Why This Report Matters
Our research is the first attempt to provide a national lens on local media (and in this instance, we are looking solely at the experience of small-market, local newspapers) since the Federal Communication Commission’s 2011’s report “The Information Needs of Communities” (the “Waldman Report”).48 A summary of important papers published since that time is included in the Further Reading chapter of this report.
In its 2011 study, the FCC conducted an omnibus study of local media ecosystems, focusing specifically on the information needs necessary for American communities and American democracy. Considerable attention was paid to the newspaper industry, in particular small-market newspapers. With the exception of the Pew Research Center’s annual “State of the News Media” reports, this was the last time that researchers paid such attention to small-market newspapers, or indeed the newspaper industry in its entirety.
The media world has changed substantially in the years following the Waldman Report in 2011. Newspaper chains have merged, creating the behemoths of the industry: New Media/Gatehouse (432 newspapers), Gannett (258 newspapers), and Digital First Media (208 newspapers). Social media’s impact has grown, further fracturing audience attention and advertising dollars. These changes have encouraged newspapers to accelerate their digital presence and experiment with digital tools such as paywalls, partnerships with—and against—Facebook and Google,49 and integrate new digital metrics into the workplace.
This study enables us to take stock of how local newspapers are responding to these developments and ongoing digital disruption.
Alongside discussing the impact of these major changes, our interviewees also revealed an industry keen to tell its own story and to hear about the perspectives of others. One reason for this desire is that, until recently, this has been an underreported sector and one that needs to hear its own story reported back and analyzed.
Although there has been lots of great work in this space, the majority of efforts have focused on either a defined geographic area such as New Jersey 50 or specific verticals such as media deserts 51 and online hyperlocal media. 52 The experience of local newspapers, especially from a cross-country perspective, has tended to be overlooked.
A number of developments in the past six months have begun to address this. We note, for example, a weekly newsletter on local matters published by Poynter, the excellent case studies/how-to guides from the Local News Lab,53 The Local Fix,54 and the Columbia Journalism Review.55 Our study sits alongside these efforts as part of a revitalized discussion about the health and future of local journalism in the United States.
Embracing the methodology of oral history research, our interviewees told us not just what local journalism leaders are doing, but what they want to do and what they believe they are doing.56 This approach allowed us to see local journalists as a social group, telling their stories and that of the local media landscape as they see it in 2016–17.
Combining these insights with our own analysis and expertise, we hope this report will make a significant contribution to the discussion about the state of small-market newspapers in the United States, and their continued importance to communities and the wider news and information ecosystem.