Report

Statewide News Collective: The Community Impact of Independent Journalism

A report on three statewide news organizations in Michigan, Montana, and New Hampshire

By Danny Hayes

August 13, 2024

The struggles of the local journalism industry in recent decades are well documented. The financial crisis in the newspaper business, brought about by the rise of the internet and social media, has hollowed out newsrooms, left many communities without reliable sources of local news, and reduced Americans’ engagement with state and local politics. “The loss of local news,” one report noted, “is having an insidious effect on our democracy.”

But as the newspaper industry has foundered, a countervailing force has emerged. In the last two decades, hundreds of digital state and local news organizations have launched, seeking to fill the void left by the decline of legacy outlets. Many are nonprofits and have joined the ranks of existing independent media to provide coverage of communities where local news has grown scarce.

By some measures, these local journalism outlets have already had a major impact. Mississippi Today won a Pulitzer Prize after revealing a multi-million-dollar state government welfare scandal. Arizona Luminaria’s reporting on deaths at a Pima County jail led to calls for a special legislative session. Wisconsin Watch’s coverage of a local tool maker prompted Walmart to stop selling gloves allegedly being made with forced prison labor. Examples of this kind of accountability reporting abound.

Sign up for Solution Set

The Lenfest Institute’s Solution Set newsletter features free resources, tools, and case studies for local news publishers.

Subscribe

* indicates required

Email Address *

But the broader impact of these independent journalism outlets on the communities they cover is less clear. To what extent do they serve as trusted sources of information for state and local residents? Do they help news consumers become more informed about pressing issues? Does their journalism encourage residents to participate in the civic life of their communities? Generally speaking, what kind of community impact do they have?

One reason we know less about community impact is that it is often hard to observe. Unlike policy changes or legislative action that result from investigative reporting, community impact occurs over the long term, at the individual level, and out of sight of newsrooms. Consequently, we lack evidence about the ways that independent local outlets inform their users and mobilize civic participation. But identifying and measuring community impact is crucial to gauging the contribution these organizations make to the democratic process in an era of declining local news.

This report summarizes the results of a research project designed to measure the community impact of three independent news organizations: New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), Bridge Michigan, and Montana Free Press (MTFP). Each is part of The Lenfest Institute for Journalism’s Statewide News Collective (SNC), a community of news organizations serving statewide audiences. Statewide news outlets represent an important link between citizens and the state institutions that make policy affecting virtually every facet of residents’ lives. The impact of these news organizations is especially important given the decline in full-time state government reporting over the last decade.

The centerpiece of the research is a survey in each state that gauged residents’ news habits, views of important issues, and levels of civic engagement. We also conducted a content analysis to analyze the contribution that each outlet makes to its state’s information environment.

Read the full report Read the full report

The findings show that independent news organizations are having a significant impact on their communities by serving as trusted sources of information, keeping their audiences informed about major issues and stories, and encouraging civic engagement. This constitutes a bright spot in a challenging media environment and underscores the importance of vibrant state and local news for promoting civic and political engagement in local communities.

Some of the report’s key findings:

• SNC outlets get high marks for trustworthiness and addressing key issues. The SNC outlets are viewed as trustworthy sources of news by many users, the overwhelming majority of whom say the outlets effectively cover important issues in their state. For example, up to 90% of SNC consumers express trust in the information they get from the outlet. On average, SNC outlets are rated more highly on these dimensions than are other state and local news sources.

• SNC outlets contribute in a big way to their states’ information environments. In particular, they devote substantial coverage to issues that most residents identify as important: politics and government, the environment, health care, and education. In some cases, this coverage has an impact beyond their core audiences — even residents who do not regularly get news from SNC outlets express familiarity with their major stories. One reason is that 52% of SNC outlet consumers regularly share their content with friends and family.

• SNC users are better informed about state and local issues and more likely to engage in civic activity than those who get news from other sources. Across numerous measures, they are more engaged with their communities and more likely to participate in state and local politics. For instance, SNC consumers are 22 percentage points more likely to feel informed about state issues than users of other outlets.

• SNC coverage impacts users in various ways. In a qualitative portion of the research, many SNC users could recall a story that made an impact on them. They explained how this coverage prompted them to learn more about important topics, to become more emotionally invested in issues, and to take action to solve civic problems.

One implication is that state and local news outlets can and should seek to measure not just their legislative or policy impact, but also the effects on their community. Doing so can help demonstrate to subscribers, donors, and other stakeholders the value that local journalism provides to a community. Perhaps just as importantly, identifying community impact is one way to show the democratic importance of an independent press, an urgent imperative in a rapidly changing media environment.

Read the full report Read the full report