![]() The desire on the part of our newsrooms is strong.” To take on a larger role, most stations would need to expand their undersized news staff. As one of our respondents said, “The need for the kind of journalism public media can provide grows more evident every day. Over 90 per cent of the stations I surveyed said they want to play a larger role in meeting their community’s information needs. Stations have considerable potential but aren’t yet in a position to make it happen. The central finding of that study: Local public radio has a staffing problem. To assess local public radio’s potential for helping to fill the local information gap, I conducted an in-depth survey of National Public Radio’s 253 member stations. It has expanded into digital production and has the potential to expand further. And local public radio stations operate in every state and reach 98 per cent of American homes, including those in news deserts – places that today no longer have a daily paper.įinally, local public radio is no longer just radio. ![]() Moreover, public radio production costs are relatively low – not as low as that of a digital startup, but far less than that of a newspaper or television station. Trust in public broadcasting ranks above that of other major U.S. The widely held perception that public radio caters to the interests of people with higher income and education may also have kept it largely out of the conversation.īut as a scholar who studies media, I believe that local public radio should be part of the conversation about saving local news.Īdvantages are trust, low cost and reach There are reasons to believe that public radio can help fill the local news gap. Unlike a local daily newspaper, which largely has the print market to itself, local public radio stations face competition from other stations. Largely overlooked in the effort to save local news are the nation’s local public radio stations.Īmong the reasons for that oversight is that radio operates in a crowded space. Communities that have lost their newspaper have seen a decline in voting rates, the sense of solidarity among community members, awareness of local affairs and government responsiveness. The local news crisis is more than a problem of shuttered newsrooms and laid-off journalists. But the number of interested billionaires is limited, and many digital startups have struggled to generate the revenue and audience needed to survive. Responses to the decline have ranged from luring billionaires to buy local dailies to encouraging digital startups. ![]() Since 2005, more than 2,500 local newspapers, most of them weeklies, have closed, with more closures on the way. PTI | Newyork | Updated: 24-03-2023 12:15 IST | Created: 24-03-2023 12:11 IST Representative image Image Credit: Pixabay
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