Let’s talk about Halle’s news deserts. A news desert is a community or region that does not receive new coverage from any local news agency, usually occurring in lower-income areas and disproportionately affecting ethnic minority communities. Just since the 1990s, jobs in journalism have decreased by 50%, putting most of this reduced journalistic workforce in cities or working for larger networks or journals, effectively killing the smaller, local news agencies.

From the years 2004 to 2018, the country saw the loss of nearly two thousand local newspapers and continues to lose an average of two more papers with every passing week; the ones that are still in print are now “ghosts of their former selves, both in terms of the quality and quantity of their editorial content and the reach of their readership.” Additionally, in those areas where local papers are still struggling along, that paper is usually the only one covering that area. Approximately 50% of counties have a singular local newspaper for the entire county and two hundred counties don’t have one at all. This death of small local agencies creates holes in coverage across the nation which may start small but will only continue to grow larger as this trend continues.

News deserts come from both a supply and demand side, with urban papers cutting rural circulation and rural papers closing their doors and consumers opting for other news sources. This cord cutting occurring on the consumer side brings in the issue that Kenny spoke to us about, which is the phenomenon where people are increasingly leaving their cable subscriptions for financial reasons and watching less television in favor of streaming and internet-based media. Print media has been on the decline for years and newspapers are feeling the financial strain of the faltering industry, forcing smaller papers out due to the cost. Some of the effects of these news deserts are, obviously, less jobs in journalism, along with an ill-informed public and greatly reduced voter turnout. Aside from lessened voter turnout, polling results become more uniform because fewer opinions are being made available at the proverbial marketplace, which is dangerous for democracy. An under-informed public is detrimental not only to voting practices but also to community activism, creating apathetic citizens that don’t know what’s going on in their own town and therefore cannot and will not be active in the community.

As for solutions to the issue of news deserts, sources vary in levels of optimism but there are some definitive signs of hope. Business have been experimenting with non-profit models and now we have a slowly growing number of non-profit digital newspapers, as well as digital news and emailed newsletters from established local news leaders, and continued research may prove useful in helping these sources to adapt further to the changing landscape of modern journalism. In fact, research has already given us some real insights and the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media published a list of their recommendations to local news agencies, which are summarized as follows:

1.     Invest in human capital. Take time to build a good staff of journalists and salespeople and maintain those relationships. Human capital will make a local agency strong and keep them relevant.

2.     Optimize your business model and tailor it to the needs of your community. Although a single business model used to work for most, if not all, new organizations, this is no longer the case and some research and experimenting should be done in order to find the right fit.

3.     Diversify sources of revenue to become less reliant on print advertising. Even though the majority of revenue will probably come from advertisers for most small- and medium-sized agencies, having multiple sources of income is key. Since advertisers will follow audiences, you have to stay current with your audience in order to retain reader- or viewership, so diversification of services and products will be necessary in order to keep advertising funding flowing.

4.     Know when to work alone and when to work together. It’s commonly said that we’re stronger together, which is often true for local news organizations who are struggling, but finding the right partnerships is a difficult line to walk, especially when each is trying to serve one community and boost their own revenues.

5.     Plan ahead and be ready to transform at least a third of your business model every five years. Five-year financial goals should drive change within your organization and you should be constantly looking forward. Even if a decision means less profit in the short term, if it is the best option in the long term leaders must act accordingly.