Assessing local journalism: news deserts, journalism divides, and the determinants of the robustness of local news

    Collection:
    Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
    Contributers:
    Napoli, Philip M. (author), Weber, Matthew (author), McCollough, Katie (author), and Wang, Qun (author)
    Format:
    Research report
    Publication Date:
    2018
    URL:
    https://dewitt.sanford.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Assessing-Local-Journalism_100-Communities.pdf
    Published:
    USA: DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, Stanford School of Public Policy, Duke University.
    Location:
    Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 124 Document Number: D11221
    Subject Term:
    communities, coverage, environment, environmental communication, health information, information issues, journalism, news, news media, reporting, rural-urban differences, health, local, local media, media organizations, democracy, local journalism, and news deserts
    Notes:
    26 pages., Findings based on an analysis of more than 16,000 news stories gathered over seven days, across 100 randomly sampled U.S. communities with populations of 20,000 to 300,000. Among the findings: 20 communities contained no local news stories, only about 17% of the news stories provided to a community were truly local; less than half (43%) of the news stories to a community by local media outlets were produced by the local media outlet; and just over half (56% of the news stories provided to a community by local media outlets addressed what was defined as a "critical information need." Findings provided evidence of the "news deserts" problem confronting local communities.

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