The Danger of News Deserts

    News deserts are becoming a bigger problem in this day and age, and if we don't do something about them, more and more communities will be at risk. But what exactly is a news desert? The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media defines it as, "a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level." These communities are at a loss because they are missing out on quality news and information. This means they are uninformed and unaware of what is even going on around them in their area. 

    New deserts aren't a new issue. There have always been areas of the country that are too rural or had such a small population that they do not have news coverage. The problem is that now news deserts are growing. Since 2005, the US has lost more than 1/4 of its newspapers, which means 70 million people have been without local news. More are expected to close in the coming years. On average, newspapers are closing at a rate of two papers per week. At that rate, the US could lose at least 1/3 of all its newspapers by 2025. That are a lot of areas without coverage that do not have other means of getting information.

     What is making it worse? A couple of things have made news deserts more of an issue in recent years. For one, the disappearance of the paper/print newspaper business model has caused a significant loss in local newspapers. People are simply not as interested in buying a print newspaper anymore, so there is no incentive to create them. And with no one buying print papers anymore, those organizations are losing money, so they see no reason to stay in business. With no money and no audience, there is nothing to keep those organizations going. 

    Another thing that is making the situation worse is the digital age. More and more people are turning to social media or online news journals. Online sources are easier to access for most people, and most of the time they are free of charge. Many small and traditional news organizations have struggled to adapt. Many don't have digital options or even a website, so they are out of touch with the average audience today. Unfortunately, the new digital news sources are often not localized and are mostly focused on national issues, which still leaves small communities in the dark. 

    

    What is so bad about news deserts? Well, besides the fact that people are missing out on local news, there are also other negative consequences of news deserts. People in news deserts are less informed, and often that manifests in a lower rate of voting in those communities. With so many news sources out there on the Internet, people struggle with having too many choices and can't decide what to focus their attention on. This again leaves people to be uninformed about pressing issues in their communities because often it is the national news stories that have the most coverage. It has also been found that the decline of newspapers has led to people not seeking out political stories. This then causes people to be even less knowledgeable at the voting booth or prevents them from going at all.

    

    Other issues about news deserts are that the resulting sources are often less credible and of lower quality. Any remaining papers are often shells of their former selves in the sense that they are also producing lesser quality news and at a lesser quantity. So even if there are local papers still alive in some areas, those papers are not good and not really valuable. 

 

    Studies have also found that underserved populations are at higher risk and suffer more from new deserts. The disappearance of local stations often results in consolidation into larger new networks that are often out of touch with what is actually happening in communities. This has proven to be hurtful to minority communities who are often misrepresented in the media. For example, African American and Latinx people are two times more likely to be the subjects of stories about crime. These media often present people of color as aggressors in these situations and often ignore non-minorities or crime between groups. So, it is important that local and ethnic news sources remain open to provide a true insight into what is actually happening in those communities. 

    What can we do about it? There are a lot of possible solutions to this problem, but there are also a lot of challenges with those solutions. For example, trying to just add back more newspapers has its limitations based on geography and where people live/gather. As found by the US Census, more than 95% of the land mass in the US is rural, yet only 20% of the population lives outside urban areas. So it would be hard to add and maintain news organizations in all those rural areas. 

    

    Another proposed solution is to focus in on the issue of those news organizations unable to fund themselves. In the general sense, philanthropic funding to those smaller/local news organizations would be beneficial. In many cases, it could even help them stay in business and provide areas with the local news they are craving. The other option people have actually tried to get passed in the legislature is tax incentives for local newspapers and local digital outlets. This would help keep them open and again support those local organizations. But the problem with both of these is that that funding might not be enough for poorer regions that need a lot of help to support their news network.

    

    Another common solution is to turn to digital sources of media, but this is not an ideal situation for those who are most at risk by news deserts. News deserts usually occur in rural areas where high-speed internet access is equally as rare. According to the Federal Communications Commission, "between 40 percent and 60 percent of rural residents lack access to broadband or wireless internet, leaving people in these communities without many options.” So, even turning to the Internet for news can be a problem when people cannot even access the internet. 

    

    There is another problem with this too, which comes down to race. As found by Pew Research "White individuals were 72 percent likely to have broadband, while African Americans were 54 percent likely and Hispanic and Latino people were just 50 percent likely to have a broadband internet connection at their home”. This means that those minority groups that are most at risk are also the ones with the least amount of access to news. So, if print media sources disappear and those communities don't have Internet access then those communities are left in the dark. There is going to have to be another solution to help these communities that doesn't involve needing to access the internet.  

    

    What are people doing about it? In new desert communities, people are turning to other available new sources like broadcast/radio news and Facebook pages. In most of these communities, people are already familiar and connected socially with their neighbors and the town as a whole, so it is easy for them to create alternative media sources. The most used of these is local Facebook pages that are run and updated by members of the community. It has actually been found that misinformation in those posts are low (less than 1% to be exact), which cannot be said for any mainstream news source. Media Management even found in a survey of a news desert community that "35.9% of respondents reported getting information about their local community from social media “every day.” Social media represented the most frequently accessed source for local information”. It is clear that people are finding their own reliable workarounds for the issue. These solutions should be further considered when trying to fix the national problem of news deserts. 

    How does this affect me and my generation? My generation is already known for getting most of its information from the web, so this does not affect us as much. We are probably one of the reasons why news deserts are spreading because we are so dependent on the Internet/social media for our news. But this trend might increase the already huge mass of news information available online and make it harder for not just my generation, but everyone to find reliable trustworthy news. So if we want to protect the most vulnerable and valuable news sources, we need to as a society invest in protecting local news organizations.