New report maps a ‘severe’ shortage of local journalists in the U.S.

A group of journalism advocates from the nonprofit Rebuild Local News and the tech platform Muck Rack say they have counted — for the first time — how many journalists remain in the United States. 

The numbers, as might be expected, aren’t particularly sunny.

By using data never before tapped for this purpose, “we now know just how severe this local journalist shortage has become,” they write in a report released Thursday titled “Local Journalist Index.”

Researchers from Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack used the tech platform’s proprietary media database to get to their numbers. They filtered information, analyzed local journalism content from around the country, and deployed algorithms to create what they call a “Local Journalist Equivalent” for each U.S. county.

As for why that might be, Waldman told me Vermont has a strong nonprofit newspaper sector and isn’t known for chains that have been gobbled up by cost-cutting corporations or hedge funds, which have gutted newspapers elsewhere.

In that sense, Vermont reflects some “positive, hopeful trends,” he said. “Look, it can have an impact.”

Lisa Loomis and Mike Donoghue, who run the Vermont Press Association as president and executive director respectively, said in an email that they were “not surprised” the Green Mountain State ranks so high in terms of the ratio of journalists to residents.

“Vermont has a deep and long history of community journalism that is woven into the fabric of our communities,” they said. “Each of our counties has at least two printed newspapers circulating, and some have multiple (daily and non-daily) outlets.”

Just recently, while its neighbor New Hampshire saw a daily newspaper on the Vermont border suspend operations, Vermonters in the area are still served by two daily newspapers and a handful of weekly news outlets.

Loomis and Donoghue said Vermont has no news deserts like the ones found in other rural parts of the nation.

All in all, more than two thirds of the total counties in the United States have fewer than 10 local journalists per 100,000 residents, the report’s calculations show. The national average Local Journalist Equivalent of 8.2 shows a 75% decline from when researchers calculated it with a different methodology in 2002.

“The whole system has declined so much,” Waldman said.

“A consistent national standard”

The release of this first-of-its-kind report is another example of the ways in which advocates for local news are seeking to identify gaps in reporting and bring more public attention to a national crisis facing local news. 

Across the country in recent years, journalists, academics, and researchers have been mapping their individual states to show the reality of their local news and information landscapes. At the national level, the Medill School at Northwestern’s State of Local News project offers a map of the country’s news deserts.

The people behind the Local Journalist Index want to issue a new report each year in order to track progress.

The nation’s local media industry is rapidly changing. Newspapers blink out. New startups emerge. And with experiments in different business models, public policy, AI, and more, it can be hard to get a sense about the extent to which innovations are moving the needle.

“There are some great individual studies of particular communities and states — so you can get at it partly that way — but it’s a big gap to not have a consistent national standard,” Waldman said. “So, we do hope that over time, in addition to giving the snapshot in the first year to where the gaps are, it will also [give] all those stakeholders — journalists, entrepreneurs, people who run newsrooms, philanthropists, policymakers — the tools to judge whether their experiments are working.”

For Waldman, the hope is that this new research will lead to help where it’s needed most. Entrepreneurs could see where opportunities might be, philanthropists might rely on it to target donations. Advocates could look to it to help make the case for public policy to strengthen local news.

“Part of me really hopes that people see this and go ‘Oh crap, there isn’t any local news in my neighborhood — in my community,’” said the Muck Rack data journalist Albasi. “I do hope that people will look at this and say ‘Maybe I can contribute.’”