As philanthropy spends big to fight news deserts, 3 frontline news outlets share what they need

Stop me if you’ve heard some variation of this statistic: More than half of U.S. counties have no or almost no access to a “reliable local news source.”

It’s factually true. As of November 2023, roughly 204 American counties did not have a designated news outlet. The U.S. has lost almost 2,900 newspapers and 43,000 newspaper journalists since 2005. Northeastern and coastal states tend to retain access to news, while swaths of the Midwest and central South have multiple counties with only one news outlet — or worse, none.

The problem with the constant drumbeat of these statistics is that we run the risk of continually focusing on the negative, becoming so keenly aware of the problem that we neglect to put equal focus on the solutions. In fact, there’s no need for the conditional there — some of these solutions already exist and are already in practice at news organizations across the country