The State of Local News 2023

Vanishing Newspapers, Digital Divides, and Reaching Underserved Communities

This Report is a More Vivid MRI of Local News in America

An introduction to the 2023 State of Local News Report by Tim Franklin, Senior Associate Dean and John M. Mutz Chair in Local News and Director of the Medill Local News Initiative

For the past 15 years, Medill’s Penny Abernathy has tracked the spread of news deserts across the U.S. landscape.

During that time, the local news crisis has metastasized like a slow-moving cancer coursing through the bloodstream of enclaves from suburbia to rural America.

This State of Local News Project has served as an MRI of the health of local news, providing journalists, media leaders, policy makers, philanthropists and scholars with much-needed data, analysis and context.

But our ambition this year grew: What if this project could do more than diagnose a current condition? What if this research could be used as a sort of genetic test of local news, employing predictive modeling to help treat health risks in advance?

This 2023 State of Local News Report is an effort to do just that – not only identify current local news deserts but assess areas of the country at risk of becoming news deserts. And as we chronicle the loss of news, we also set out in this report to document local news startups and to highlight shining examples of news organizations that are showing promise for the future.

This forward-looking assessment of the state of local news is captured in the “Watch List” map developed by Medill data scientists, researchers and journalism faculty, including Abernathy. It’s further explored in the “Local News Ecosystem Barometer” map generated by Medill’s Spiegel Research Center.

This predictive modeling paints a sobering picture. There are 204 counties that currently are news deserts, with no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications. But in studying the characteristics of current news deserts, Medill experts have identified another 228 counties at substantial risk of becoming news deserts in coming years.

Why is that important? It gives community leaders, philanthropists, industry executives and journalists an opportunity to act before an area becomes a news desert.

This predictive modeling is one of the many additions to the 2023 State of Local News Report, an expansion that’s intended to meet this critical moment for local news in America and, indeed, our democracy.

In addition to tracking local newspapers and digital-only sites, we’ve expanded our databases this year to include public broadcasting news outlets and ethnic media, providing a more holistic perspective of local news organizations serving communities.

Amid the grim tallying of local news loss, the 2023 State of Local News Report also highlights hope.

Continue reading the introduction…

Contents

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Research Faculty and Staff

This research was overseen by Senior Associate Dean Tim Franklin, John M. Mutz Chair in Local News and director of the Local News Initiative, and Penelope Muse Abernathy, visiting professor at Northwestern University and primary author of the report.

Tim Franklin

Sr. Associate Dean, Director, Medill Local News Initiative, John M. Mutz Chair in Local News

Franklin leads the Medill Local News initiative, a series of programs designed to bolster the sustainability of local news. Before joining Medill, Franklin was President of The Poynter Institute. He's been the top editor of The Indianapolis Star, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun. He was as a Washington Managing Editor of Bloomberg News. He's a member of the Illinois Local Journalism Task Force.

Penelope Muse Abernathy

Visiting Professor and Researcher

Penelope Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Northwestern University, is a former senior executive at The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, who specializes in researching local journalism. She is the author of two books and five reports, including The State of Local News (Northwestern University: 2022).

Sarah Stonebely

Director, State of Local News Project

Sarah Stonbely (PhD, New York University, 2015) is the director of the State of Local News Project. Sarah’s expertise is in journalism culture and practice, local news ecosystems, media policy, and research methodology.

Zach Metzger

Database Manager

Metzger is responsible for managing, updating, and analyzing the different databases of news organizations maintained by the Medill Local News Initiative. He is also currently pursuing his PhD at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Srishti Bose

Research Associate

Bose is responsible for coordinating the design, data analysis, and ethnic media section of the State of Local News. She is a Medill School of Journalism graduate with a degree in Media Innovation and Content Strategy. Before her current role, Bose practiced as a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) lawyer in the Fin-Tech and Retail space.

George Stanley

Project Manager, 2023 State of Local News Report

Stanley joined the 2023 State of Local News Report after stepping down in January as editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and regional editor of 11 Gannett dailies. Under Stanley's guidance, the Journal Sentinel received virtually every major national journalism award including 3 Pulitzer Prizes and 10 Pulitzer Finalists. In October, he became CEO of the nonprofit newsroom Wisconsin Watch.

Larry DeGaris

Executive Director, Medill Spiegel Research Center

DeGaris works with Ed Malthouse and Spiegel's team of post-docs and affiliated faculty to run the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index and other local news related research projects. With a background in market research and brand partnerships, he helps local news organizations use research to make decisions about revenue models, business portfolios, audience development, and products and processes.

Mark Caro

Editor

Caro is an author (The Foie Gras Wars, The Special Counsel: The Mueller Report Retold) and former longtime Chicago Tribune culture reporter, columnist and critic. He talks with prominent creative people on his weekly Caropop podcast and writes for Chicago magazine and other outlets. He was a journalism Cherub at Northwestern’s National High School Institute a long time ago.

Joe Germuska

Chief Nerd

Germuska runs Knight Lab’s technology, professional staff and extracurricular activity. Immediately before joining the lab, he was a founding member of the Chicago Tribune’s News Apps team. He is the founder and project lead of the Census Reporter project, a website designed to make Census data easy for journalists. He also serves on the board of City Bureau, a Chicago-based civic journalism lab. His technology background is balanced by his BA in African History and MS in Product Design and Development Management, both earned from Northwestern.

Ed Malthouse

Research Director

Malthouse is the Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at Medill. He also has an appointment in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences. Malthouse is an expert in applied statistics, market research and media marketing.

Jaewon Royce Choi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Choi is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications. He is a quantitative social scientist whose research interests spans media engagement, digital journalism, and social implications of technology. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Nicole Tan

Research Assistant

Tan is a junior at Northwestern University majoring in journalism and legal studies. She was previously a reporter at the Medill Investigative Lab and the South China Morning Post, where she won an award for her coverage of a charity event celebrating Asian culture. She was also a print managing editor at The Daily Northwestern.

Annie Xia

Research Assistant

Xia is a junior at Northwestern University studying journalism and data science. She was previously a reporter with Heatmap News.

Mitra Nourbakhsh

Research Assistant

Mitra Nourbakhsh is a sophomore studying Journalism and International Studies with a minor in Data Science at Northwestern University. She is a writer and editor for North by Northwestern magazine and has interned at PublicSource, a Pittsburgh local news group.

Alex Perry

Research Assistant

Perry is a Medill senior double majoring in journalism and economics with a minor in data science. She previously served as The Daily Northwestern's editor-in-chief and has interned at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Information. ProPublica named her an Emerging Reporter in 2022. She's currently a part-time copy editor for Axios.

The web presentation was designed by Medill Associate Professor Zach Wise and Knight Lab Executive Director Joe Germuska.