Despite some 75 print and digital news startups in the past year, the number of local news ‘deserts’ in the US has risen by the most for “at least five years”, according to Medill’s 2026 report.

The study also shows a rise in national local news networks and a “small but emerging cohort” of content creators producing original local journalism.

The Medill State of Local News Report shows the number of local news desert counties “shot up by 26” in the last year, making 238 as newspaper closures hit an average of about three per week.

“Exacerbating the challenge is a precipitous 50 per cent drop in digital traffic to local newspapers’ websites, coinciding with growing consumer use of AI platforms.”

For the fifth consecutive year, the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications conducted the months-long, county-by-county survey, with researchers looking at local newspapers, digital-only sites and networks, ethnic media, local commercial TV newsrooms, public broadcasters and content creators, tracking nearly 8,400 professional news producers.

The 2026 total of 238 counties – of the nation’s 3144 – with no locally based professional news source, compares with about 150 in 2006. Another nearly 1,500 counties have just one source of local news remaining.

The report also notes “a quickening pace of newspaper closures” to about three per week, with 170 newspapers being shuttered or merged in the year. More than 425 local newspapers changed hands.

Nor is the news all about print: Digital traffic to 100 of the largest local newspapers’ websites plummeted 50 per cent in the past four years.

Local news chair at Medill, Tim Franklin said the steady erosion of the local newspaper industry has ballooned into a landslide: “We’ve seen growth in local news startups, and that’s great. But their numbers are not coming close to replacing what’s being lost.”