'News Deserts' and "Fixing" Journalism (Especially Local News)

In an article I recently discovered, the author first begins by speaking of the future of local news and the rise of digital. They explored the main challenges face by local news and the consequences those difficulties have on our society as a whole. Due to this fact, the decline of print and ad sales has depleted basically all resources for small independent papers and this is leading to a chain of reactions that has caused 'news deserts' in areas across the nation. News deserts are places where there is little to no local media in existence anymore due to the difficulty of having to compete with national news outlets. This lack of local reporting infrastructure is problem for both journalism and can also lead to negative, global consequences as well. One of these consequences is the lack of trust in our current attitude towards the press. This lack of trust that the people have in the press only seems to keep rising.

The author of this article also offered three suggestion at the end of his piece as well:

1. Listen More: Trust with audience is built on communication and transparency. A senior editor gave a suggestion on how we could "fix" journalism and referenced how 'town halls' between the communities and journalists could possibly help bridge this gap of trust.

2. Break Down the Newsroom Walls: Another way journalists could increase trust with audiences is by breaking down walls and lowering the iron curtain between the readers and the newsroom.

3. Don't Write Off Local News: It is suffering because it is not prioritized. Stories produced by local news can get out in the large amount/saturation of content that is now available on media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.r

*News Article: https://medium.com/uo-super-j-in-nyc-2016/columbia-journalism-review-taking-on-the-year-that-changed-journalism-df4830d09c25