A new Pew Research Center survey of more than 5,000 adults, released Tuesday, finds that a fact-free 63% think local news providers are doing very well or somewhat well financially.
That’s less extreme — but only a little — than a 2018 version of the same study, when 71% answered yes to the same question. Of course, the business health of legacy newspapers, their websites and the alternative local press has gotten much worse in the six years since.
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It doesn’t hurt my feelings that those with a positive view of the local news business haven’t been reading my stories, those of my Poynter colleagues or Northwestern University professor Penny Abernathy’s reports on “ghost newspapers.” But the local news crisis has also been chronicled in the largest of national news media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and “60 Minutes.”
Why do so many think otherwise?
Elisa Shearer, senior researcher on the report, offered a number of reasons (and a few grounds for optimism that opinion may be swinging toward awareness):
- The sample includes the proportion of adults (45%) who don’t pay much attention to local news. “If the average American is not reading media much,” she said, “they are unlikely to have thought about that sort of high-level question.”
- College graduates and others who follow the news more closely are more aware of the problem. And a better understanding of financial challenges — even though it is far from a big percentage — shows the issue may be gaining traction.
- Television remains the single preferred source for local news (32%), though digital, counting websites and social media together (48%), has overtaken it. Local commercial broadcast is a strong business, still boosted by political advertising and retransmission fees paid by cable systems. So a TV audience is right to think their preferred source is doing well.
Other findings in the study, titled “Americans’ Changing Relationship with Local News,” underscore earlier research — Pew’s and others. Most of the surveyed sample (71%) think local media report accurately — better than national outlets. That sentiment was nearly as high among Republicans (66%) as Democrats (78%).
A large proportion values local accountability and investigative journalism reports that keep politicians honest, even if they don’t consume that coverage themselves.
Unfortunately, only 15% say they have paid or would pay for local news. That figures to be a factor in slow progress lately in the push to build digital subscription revenue. “They feel that they can find plenty of what they need for free,” Shearer said, with TV staples, weather, crime and traffic by far the biggest news interests.
Another reason for the “I’m-not-paying” sentiment, in my view, is that watchers of local news broadcasts consider them free, though they probably pay for it indirectly through cable subscriptions.
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Pew is focused on facts, not recommendations. However, when asked, Shearer said that moving quickly to digital obviously makes sense for newsrooms — through newsletters, blogs and online forums particularly. Another plus for some digital launches is that younger readers are receptive to news paired with advocacy, an opening for opinionated publications.
My own take is that with more revenue being essential, some of it needs to come from the government. Sympathetic legislators, federal and state, need to pick up the pace, since finding a workable formula for who gets a boost and how has proved to be no slam dunk. Politicians care about the vitality of the media — at the very least as a two-way communication channel — even if the majority of their constituents don’t.
