How to Find Local News When Your Town Has No Paper

About 55 million Americans now live in a "news desert" - with limited to no access to local news. The number of counties with a news desert rose to 208 in 2024, up from the previous year. More than half of the nation’s 3,143 counties now have nothing left to call 'local' news. Counting on one newspaper to keep you informed about everything going on in your town is asking too much. In many places, that one local source no longer exists. But alternatives are still out there, often in a combination that can paint a more complete picture.

Regional replacements already doing the work

Even if your town has no newspaper, it will still be covered in nearby regional papers, sites, or TV coverage. For many county towns, a countywide or neighboring city newspaper can pick up the neighborhood slack, with local scoops alongside the regional news you know.

From California to Maine, local TV station news sites are filling gaps, especially for bigger but still disenfranchised towns. Entrepreneurs and digital pioneers have been providing relevant local news to communities that have lost their daily paper. In 2018, the U.S. News Deserts project already reported TV stations and digital-site founders experimenting with new business models to stoke a local-news revival. The organization's wider research aims to track industry changes and shield against rising news deserts. In 2024 alone, there were 81 new digital-local news startups, even after a number of closings. Of them, many new sites were already plugging local community gaps.

The government record

For what’s really happening on a hyperlocal level, city and county government sites remain the best record. City council and county meeting agendas, audio or video, and minutes are all a public record.

Social groups and newsletters

In lieu of local papers, communities have set their own streets buzzing with useful but not fully-professional news outlets. Local Facebook groups remain fast-swapping hubs for tips and news,. However, a Facebook group is not a full replacement for local journalism.

Instead, treat local Facebook groups and neighborhood email newsletters as a tip sheet. Don’t accept un-sourced posts outright. Check leads from a community web of reports into an hour or two of county and state resources. Even the state highway department has its own site. Compare two or three outfits against each other to separate ground truth from guesswork. At a minimum, count discussion sites as a prompt, not a full source.

How to sort signal from noise

With news desert facts shifting by the day, job one is disentangling the actual from the made-up, the mail-out reminder from agendas, from motions, from minutes. Most sources will give you a good chance if you’re critical. We can never be sure but balance the found evidence.

In any source, look for evidence of basic editorial, like names, facts checked by the writer, and fair sourcing. Look for just-released information, and for a simple way to spot the latest, like an archive link or updates notation. Don’t serve yourself hot rumors from hot-off-the-press readers. It’s likely gossip. Even though a site may have little funding, editorial handiwork looks the same across the board. Mere pro-public or pro-good-gov is not enough -- seek professional care, professional standards, and go to credible sites that are at least as in-depth. Depending on what state you live in, there may be state sites already doing the guardrails.

When you think you’ve got the facts checked in, combine them into usable local news from multiple sources - not from one.