Local News Landscape is "Unrecognisable": New Report on the Rise of the UK's 'News Deserts'
"For the first time in over two centuries, towns, villages and communities in Britain have no reliable and useful news".
Local News Deserts in the UK, a report launched this week by the Charitable Journalism Project, examines the effects of the collapse of local news through the eyes of people in seven places across Britain.
I’ve been working on this project with the CJP, many of whom are seasoned journalists and academics—the entire team was shocked by the results of the study. The quiet decline in political awareness and community cohesion, fostered by the hollowing out of local newsrooms (described by the Media Reform Coalition last year as “a total collapse”) and the rise of social media, a poor replacement, was starker than expected.
Lead researcher Dr. Steven Barclay of City University shows that years of economic instability, corporate acquisitions and hollowing out of newsrooms have weakened social cohesion and local accountability. Democratic participation and access to justice have suffered.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Power and Pop Culture to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.