The local news crisis cuts communities off from essential civic information.
81%
On average,
2.5 newspapers areSHUTTING
2.5 newspapers are
SHUTTING
DOWN
each week in the U.S.
The shortage of local news harms families and communities and leads to:
Are there enough reporters covering your community?
A JOINT PROJECT OF
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Local Journalist Index
The 2026 national study finds the shortage of local journalists persists, and that a widening collapse in coverage has left more than 209 million people in communities where essential local reporting has all but disappeared.
60 Minutes on the Local News Crisis
A race against time
The vacuums left by the contraction of local news are being filled by social media, talk radio, national cable TV news… And “pink slime”—shady websites—pretending to be objective but actually backed by political dark money from the left and right. There is a race against time to strengthen local news before pink slime erodes all trust in local news. That bad information needs to be replaced with sound, fair-minded, local reporting on the local matters. Here is how we propose to safeguard against pink slime.