What are news deserts, and what can advertisers do about them?
Part of Fair publisher planning
The short answer
A news desert is an area without a locally based source of professional news reporting, as defined by Northwestern's Medill researchers. More than half of US counties now have limited access to local news, and Canadian trackers show launches slowing. Advertisers can help by planning deliberately for local outlets in their markets instead of filtering them out.
Key takeaways
- Medill defines a news desert as an area without a locally based source of professional news reporting, and it counts only outlets that cover local civic life.
- Medill counted just over 150 news desert counties in 2005; its 2026 report finds more than half of all US counties with limited access to local news.
- In Canada, the Local News Map shows local news launches falling from 32 in 2020 to nine in 2025.
- The local news business model was built on advertising, and both print revenue and web traffic to local sites have fallen sharply.
- Buyers cannot fund a newsroom alone, but they can stop rules that exclude local outlets and put a named share of local budgets with local journalism.
What is a news desert?
Definition
- News desert
- Areas "without a locally based source of professional news reporting," as defined in the Medill State of Local News 2026 report from Northwestern University.
The definition is stricter than it first looks. Medill's 2026 methodology (opens in a new tab) counts a newspaper only if it covers local civic life, such as school board and county commission meetings, and leaves out shoppers, community newsletters, specialty titles and monthly publications. Digital sites count when they focus on local, regional or statewide coverage, while aggregators, community message boards and AI generated content farms are excluded. Public broadcasting counts through primary NPR and PBS stations that produce original local news, and commercial TV counts through stations consistently producing local news.
For an advertiser, a news desert is not an area with no websites. Many sites may publish content about a county. What is missing is an outlet whose reporters attend the meetings, cover the courts and write about the schools. That is the inventory lost when local journalism closes, and a generic site list may leave it out.
How many US counties lack local news?
The trend line is the clearest part of the research. The Medill State of Local News 2026 report (opens in a new tab) says there were just over 150 news desert counties in 2005, and that more than half of all US counties now have limited access to reliable local news. It also maintains a Local News Watch List of more than 260 counties at risk, and nine of this year's new news deserts had been on that list. The current count of news desert counties and the change over the past year appear on the fair publisher planning hub.
| Finding | What the report says | Why a buyer should care |
|---|---|---|
| Long run trend | Just over 150 news desert counties in 2005 | The loss is two decades deep, not a recent blip |
| Limited access | More than half of all US counties | A regional brief can touch places with thin local coverage |
| Daily newspapers | Fewer than 900 daily print newspapers remain | Daily local inventory is scarce and concentrated |
| Ownership | Nearly 25% of all newspapers owned by 10 companies | Local sites can share an owner and an ad stack |
| Rural digital gap | Only 9% of digital only local sites are in rural counties | Digital startups do not yet fill rural deserts |
| Web traffic | Traffic to the largest local news sites fell 50% since 2022 | Fewer visits means less ad revenue per story |
For brands with a public service or essential goods message, a news desert county is a place with few local outlets left to carry it, so the outlets that remain deserve a deliberate look.
What does Canadian research show about local news closures?
Canada has no single county style news desert count, but it has a detailed outlet tracker. The Local News Map, run by April Lindgren at Toronto Metropolitan University and Jon Corbett at the University of British Columbia, records closings, launches and service changes for newspapers, radio, TV and digital outlets back to 2008. Its data reports, published by the Local News Research Project (opens in a new tab), appear every two months, and Lindgren's wider research also covers news poverty.
The October 1, 2026 data report (opens in a new tab) shows the replacement pipeline slowing. Local news startups surged to 32 in 2020 and 25 in 2021, then fell to 12 in 2023, 14 in 2024 and just nine in 2025. The same report counts 90 publications that abandoned print to publish online only since early 2023, all of them community newspapers, most from one Ontario chain that moved 71 papers to digital only in September 2023.
| Year | Local news launches recorded |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 32 |
| 2021 | 25 |
| 2023 | 12 |
| 2024 | 14 |
| 2025 | 9 |
The map records only each outlet's most recent change and relies on verified crowd submissions, so past counts can rise as older closures surface; the October 2026 update added 30 markers from previous years. Treat the figures as a floor.
How does ad spending affect local news survival?
Local journalism in both countries was built on advertising. Pew Research Center's newspapers fact sheet (opens in a new tab), whose November 2023 edition Pew says was the last update to its State of the News Media series, estimated total US newspaper advertising revenue at $9.8 billion in 2022. Medill's 2026 report discusses the decline of that ad based model, and reports that traffic to the largest local news sites fell 50% since 2022 and average monthly traffic across more than 700 sites fell nearly 30%.
Programmatic buying can widen the gap without anyone intending it. A local site with modest traffic can sit below popularity cutoffs, its civic coverage trips keyword blocklists built for national news, and its ad space can sell through a regional group or reseller. Each rule is defensible alone; together they move budget from local outlets to national sites with readers in the same market.
Some public buyers have chosen to reverse that flow. The Local News Map report notes a September 3, 2024 Ontario government directive requiring the province's four largest agencies to place at least 25 per cent of their advertising with Ontario based news publishers that the Canada Revenue Agency recognizes as qualified Canadian journalism organizations (opens in a new tab), a status that requires original news content and at least two arm's length journalists, with the province's own advertising under the same rule. Private advertisers are not bound by rules like this, but the directive shows that a named local share is a practical planning tool.
What can a buyer do to support local journalism?
No single campaign rescues a newsroom, and buyers should not promise that. A buyer controls whether local outlets get a fair chance and whether the client can see where local money went.
Six steps for a plan that reaches local journalism
- Map the markets against the research. Look up the counties or communities in the brief on Medill's state maps or the Local News Map, and note which are deserts, which have one remaining source and which have new startups.
- Remove size cutoffs for local outlets. Show each local site's reach as information beside its reasons, and judge it on whether it publishes original local reporting.
- Replace blanket news exclusions. Set suitability by category and severity, so council coverage and weather reports stay eligible while the client's real limits still apply.
- Set a named local share. Agree with the client what portion of a regional budget goes to local journalism, and report against it.
- Look past the obvious names. Include the digital startups and community papers Medill and the Local News Map record, after the same quality checks as every other site.
- Report where the money landed. Show the client the served domains for the local line, so the commitment is visible and checkable.
Local journalism check before a regional plan is approved
- The plan lists the communities it serves and notes which have thin local coverage.
- No local outlet was removed only for low popularity or a missing popularity figure.
- Civic, court and weather coverage was judged by meaning against the client's tolerance, not by a keyword list.
- A local share of the budget is written into the plan.
- New local startups in the brief's markets were searched for and reviewed.
- Reseller paths on local sites were recorded as facts, not used as removal reasons on their own.
Practical guidance on finding and buying individual outlets sits in the local news advertising guide, and the case for not blocking news by keyword is set out in news blocklisting.
How does PlacementGraph help keep local outlets in a plan?
What does a news desert review look like on a real brief?
Fictional example
A fictional propane distributor's winter plan in West Virginia and southeastern Ohio
A fictional propane and heating fuel distributor serving rural West Virginia and southeastern Ohio briefs a display plan for its winter delivery season, in English. The agency's draft list holds national weather, news and home sites, plus two metro newspapers far from the company's service area.
The planner maps the distributor's delivery counties on Medill's state data. Several are news deserts and many more have a single remaining local source. The planner then searches for every surviving local outlet in those counties: two weekly papers with websites, a public radio station's regional news site and a young digital outlet covering one valley's county government.
Each site goes through the usual quality, suitability and selling path checks. One weekly is set aside because its site has not posted a dated local story in months. The approved plan keeps the national weather sites, adds a labeled local journalism line with a named budget share, and reports served domains for that line to the client each month.
Frequently asked questions
Is a county with a TV station or a digital site still a news desert?
Not under Medill's counting, if that outlet consistently produces original local news for the county. Medill counts newspapers, local digital sites, public broadcasting and commercial TV newsrooms, but excludes aggregators, message boards and AI generated content farms. A site that only republishes wire or regional copy does not lift a county out of desert status.
Does Canada have an official count of news deserts?
No single official count exists. The Local News Map at Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of British Columbia tracks closures, launches and service changes by community since 2008, and Statistics Canada publishes industry revenue. Buyers can look up their markets on the map instead of relying on a national number.
Is advertising on local news a donation?
No. Buying local news inventory is a media purchase that should meet the same quality, suitability and selling path checks as any other placement. The difference is planning intent: the buyer makes sure local outlets are considered and not filtered out by rules that measure size instead of fit.
Can programmatic buying reach very small local outlets?
Yes, when the outlet has authorized sellers. Some small outlets sell through a regional group or an intermediary, and some sell only direct. Check each site's ads.txt file for authorized sellers, and pass outlets that sell only direct to the trading desk for a direct buy.
Sources
- The State of Local News 2026: the report (opens in a new tab)Medill Local News Initiative, Northwestern University
- The State of Local News 2026: methodology (opens in a new tab)Medill Local News Initiative, Northwestern University
- Local News Map Data: October 1, 2026 (opens in a new tab)Local News Research Project, Toronto Metropolitan University, and SpICE Lab, University of British Columbia
- Local News Research Project (opens in a new tab)Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism
- Newspapers fact sheet (opens in a new tab)Pew Research Center, November 10, 2023
- Guidance on the income tax measures to support journalism (opens in a new tab)Canada Revenue Agency
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.