How the Local News Landscape Is Changing | U.S. News Decision Points

I’m a national reporter by trade but have been something of a lifelong booster of local and regional news. Unless you trust your state government implicitly in all things and are certain that your county’s largest employer would never cut safety or environmental corners, you should be, too.

But tens of millions of Americans have limited or no access to local news. In my wife’s home state, the flagship newspaper now has a front page populated with wire service stories rather than its own reporting. It’s also noticeably thinner than when we first started dating (unlike me).

As of 2025, 21% say they follow local news very closely, down from 37% in 2016. Some of that may have to do with the decline in local news offerings – it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. In a news desert, you don’t have much of a choice.

Let’s look at the lay of the land for local news.

TV is still Americans’ preferred medium for local news: 65% of Americans say they turn to their local TV news stations at least sometimes, down from 70% who said the same in 2018. And 34% would prefer to get their local news from TV, down from 41% in 2018.

Just 36% of American adults say they get news from their local daily paper at least sometimes in 2025, compared to 43% seven years earlier. A measly 8% say they would prefer to get their local news that way, down from 13% in 2018.

This next figure shocked me. In 2018, 38% of respondents said they got their local news at least sometimes from online forums or discussion groups – think Facebook groups or the Nextdoor app. It’s now 52%.

This is like Googling your mild health symptoms. You’ll end up convinced you have leprosy.

Groups like these tend to be self-reinforcing. That’s in part because by definition they’re affinity groups. They’re also like the old game of telephone. You may get your neighbor’s version of a news story, not the news story itself. And you’re at the mercy of the crankiest member of the group.

In my personal experience – which is anecdote, not data – for every “Lost Cat Please Help” post there’s a “Why Are Those People Moving Into Our Neighborhood?” post.

Sadly, one area in which the numbers are stable since 2018 is the proportion of Americans who report paying for local news. It was 14% in 2018 and sits at 12% as of 2025.

(Before you ask: Yes, I pay for two local news outlets in my home state of Vermont. Seven Days and VTDigger are both great and something of a bright spot in the desolate landscape of local news. Today, I plan to subscribe to The Banner: Montgomery.)

Why aren’t people paying? Half say they can find plenty of local news for free. About a third (29%) say they are not interested enough while 10% say it’s too expensive and 9% say what is available to them is not good enough to pay for.

The good news is that 80% of Americans agree that local news outlets are at least somewhat important to the well-being of their local community. The bad news is that the proportion of Americans who say those outlets are “extremely” or “very” important dropped to 34% by 2025 – 10 points below where it was just one year earlier.

There are real-world consequences for shrinking local news outlets.

One troubling phenomenon is the closure of statehouse bureaus and the reduction of local and regional news outlets covering delegations to Congress. What’s your senator doing? What did your governor just sign? Who’s lobbying your representatives? What does that planned bond issue mean for your county’s finances? Is that state government contract worth it? What’s the deal with the new schools chancellor? What caused that toxic spill into the river that runs through your town?

That’s the kind of intel you lose when you lose local news sources.