The American Journalism Project has summarized the bloodbath that is local news in the U.S. on its website, showing that the number of newspapers that have closed since 2005 as 2,900, leaving, it claims, 1,800 communities that have lost their local newsrooms since 2004, and 57% of newspaper newsroom jobs have been lost since 2008. “Local news lends us agency, empowering us with the knowledge we need to make informed decisions and issues critical to our daily lives. But local news is disappearing,” it reports.

     “Weekday newspaper circulation fell from 55.8 million to an estimated 28.6 million households, the study adds. and from 2000 to 2020, the newspaper industry’s advertising revenue fell by an estimated 80%. “Of the commercial newspapers that still exist, most have been forced by revenue losses to cut resources so dramatically that they struggle to provide any civic value to communities.”

      On top of this, it reports, “More than half of those remaining newspapers are owned by financial institutions whose cost-cutting strategies have stripped newsrooms of the resources necessary to produce consistent, original reporting on basic information. People who live in communities that still have a local newspaper may also effectively be living in news deserts.”

     In the absence of trusted news sources, we see targeted disinformation campaigns, including efforts to spread misinformation through social networks and websites masquerading as news brands. 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. Local stories, when they are told by the 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. The loss of local news is a national crisis with devastating effects on civil life.”

      I couldn’t agree more with all the above. As an owner of a local newspaper, this is what we are confronted with as we strive to remain afloat. Please be supportive and generous with your local newspaper, if you have one.