Editor and Publisher Reports

On June 29th, 2022, the Local News Initiative at The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications of Northwestern University released their latest study, “The State of Local News 2022, Expanding News Deserts, Growing Gaps, Emerging Models.”  The primary author of the report is Penelope Muse Abernathy, who is nationally known for her “news deserts” research and acts as visiting professor at Northwestern and has served as Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina. Abernathy has also held executive positions with The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The study confirms that U.S. newspapers rapidly continue to close at an average rate of more than two a week, with the country losing more than one-fourth since 2005 as of publication date leaving only 6,377 surviving papers with 1,230 reported as dailies and 5,147 as weeklies.  Moreover, the study states that this loss of local journalism has been accompanied by the “malignant spread of misinformation and disinf