EOTO #2- Terms and Concepts: News Deserts

I learned a lot during the presentation about these new terms and concepts, but my concept about news deserts was the most interesting.

A news desert refers to a community that is no longer covered by daily newspapers. The term itself emerged in the United States after hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers were closed in the 2000s. According to a study in 2018 by the UNC School of Media and Journalism, more than 1,300 communities in the U.S. are considered news deserts. Other communities may be covered by a ghost newspaper, which is a publication that has become a shadow of its former self. The total number of newspapers in the U.S. fell from 8,891 in 2004 to 7,112 in 2018, which is a decline of 1,779 newspapers, including more than 60 daily newspapers.  Of the remaining publications, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 newspapers were considered ghost newspapers after scaling back their news coverage so much that they were unable to fully cover their communities.

The cons of this are that news isn’t getting covered, and little to none or false information is getting out and the number of journalists employed by newspapers has been cut in half and print advertising revenue has fallen to record low levels.