Local news has taken a beating. It’s still standing.
Back in 2019, my colleague Kristen Hare wrote a piece for Poynter: “Did we just experience the hardest decade in journalism?”
It seemed like a valid question at the time. Newsrooms across the country were being eliminated. Journalists were losing their jobs. News deserts were expanding. Social media was changing how journalists did their job. President Donald Trump was helping to sow distrust in the media by popularizing phrases such as “fake news” and “enemy of the people.”
It’s hard to imagine things getting worse.
And yet, here we are in 2025.
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.
Related Knowledge Center: Local media
The hollowing out of the local news ecosystem has been well documented; in some communities, efforts are underway to reverse the growing news desert.