One in three U.S. counties now has no full-time native journalist – a staggering 75% decline over the previous 23 years. This collapse means communities throughout the nation lack “even one full-time reporter to cowl all the faculties, the city councils, the financial growth tasks, basketball video games, environmental selections, native companies, and native occasions.”
To doc this disaster, Rebuild Native Information and Muck Rack partnered to create the Native Journalist Index 2025, which maps journalist staffing in each U.S. county. The report analyzes information from over 100,000 journalists and three.5 million every day articles tracked by Muck Rack’s platform, utilizing a metric known as “native journalist equivalents” (LJEs) to account for part-time and freelance work.
An interactive map within the report reveals the stark, nationwide scale of the decline. The erosion of native information isn’t confined to particular areas – it’s a common disaster. Because the report notes, the “evaporation of native information protection has hit small cities and large cities, suburbs and rural areas alike.”
You’ll be able to discover which counties are most definitely to turn out to be native information deserts on an interactive map developed by the Medill Native Information Initiative. The Native Information Barometer and Watch Checklist maps the US counties which have a greater than 40% likelihood of turning into information deserts inside the subsequent 5 years.
These at-risk counties aren’t simply underserved – they’re, on common, poorer, older, and fewer educated than even current information deserts. If you choose a state from the map sidebar then the Watchlist will replace to indicate all of the counties within the chosen state in probably the most hazard of turning into information deserts.
This map’s most sobering takeaway is that America is more and more turning into two nations in terms of native information: one with considerable entry in prosperous, urbanized areas, and one other with out. The implications are profound. Analysis reveals that communities with out native information expertise decrease civic engagement, much less voter participation, and weaker accountability in public establishments.
