According to UNC, University of North Carolina in the school of Media and Journalism, they define News Desert as a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level. Twenty percent or 1800 of all community newspapers have gone out of business since 2004. Many more have scaled back coverage so much that they've become "ghost newspapers", meaning there is not much substance to them. The implications is that there is a loss of journalism across the country is a big negative for democracy when there is so much fake news published. There are fewer journalists reporting on fewer issues which means society as a whole will be less informed on local and national issues. Citizens will be less engaged on issues, there will be less accountability of government and all of which could hurt democracy in the United States. Local communities will not be informed of local outbreaks of diseases and will not know where their local tax dollars are being spent which could lead to corruption.
This issue might affect different segments differently. Rich people will have access to other news sources verses the poor people and will be impacted less if the local taxes increase. Minority publications have also been hit hard and there is less information and reporting of issues that are just as important to them. Every week, the local newspaper arrives at my doorstep and we review with interest all the things that are happening in our community. Without this local paper, we would not be aware of the good and bad events that's happening in town and in school. We wouldn't know that a local thief has been stealing cars and breaking into neighbors' houses. We would not know of stories of charity events to raise money for local children with serious illnesses that need our help.
https://www.cislm.org/what-exactly-is-a-news-desert/
https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2018/about-1300-u-s-communities-have-totally-lost-news-coverage-unc-news-desert-study-finds/
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