the Knight Foundation noted, Americans believe that local news does a better job of fulfilling civic functions, a statement backed up by other press advocacy organizations.

“Local public media are like public libraries and local museums in that they preserve culture, educate and engage in order to build understanding on important issues that are expensive or difficult to cover. They can also empower people to stand up for justice where there is none,” as one American told Poynter in 2015, an observation that still holds true.

Interestingly, while Americans have higher opinions of local news over social media platforms, they take a more active role in their communities via in-person and social media networks, according to a Gallup/Knight Foundation survey of 4,221 U.S. adults who are members of Gallup’s probability-based national panel, fielded Nov. 23-Dec. 3, 2021. Generally, Americans reported feeling discouraged by national news and social media to participate in their respective communities and in local politics. This isn’t to say that the American public doesn’t accept social media as part of a news organization’s newsgathering efforts but it is evident that social media as a news source has had a detrimental effect on social cohesion.

“Without a trusted local alternative, individuals have no choice but to turn to the echo chamber of national news outlets and social media for information,” says the American Journalism Project. “Local stories, when they are told by these institutions, become cherry-picked anecdotes that build on national tensions. They’re used to engage a national audience rather than to inform a local one.”

Similar trends have been reported by the Knight Foundation, which in its analysis of local news pointed out “that while Americans believe local news plays a positive role in our communities, it is not Americans’ main pathway to direct participation in local political issues they care about.” While the specific political topic or issue that citizens are engaged in plays a role – there is a marked difference between how people more engaged in local politics feel connected to their communities compared to those who are more passionate about issues, such as women’s rights or the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, with more national implications – “local journalism ranks low as an information source or means through which to raise awareness.”

It’s evident that Americans continue to hold local news in high regard. In fact, they have a higher degree of trust in local news over national news, but the number of local news outlets is slimmer than ever. According to a recent report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, more than 360 newspapers in the United States have gone out of business since just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. These closures have created more “news deserts,” communities that are no longer covered by daily or nondaily newspapers.

Northwestern’s report noted that 2,500 newspapers in the United States – about a quarter of them overall – have closed since 2005, and the country is on track to lose one-third of them by 2025. Even more troubling: The majority of communities that lose their local newspapers do not get a print or digital replacement. That means about 70 million Americans live in areas that either lack local news organizations or have one at risk, relying on that single one to give them access to important news and information that can inform not only their decisions, but their participation in our democracy.

“The good news is there were a lot of fears as the pandemic set in and we had a very severe economic constriction that it was going to be kind of the death knell for many newspapers,” said Penelope Muse Abernathy, the author of the report and a visiting professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. “The good news is it didn’t occur. The bad news is, or the concerning news is, we are continuing to lose newspapers at the same rate we’ve been losing them since 2005.”

These statistics don’t only underscore local news’ troubling future: They also highlight the importance of local news as a key to strengthening our democracy. It’s true that journalism has faced significant disruptions over the years. The rise of online marketplaces replaced classified sections in newspapers, dealing major hits to revenue, and the rise of social media, while spreading information faster than ever before, has created an environment where journalists must value speed over accuracy, and worry more about the bottom line than about quality reporting.

But these closures mean that there are fewer journalists to verify and fact-check reporting. According to a Pew Research Center estimate, the number of newsroom employees in the United States declined from from 74,410 people nationwide in 2006 to 30,820 in 2020.

A void is created when a community loses a local newspaper. Local news connects communities and the “declining capacity of newsrooms to investigate potential stories not only renders newspapers less valuable to news consumers, but also results in a newspaper that is less valuable to its community,” as the Brookings Institution noted in 2019, adding: “When important stories are not told, community members lack the information they need to participate in the political process and hold government and powerful private actors accountable.”

The cost to society and democracy is palpable. The loss of a local source of news deprives a community of a source of comprehensive and credible information that contributes to a shared culture, builds trust, and fosters both social cohesion and political activism. Newspapers allow communities to debate policy issues, setting the agenda and the stakes. The absence of that leaves communities underserved and allows misinformation and conspiracies to take root and dominate the conversation. In 2017, Kellyanne Conway, then the Counselor to the President, coined the term “alternative facts.” At a time when it seems no one can agree on the facts, the lack of local news sources only inflames existing hostilities and makes it all the more difficult to revive and restore trust in the media at the local level.