Trends in the American local news sector seem enduring. Newspaper advertising will continue to decline. Owners will continue to cut costs, including in the newsroom. Digital startups will continue to proliferate. And for audiences, local information will increasingly be mediated by the smartphone screen, further eroding capture by radio, television, and print.
But even though we see topline patterns, things are likely to play out differently across the country.
Over the next year, we may see some large metro areas lose a daily paper in all but name only. But in others, depending on ownership and other factors, a paper may prove surprisingly resilient. Some communities may settle into a kind of stasis, with a range of operators collaborating to offer a vibrant, cooperative news ecosystem. For others, a public broadcaster or local TV station become the de facto news leader. In still other towns and cities, the digital startup becomes the main source of vetted accountability journalism.
Some larger communities may slip into news and media desert status, a plight that their smaller and often rural counterparts have already grown accustomed to. Others may cultivate a new form of civic intelligence that doesn’t even resemble the 20th century categories we’re so used to thinking about; we might even notice it’s happening.
So many factors shape these individual cases — market size, the number and nature of incumbents, access to capital, civic investment by community leaders, the efficacy of a community’s residents, and talent — always the X factor. The list could go on.
I read a book recently, Rising Tide by John Barry, about the Mississippi River. It’s a cautionary tale about the hubris of early attempts to engineer the river’s path. In his account, Barry describes the surface of the river — you can see its directionality, but just below, currents are moving in every possible direction. Indeed, those currents “buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled.”
It would be unwise to extrapolate a river’s nature simply from observing its surface. While forecasts, studies, and national estimates are useful in thinking about the future of news, the reality is going to play out locally, and no two communities will be exactly alike.
Jesse Holcomb is an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Calvin University.
Trends in the American local news sector seem enduring. Newspaper advertising will continue to decline. Owners will continue to cut costs, including in the newsroom. Digital startups will continue to proliferate. And for audiences, local information will increasingly be mediated by the smartphone screen, further eroding capture by radio, television, and print.
But even though we see topline patterns, things are likely to play out differently across the country.
Over the next year, we may see some large metro areas lose a daily paper in all but name only. But in others, depending on ownership and other factors, a paper may prove surprisingly resilient. Some communities may settle into a kind of stasis, with a range of operators collaborating to offer a vibrant, cooperative news ecosystem. For others, a public broadcaster or local TV station become the de facto news leader. In still other towns and cities, the digital startup becomes the main source of vetted accountability journalism.
Some larger communities may slip into news and media desert status, a plight that their smaller and often rural counterparts have already grown accustomed to. Others may cultivate a new form of civic intelligence that doesn’t even resemble the 20th century categories we’re so used to thinking about; we might even notice it’s happening.
So many factors shape these individual cases — market size, the number and nature of incumbents, access to capital, civic investment by community leaders, the efficacy of a community’s residents, and talent — always the X factor. The list could go on.
I read a book recently, Rising Tide by John Barry, about the Mississippi River. It’s a cautionary tale about the hubris of early attempts to engineer the river’s path. In his account, Barry describes the surface of the river — you can see its directionality, but just below, currents are moving in every possible direction. Indeed, those currents “buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled.”
It would be unwise to extrapolate a river’s nature simply from observing its surface. While forecasts, studies, and national estimates are useful in thinking about the future of news, the reality is going to play out locally, and no two communities will be exactly alike.
Jesse Holcomb is an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Calvin University.
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
AX Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor