News desert

Journalism
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Genres
Social impact
News media
Roles

A news desert is a community that is no longer covered by daily or nondaily newspapers. The term emerged in the United States after hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers were closed in the 2000s and the 2010s. According to a study in 2018 by the UNC School of Media and Journalism, more than 1,300 communities in the U.S. are considered news deserts.[1] Other communities, while not technically a news desert, may be covered by a ghost newspaper, a publication that has become a shadow of its former self.[2]

In 2024, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University released a report that found that 1,561 counties in the United States had only one local news organization (e.g. print newspaper, news website, public broadcaster, or ethnic media outlet) while 206 counties had none, that 55 million Americans lived in news desert counties, and that news desert counties had smaller populations, were less densely populated, had lower median household incomes, lower rates of educational attainment, a higher median population age, and higher poverty rates.[3][4]

Background

The term "news desert" was used as early as 1980[5] to explain the general character of newspaper coverage and accessibility in Canada at the beginning of the 20th century and its effect on the population's sourcing of local news. This initial context contrasts with the term's use in the 21st century, which primarily applies it as a frame for deficits or reductions in news coverage.

The total number of newspapers in the U.S. fell from 8,891 in 2004 to 7,112 in 2018, a decline of 1,779 newspapers, including more than 60 daily newspapers.[6] Of the remaining publications, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 newspapers were considered ghost newspapers after scaling back their news coverage so much that they were unable to fully cover their communities.[7]

Extent

In 2017, the Columbia Journalism Review released a map of news deserts across the United States. It showed that Collin County and Williamson County in Texas, with a combined population of nearly 1.3 million people, were among the largest news deserts in the country. Other notable news deserts include Ellis County, Texas and Alamance County, North Carolina. Some of those communities, however, may be covered by very small newspapers with a circulation of less than 1% or all-digital news outlets.[8]

A study in 2018 by the UNC School of Media and Journalism found more than 1,300 news deserts in the United States. Of the 3,143 counties in the U.S., more than 2,000 no longer had a daily newspaper and 171 counties, with 3.2 million residents combined, had no newspaper at all. People who live in news deserts tend to be poorer, older and less educated than the average American, according to the study. As of 2018, more than 90 counties without a newspaper were in the Southern United States, making it by far the largest news desert in the country.[1]

Causes

In 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a report that concluded that growth in the number of media outlets in the United States from satellite radio and television, cable television, and the internet had not offset reductions in local news reporting with public interest, civics, or investigative journalism coverage caused by the decline of newspapers and local news in radio broadcasting.[9] While local television stations were broadcasting a greater total number of news hours and had become some of the largest providers of local news online, most coverage was of crime and courthouses, accidents and disasters, and human interest topics while the depth and quantity of public interest, civics, and investigative journalism coverage declined, and broadcast and internet media remained heavily reliant on reporting about the latter topics from the declining number of newspapers through fair use exemptions in copyright law.[10][11] Less than 15% of the news and public affairs programming on commercial news/talk radio was local programming,[12] while the total number of local cable news channels nationally was not growing (and possibly declining in some regions) since most stations were only attempting to break-even rather than be profitable and most cable operators did not invest in local cable news stations and had no plans to do so.[13]

Also, only 23 states and the District of Columbia had a state public affairs network modeled after C-SPAN that was carried on cable television, and the 2011 FCC report noted that such networks were not covered under the agency's must-carry rules.[14] A subsequent Pew Research Center study released in 2014 estimated that 54% of statehouse reporters were employed by newspapers, newswires, or college student publications rather than broadcasters, news websites, or other nontraditional media.[15] However, the 2014 Pew study also estimated that 53% of statehouse reporters in the country did not cover the beat full-time for their publications, that 71% of newspapers and 86% of local television stations had no statehouse reporters, and that there was a 35% staff reduction in full-time statehouse reporters from 2003 to 2014 at 220 newspapers surveyed.[16] A subsequent report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2023 found that increases in staffing at digital-native news websites from 2008 to 2020 were not offsetting cuts in newsroom staffing among newspapers (which numbered in the tens of thousands of jobs),[17] while a 2023 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that newspapers and television still employed more newsroom staff in 2022 than online-only news websites.[18]

The 2023 GAO and CRS reports noted further that the reduction in subscription and advertising revenue for the newspaper industry from 2000 to 2020 that constituted the overwhelming majority of its inflation-adjusted total revenue was not being offset by digital circulation or online advertising.[19][20] Also, the 2011 FCC report noted that even though the share of total U.S. advertising spending received by newspapers had been falling since the 1950s, the share received by television and cable did not exceed the share received by newspapers until the 1990s,[21] and that paid circulation by newspapers did not begin to consistently decline until the 1980s.[22] However, despite the shift in advertising revenue to television and cable, the 2011 FCC report noted that local television stations were seeing declining newsroom staffing alongside newspapers, with some stations outsourcing, reducing, or ending their local news programming and more frequently in smaller media markets.[23] The 2023 GAO and CRS reports both noted survey research showing an increasing preference by the American public to receive news through the internet rather than through broadcast or in print and a declining willingness to pay subscriptions for news.[24][25]

Additionally, the 2011 FCC report and the 2023 GAO report both noted the unbundling of soft news and hard news content on the internet that formerly provided cross subsidization for newspaper beats,[26][27] and along with the 2023 CRS report, both noted the unbundling of news content from advertising due to the rise of classified advertising websites and search engine and social media marketing that offer greater targeting than news websites.[28][29][30] In light of such changes in consumer preferences, the 2023 GAO report suggested along with the 2011 FCC report that local public interest journalism is at risk of market failure due to having the non-excludable and non-rivalrous features of a public good that generates positive externalities and is vulnerable to free riding.[31][32] The 2023 GAO report also noted that the FCC has no regulations or guidelines for broadcasters that define what constitutes public interest programming and allows broadcasters wide discretion in determining how to fulfill their public interest obligations under the Communications Act of 1934.[33] While the FCC fairness doctrine established a requirement for broadcasters to present programming that covered controversial issues of public importance, the FCC repealed the doctrine in 1987 and the 2011 FCC report did not recommend its reinstatement.[34][35]

In 2021, the FCC's Office of Economics and Analytics released a working paper that found that the market size of designated market areas (DMA) as measured by the total number of television households was the key factor that effected the number of independent commercial television stations with local news operations in the DMA.[36] The 38 to 51 largest DMAs, which had at least 615,000 to 800,000 television households and comprised 61% to 69% of U.S. television households in total, could sustain four or more independent stations while a DMA needed at least 35,000 to 70,000 television households to be able to sustain two independent stations.[37] However, the working paper also found that in some markets that there was a trade-off between local programming and the total number of independent stations,[38] and that despite rising total revenue from 2010 to 2018 due to rising retransmission consent fees, the number of local television stations that originated news fell by 5% while inflation-adjusted advertising revenue fell nationally.[39] In the same year, the Pew Research Center released a survey that found that the percentage of American adults that reported having a cable or satellite television subscription fell from 76% in 2015 to 56% in 2021.[40]

Also, along with the 2023 GAO and CRS reports,[41][42] a 2022 United States Copyright Office (USCO) report noted that while the news industry and Big Tech companies do not dispute that news aggregators and the news feeds of social media websites drive significant traffic to news sites, the news industry disputes the extent of the traffic and its economic value since aggregators and feeds direct users to articles rather than home pages and because of a substitution effect from aggregators and feeds featuring headlines and portions of article lead paragraphs.[43] The 2023 CRS report noted that the Big Tech companies that receive the majority of online advertising revenue and compete with the news industry for such revenue are also the largest providers of advertising technology to the news industry,[44] and that the Big Tech companies had been alleged to have engaged in anti-competitive conduct in the provision of advertising technology, news aggregators, search engines, social networking services, and app stores.[45] The CRS noted further that almost two-thirds of total U.S. advertising spending by 2020 was online, while total U.S. advertising spending fell overall during the preceding two decades.[30] Ultimately, the 2022 USCO report found that the effectiveness of copyright protections for the news industry were undermined by an inequality of bargaining power between the news industry and the Big Tech companies in concluding that the online advertising revenue dispute between the industries was more of an issue for competition policy rather than copyright law.[46][47]

Impacts

In their 2024 report, the researchers at the Medill School of Journalism found that the decline in local news in the United States has contributed to increased political polarization, reduced voter turnout and split-ticket voting, and increased incumbency advantage due to national news becoming the only news that residents of news desert communities receive and lead them to vote more in accordance with a party line.[3][4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "About 1,300 U.S. communities have totally lost news coverage, UNC news desert study finds". Poynter Institute. 15 October 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  2. ^ "In era of news deserts, no easy fix for local news struggles". Associated Press. 16 January 2019. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  3. ^ a b Hagen, Neena (December 3, 2024). "Amid growing 'news deserts' in the US, non-traditional media outlets are on the rise". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on December 3, 2024. Retrieved December 4, 2024.
  4. ^ a b Metzger, Zach (October 23, 2024). The State of Local News: The 2024 Report (Report). Medill School of Journalism. Retrieved December 4, 2024.
  5. ^ Schultz, John (March 1980). "Whose News? The Struggle for Wire Services Distribution, 1900–1920". American Review of Canadian Studies. 10 (1): 27–38. doi:10.1080/02722018009481171. ISSN 0272-2011.
  6. ^ "The Loss of Newspapers and Readers - News Deserts".
  7. ^ "The Rise of the Ghost Newspaper - News Deserts".
  8. ^ "America's growing news deserts".
  9. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 5–70, 105–112, 116–145, 180–183, 188–191.
  10. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 56–57, 72–105, 113–114, 242–247, 340–343.
  11. ^ See also:
  12. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 66–67.
  13. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 108–109.
  14. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 170–179.
  15. ^ Pew 2014, pp. 4, 8–10, 16–28.
  16. ^ Pew 2014, pp. 4, 13–14.
  17. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 10–11.
  18. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 8–9.
  19. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 5–9.
  20. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 3–4.
  21. ^ FCC 2011, p. 75.
  22. ^ FCC 2011, p. 35.
  23. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 34, 87–91, 96–102.
  24. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 12–15.
  25. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 1–3, 4–6.
  26. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 123–125.
  27. ^ GAO 2023, p. 12.
  28. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 126–132.
  29. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 17–19.
  30. ^ a b CRS 2023, pp. 6–8.
  31. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 41–44.
  32. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 125–126.
  33. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 71–75.
  34. ^ Ruane, Kathleen Ann (July 13, 2011). Fairness Doctrine: History and Constitutional Issues (PDF). Federation of American Scientists (Report). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved January 22, 2025.
  35. ^ FCC 2011, pp. 25, 277–278.
  36. ^ FCC 2021, p. 4.
  37. ^ FCC 2021, pp. 4, 20–21.
  38. ^ FCC 2021, pp. 1–4, 21.
  39. ^ FCC 2021, pp. 5–6.
  40. ^ Rainie, Lee (March 17, 2021). "Cable and satellite TV use has dropped dramatically in the U.S. since 2015". Pew Research Center. Retrieved May 10, 2025.
  41. ^ GAO 2023, pp. 51–56.
  42. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 9–13.
  43. ^ USCO 2022, pp. 7–16.
  44. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 6–8, 14–20.
  45. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 20–27.
  46. ^ USCO 2022, pp. 3–4, 48–54, 58–59.
  47. ^ CRS 2023, pp. 13–14.

Works cited

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