As defined by the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, a news desert is 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.”
In simpler terms, a news desert is an area that receives little to no information from local news sources. These communities are left in the dark about a variety of important topics as a result of this issue.
News deserts do the public an extreme disservice, as it prevents people from obtaining vital information about their local politics, businesses, and events. News deserts always almost lead to uninformed and unengaged communities.
News deserts promote negative societal impacts such as the spread of misinformation and the decline of journalism. UNC even went as far as to say that “many newspapers have become ghosts of their former selves, both in terms of quality and quantity of their editorial content and the reach of their readership.”
Ever since the rise of the digital age, print journalism has been on the decline. This is due to the fact that many people nowadays rely on broadcast or online news, thus eliminating the need for printed works. The demand for newspapers is slim, and this in turn results in a loss of quality and quantity.
The industry is not the same as it used to be, and neither is the market. News deserts are growing at a rapid rate in today’s day-in-age for a number of reasons.
The first and most common cause of news deserts is financial constraints. Many of the local, independent sources of news across the country have suffered greatly due to online readership. They no longer have the audience they used to, which essentially leads to a loss in subscriptions and revenue.
The problem is that when these large newspaper chains take over smaller publications, it restricts the types of stories that are written and reduces the quality of the work being produced. Many rely on local papers to report on essential matters and provide truthful insights, and these big corporations often remove this aspect from local news.
News deserts can take place anywhere, but they are most found in low-income areas. In Tom Stite’s analysis of the previously mentioned UNC research, he mentioned that “rural areas, as well as minority neighborhoods in big cities, have long been cited as particularly arid news deserts.”
To further emphasize the severity of this rising issue, half of the counties in this country only have one weekly newspaper that is used to cram everything together. And even worse, there are about 200 counties that do not even have a newspaper at all.
As time goes on, this issue grows more and more severe due to financial limitations, investment entities, and online readership. Rather than enabling this threat to our democracy, it is crucial that we support local stations and make an effort to diminish these risks before it is too late.
No news is bad news. And it is our duty to recognize this issue and fight to resolve it.
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