News Deserts, What's Going on Here?

Blog #8

News Deserts, What's Going on Here?

What is a News Desert?

It is no secret that news today is not what it once was, but there is an even more recent phenomena than simply the news becoming less reliable. A news desert is a neighborhood or community that is not reached by vital communications. Essentially, these communities have little to no news coverage of their geographic location. These can have a spiraling effect on society, when a group of people are unable to get reliable, current, and relevant news, the grassroots of democracy are not upheld. 

Major Causes and Effects

One of the strongest forms of local news from the beginning of the United States was always the newspaper. However, in today's technological age, the newspaper is dying. With people using the internet far more than print media to get their news, small, local newspapers cannot survive. As people read the newspaper less and less frequently, these newspapers that already had smaller consumer bases are unable to raise enough sales to continue to be financially viable. 

When American people are unable to rely on up-to-date and accurate news, the rest of the country then
suffers. News deserts lead to an uninformed voter base, without people making informed decisions when voting, the country as a whole suffers. While uniformed voters are not beneficial to our democracy, the other issue with a lack of information is that it will keep people away from the polls as well, continuing the decline in voter participation that has been seen in recent years, especially at the local level. 

News deserts overwhelmingly affect minority and low income communities at a much higher rate than affluent communities. One of the major issues correlated with this is that people tend to trust their local news at a much higher rate than national news. These communities are no longer being served by local newspapers or local news stations. A lack of access to local news creates a lack of knowledge on local issues and disconnects the people of said local community from the important things effecting both their neighbors and themselves. 

While communities mainly comprised of minorities or low income individuals do tend to be affected at a
higher rate than others, major cities and communities have been affected as well. Tampa, for instance no longer is served by a daily local newspaper. Tampa is a major metropolitan area, while they do still have access to multiple local news channels, the lack of any sort of print news has large implications for the shrinking of print media. If a city as large and populous as Tampa cannot support print news, the medium does not seem to have a bright future.

Not only does the lack of local news access affect the community, but it also has reduced the job scape for journalists greatly. While in the 1990s newsroom employment was practically at its peak, today that staffing has been cut practically in half with print advertising revenues hitting record lows. Local newspapers shutting their doors is also happening with independent newspapers at a far higher rate than those that are not independent. Of all daily local newspapers in the U.S., two thirds of them are owned by the largest 25 newspaper chains. 

Can We Fix News Deserts?

Not to be a pessimist, but odds are we probably will not be able to fix news deserts. The local newspaper has a very low chance at being able to make a comeback, especially independent newspapers. The odds that an independent local newspaper would be able to start up in a community and turn a profit in our current digital age is extremely low. This is why we have seen an average decrease in two local newspapers per week since 2004. This has not stopped both for-profit and non-profit organizations from attempting to develop sustainable economic and journalistic plans for local news organizations to once again thrive no matter the format (print, digital, broadcast, etc.).

While I may not think we can save local newspapers, there is a possibility we can reduce news deserts in another way. People that value local news and informing the public are giving hope to those communities without local news. Some of these cities have leaders that still believe in local news access, these leaders are putting in research efforts to understand how to effectively reach their community and make local news sources viable again. People have developed nonprofit digital platforms for local news. 

With the death of print media, which is being rapidly followed by a decrease in cable television viewership, it seems that digital/online platforms are the only viable way to reach people with local news. However, this is not necessarily ideal either, being a nonprofit makes it difficult for the hiring of skill journalists, being a digital source if people are not searching for local news online, they won't find these pages, unlike with newspapers where people knew about their local paper and paid to be on the delivery list. 

Overall, local news is just as important as national news. It is essential to be able to reach the people of your community about YOUR community's issues. Keeping people informed and educated about what is directly effecting them due to where they live is essential for democracy to thrive. Without voters, and especially without informed voters our neighborhoods suffer when unqualified candidates, or candidates that do not align with the values of the community win elections. Finding a way to maintain communication of local news to the people of every community is something we should focus on, we should make an effort to stop the creation of new news deserts and to reduce the number we already have.