Local news connects citizens to their community by telling stories that resonate with residents’ values, culture, and concerns. It also encourages civic engagement by informing citizens about events, government decisions and public services they depend on.
Despite the decline in traditional local newspaper circulation, many nonprofit and legacy news organizations are developing viable economic and journalistic models to serve their communities. These efforts can create a powerful model for other communities to follow, including those that have already lost their local newspapers.
In the Midwest, for example, viewers remained relatively stable across all key local TV time slots in 2022. The success of these efforts is encouraging, but much work remains. As the number of local news outlets continues to dwindle, it’s important that the remaining local media have resources to tell in-depth and complex stories that engage the communities they serve.
One of the ways to do that is through collaborations between national and local news organizations. This roundup highlights examples of these partnerships that incorporate innovative strategies to drive engagement, including solutions journalism and restorative storytelling.
The growing impact of these collaborative stories can help ensure that the thousands of communities that have already lost their local newspapers get the information they need. This is vital to the health of our democracy, which relies on a vibrant local news ecosystem that provides citizens with critical political and civic information and offers a forum for discussion. Without it, we risk greater polarization and lower voter turnout.