The pressing issue
The local press industry in the US is rapidly folding in on itself, with around two newspapers shutting a week according to a new report from Northwestern University.
As media has shifted online, the industry has suffered. At the turn of the millennium the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted just under 200,000 employees at newspaper publishers in the US. Today it counts just 50,000. This decline was accelerated during the pandemic, leaving thousands of reporters, editors, and photographers out of work. At the current rate — with two publications shutting per week — the country is on course to lose over a third of its newspapers by 2025.
News deserts
The plight of the papers is being felt across the states, with roughly 7% of US counties now ‘news deserts’ — areas with no local news outlets — and 20% at risk of heading the same way. Areas with little or no local news coverage typically experience increased poverty rates and lower household incomes and there is some evidence that government services become less efficient without a local press.
One bright spot in publishing has been at digitally-native news outlets (like us!). In that sector employment has grown quickly, more than doubling over the last decade to around 18,000 employees — although that growth hasn't been enough to offset the overall decline in the industry.
