New project maps Washington’s local media landscape

A new project from Washington State University is mapping the state’s local news landscape. Researchers are trying to find out what challenges community newsrooms are experiencing. They’re also working to identify potential solutions.

“There’s definitely a local news crisis across the U.S.,” said Jennifer Henrichsen, an assistant professor for WSU’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and the research director of the Washington Local News Ecosystem Project. “We need to understand what’s happening in our state.”

Over 3,200 of U.S. print newspapers that existed in 2005 have already disappeared, according to a Medill State of Local News report from the fall, as news outlets are pushed to do more with fewer staff and smaller budgets. 

Researchers created an interactive map of news outlets by city and medium, including radio, TV, newspapers and magazines.

Despite a generous definition of what constitutes a news outlet, Henrichsen said out of more than 1,000 sources throughout the state, only 353 met the criteria. 

“The outlet had to have articles that were published regularly, it had to be oriented toward a local Washington news audience, and it had to meet journalist content criteria,” Henrichsen said. 

Hardships for local news: The challenges

The picture painted by the data reveals substantial challenges for small newsrooms and the reporters who work for them. 

Part of the report includes interviews with people working in the journalism industry. 

“What we found from the interviewees includes the fact that wages are not keeping up with the cost of living,” Henrichsen said. “Journalists who might want to live in a particular place, because that’s where they report from, they can’t afford to do so.” 

Low wages are affecting the ability to hire and retain journalists, according to the report, and there are other growing issues with the pipeline of reporters to staff newsrooms, said Pawel Popiel, an assistant professor at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication who worked on the project. 

“Almost half of all the news outlets have a budget of less than $250,000 per year, which is the lowest rung budget in our dataset,” Popiel said. 

Many of Washington’s local news outlets are facing budgetary constraints, not only to maintain the newsroom but also to pay journalists, which is a problem, he said. 

The researchers also started collecting staffing information for the report. It’s still an ongoing process, but Popiel said the preliminary staff data shows a lot of newsrooms rely, out of necessity, on part-time labor because they cannot afford full-time staff.

News deserts, defined as places where there are no local news sources, also continue to grow, Henrichsen said.

“We know that when local news outlets shrink or disappear, communities’ critical information needs in education, politics, civil life, those go unmet,” she said. 

Without access to local news, civic and political participation drops, polarization increases and communities lose cohesion and identity, Henrichsen said. 

“All of those factors are detrimental to both civic life and democratic society,” she said. 

People then turn to social media for their news, Henrichsen said, which is often rife with disinformation and content intended to deceive people, she said. 

Another point of concern is quick pop-up websites that appear to be news sources.

Nicknamed “pink slime,” these websites are usually presented as news outlets despite their poor quality partisan content. Low media literacy rates among the population also contribute to the constant flow of misinformation, according to the report. 

“It’s pretty easy to create a website and say, ‘Ta-da, I’m a news outlet.’ You can do that in a few minutes right now,” said Brier Dudley, an opinion columnist for The Seattle Times who wrote an op-ed on the WSU report.  

Since the research for the project is ongoing, Dudley said it would be valuable for researchers to look into the different ways people are finding news. 

“A substantive amount of ‘news’ content out there in Washington state actually does not meet basic news criteria,” said Henrichsen. 

When people do seek out the news, they expect it to be free like other content on social media, she said. 

What society can do: The solutions

The subscription news model has worked for some newsrooms amid the loss of traditional ad revenue, according to the report, and direct donations are also helping to fund local news. 

More investment in local journalism education programs to strengthen the journalism workforce pipeline is another solution, said Henrichsen, along with collaborative journalism initiatives throughout the state. 

Students from WSU’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication watch monitors in a control room. (Credit: Matt Loveless)

Media literacy programs might also help, she said. 

“We need more citizens aware of what constitutes good and important factual information, in order to make sure citizens are able to engage in civic life and democracy,” Henrichsen said. 

More support for research to understand the driving force behind the journalism crisis and ways to make the local news industry more resilient are also solution-oriented goals, Popiel said.

One solution for Washington policymakers is providing funding support for local journalism by taxing big tech companies, he said. 

National news outlets like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been successful in pulling in money from tech giants, Dudley said. 

“Google and Facebook know that they profit from these companies’ output, so they basically pay to license the material,” he said. “They get kind of what you would consider a master subscription to use that news content.”

That can be a challenge for smaller, local and independent news organizations without the same legal resources, Dudley said.

Although it hasn’t been passed, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2023 would allow smaller companies to collectively negotiate with online companies that use their content on their platforms. If smaller news organizations can collectively bargain, they’re more likely to get a better deal, Dudley said. 

“We need to continue to invest in journalism,” Popiel said. “We know that journalism plays an essential role in informing communities and a richer civic life in Washington state, and we need to continue that.”