The laws of supply and demand aren’t working for local news.

The local news business was devastated by COVID-19, even though consumers wanted more of its product. Visits to local news websites spiked by 89 percent from February to March 2020, but newspapers did not profit from having more readers: Ad revenues for the largest newspaper publisher in the nation, Gannett, dropped 35 percent from 2019 to 2020. Journalists were laid off, furloughed or forced to accept early retirements or pay cuts.

The pandemic, however, merely accelerated a crisis in local journalism that is now at least two decades old. From 2000 to 2018, weekday newspaper circulation fell from 55.8 million households to an estimated 28.6 million; between 2008 and 2019, newsroom employment fell by 51 percent; and since 2004, more than 1,800 local newspapers have closed across the nation.

Perhaps even more alarming is that the public is largely unaware of this crisis. In late 2018, 71 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that their local news media was doing very or somewhat well financially, even though only 14 percent said they had paid for local news in the past year. But if local newspapers go away or are weakened beyond recognition, a real possibility given their steep decline and Americans’ lack of awareness of it, we won’t just feel nostalgic for them — we’ll feel actual consequences. (cont)