Some 136 newspapers in the United States have closed in the past year, news deserts are expanding and web traffic to the nation’s top newspapers has dropped markedly this decade, according to a report issued Monday that struggles to find hope for the beleaguered news industry.
While entrepreneurs are launching digital news sites, often backed by philanthropies, they haven’t sprouted at a rate that makes up for the losses, the report from Northwestern University said.
Taking a step back for an even broader look at the industry is even more troubling. Since 2005, the numbers of newspapers published in the United States has dropped from 7,325 in 2005 to 4,490 now, said the Medill State of Local News report. Daily newspaper circulation that averaged between 50 and 60 million people at the turn of the century now stands at just over 15 million.
An estimated 365,460 people worked at newspapers in 2005, and now that number is down to 91,550, the report said. Two decades ago, 71% of journalists worked at newspapers and now just 29% of the nearly 42,000 working journalists are at newspapers.
The number of newspapers that have closed in the past year is on par with what it has been recently. The difference is that the majority of the shuttered newspapers last year was not the result of consolidations by big chains, but longtime independent owners who have given up — at places like the Wasatch Wave in Utah or the Aurelia Star in Iowa, the report said.
“It’s very disheartening,” said Tim Franklin, chairman of local news at Northwestern’s Medill School. “The disheartening part of it is that these are the kind of owners we want to keep.”
While there has been an increase in new digital sites, the vast majority have been in urban or suburban areas, deepening the news crisis in rural areas. An estimated 50 million Americans live in counties with either no local news source or just one, the report said.
Maryland, New Jersey, Maine, Hawaii and Ohio have seen the largest percentage of newspaper closures.
Of the 100 largest newspapers in the United States, only 61 print editions seven days a week, Northwestern said. Eighteen publish four days a week or less; the New Jersey Star-Ledger is digital only, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said it is cutting out print at the end of the year.
Traffic to the online sites of those 100 top newspapers has dropped by 45% during the past four years. Partly that’s due to inflated numbers caused by people seeking information during the pandemic. But Facebook’s deemphasis of local news and the rise of generative AI on search engines has also driven people away from the news sites, said Zach Metzger, director of the Local News Project.
Philanthropists like the group Press Forward have tried to support newsrooms. But Franklin said there needs to be more momentum behind once-unthinkable public measures, like tax credits or loans.
Even more frightening for journalists is the idea that generations are growing up without the habit of following news, particularly for their own communities. But there’s some evidence that’s not the case, Franklin said.
Northwestern took a poll of Chicago-area consumers recently and found that 85% said they consume local news at least once a week, and half do so daily, he said. They’re just turning to different ways of finding it — smartphone searches is the way young people say they find news most frequently. Influencers on sites like TikTok and Instagram are also becoming more popular, although many of them concentrate on national news.
“Local news means different things to different people,” Franklin said. “The news industry needs to recognize the vast changes in how people are consuming news and tailoring their reports to meet people where they are.”
