What happens when a town no longer has a reporter?
Not fewer stories.
Not less noise.
Just fewer people paid to verify what’s true.
And something else fills the gap.
New column: The Town Without a Reporter
Link in thread.
#Journalism #LocalNews #NewsDeserts
On an orange background, this square image centers on logo imagery from the Local News Day organization edged by six photos around the edges that show a typical range of local events: Top L-R, a bookmobile, a rainy police callout, and a “No Kings” demonstration. Bottom L-R, firefighters responding to a house fire, girls playing soccer, and a car that smashed into a local tea shop. Logo images courtesy of Local News Day on Facebook. Small photos all courtesy of the Shawnee Mission Post.
Today is the first #LocalNewsDay, an #event created to raise awareness of how important #local #news is. Normally, the most important news happens close to home! Yet #newsdeserts are becoming ever more widespread. Fight #corruption! Support local news!
localnewsday.org
'The future of news is local' - Lisa Nandy's strategy statement, announced today at a #SocietyofEditors conference on the UK Government's priorities in building up the sector once again:
www.gov.uk/government/n...
#localnews #newsdeserts #LisaNandy #moneyfordigitaldevelopment
'When trusted local news disappears, public understanding of local issues declines, misinformation spreads more easily, and communities lose vital scrutiny of councils, developers and public bodies...'
#Bedford #BedfordNews #Journalism #PublicInterestNews #PINF #NewsDeserts #LocalNews #Media
Journalist Quinton Smith retired, saw the need and built a small but excellent nonprofit news source on the Oregon coast. Story from The Daily Emerald, student newspaper at the University of Oregon: dailyemerald.com/177173/campu... #nonprofitnews #newsdeserts @lincolnchronicle.org.web.brid.gy
"Utilizing predictive modeling created by the school’s Spiegel Research Center, the Medill team found 250 counties at high risk of becoming #newsdeserts over the next decade". www.medill.northwestern.edu/news/2025/ne...
The loss of smaller #NPR & #PBS #stations . Will create #newsdeserts. Where's theirs no #internet . Which will serve #conservative interests
$1.1 billion slashed from CPB funding.
PBS/NPR silent.
Rural listeners—no news, no alerts, no voice.
This isn’t saving money—it’s erasing communities.
🧡 #ORANGEDOOSH #NewsDeserts #NoKingsInAmerica
Local news deserts threaten our democracy. That’s where Postindustrial comes in
#localnews #newsdeserts #postindustrialcommunities
No reporters. No watchdogs. No transparency.
This new map from Medill shows that hundreds of U.S. counties now have zero local journalists. We’re not just losing stories—we’re losing the civic glue that holds communities together.
🧵 www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/new-...
#NewsDeserts #LocalPressCrisis
No reporters means no questions and no accountability.
News deserts are on the rise, and communities are paying the price. Read how local journalism protects democracy, and what Bedford’s experience can teach us...
#Bedford #BedfordNews #MediaLiteracy #NewsDeserts #JournalismMatters
9/11 The closures reflect a devastating national trend. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, nearly 2.5 million Canadians now live in postal codes with only one or zero local news outlets—double the number in 2008.
#NewsDeserts #JournalismCrisis
#KNOXVILLETN
Friends, do not let the regime turn us on each other. The #RedStates like #TN have supermajorities due to #votersuppression
#gerrymandering
#propaganda
#darkmoney &
#newsdeserts
I could go on. In #TN for ex, people are protesting across the state. I’ve seen it.
@indivisible.org
Up next: what real resistance looks like—from local organizers to trust repair.
#FakeNewsSites #DisinfoPlaybook #InformationJustice #NewsDeserts #CivicResilience
open.substack.com/pub/michaelk... #PublicMedia #NPR #PBS #MediaPolicy #CivicInfrastructure
#DefundDebunked #NewsDeserts
#NonprofitMedia #MediaBiasMyth
#InformedDemocracy
That's a misconception.
Please read about #NewsDeserts, and how massive swaths of Americans do NOT get any local news. And learn now to combat that with #TruthBombs
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OPz...
It’s that they DON’T KNOW.
#NewsDeserts are ground zero of the problem. How do we get the truth to people?
Ken Harbaugh and Joe Walsh discuss how misinformation about the economy, crime, and immigration influenced Trump voters. #Misinformation #NewsDeserts #PoliticalDivide
@walshfreedom.bsky.social
youtube.com/shorts/9NMKe...
Follow The Ken Harbaugh Show here: linktr.ee/thekenharbau...
On KQNY's Community Matters program, The Plumas Sun's own Tommy Miles and Lindsay Morton discuss the news website, it's mission, and it's future.
Listen here --> bit.ly/Tommy-and-Li...
#PlumasCounty #theplumassun #plumas #localnews #localnewsmatters #newsdeserts #newsdesert #nonprofitnews
If the mainstream media won't cover these events, how are we supposed to find them?
Local media is one source (as evidenced above), but many Americans live in #newsdeserts. Nearly 54 million Americans don't have access to #localnews. localmedia.org/2024/10/loca...
NYT, CNN, etal, are Trump proofing. They see what happened to ABC & now Paramount (maybe?🤞).
I second you. SUPPORT independent media!
And remember our friends/family in #newsdeserts. Share alternative media sources so they get the WHOLE story.
The year has only just begun, and I am lucky enough to be part of the conference of the Swiss Political Science Association at the University of #Geneva. Many thanks to the organizers! I am looking forward to my presentation tomorrow morning on the topic of #newsdeserts in the literature.
