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Are There Enough Reporters Covering Your Community?
For the first time at a national scale, we’ve estimated how many journalists remain in each U.S. county, revealing a nationwide shortage of local journalists that’s more widespread and severe than previously understood.
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This research estimates where local journalism is most active and where it’s severely limited. The result is the Local Journalist Index, the first report of its kind to map the presence of working local journalists, county by county, across the nation.
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In 2002: The nation had about 40 journalists per 100,000 residents.
Now: Two out of three U.S. counties now have less than 10 Local Journalist Equivalents per 100,000 residents. The U.S. has lost roughly three quarters of its local journalists.
Of the 3,141 counties in the U.S., more than a third of them—over 1,000—do not have the equivalent of even one full-time journalist.