It’s Time to Start Paying Attention to Local News

• In Event: Local and Regional Journalism

Abstract

Local news has been the most popular form of news consumption in America for some time. While other types of news outlets continue to lose advertisers, gut their staffs, and shed subscribers, local news outlets are expanding. So why has it been all but left out of the important conversation taking place around news audience preferences? This paper uses an ordinal logistic regression analysis of Pew Research Center survey data to illustrate, among other things, that an interest in local news drives news consumption. In doing so, this paper makes the case for an increase in content analysis of local news, so that scholars interested in news audiences and media effects can have a better idea of what the news so many Americans regularly receive actually looks like.

Author

• Jacob Nelson, Northwestern University