The Paper, a spinoff of The Office, is a mockumentary sitcom about a struggling Ohio newspaper. The show highlights the challenges faced by local journalism in the digital age with declining print readership. The show reflects changes in the real world. Georgia’s The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop its print edition at the end of the year, transitioning to a fully digital publication. Changes to our media landscape are resulting in growing news deserts—communities with limited or no access to a reliable source of local news.
According to Medill’s 2025 State of Local News report, almost 40% of local U.S. newspapers have vanished in the past two decades. 28% of newspapers in Georgia have been shuttered in this timeframe. In our nation, 130 newspapers shut down in the last year alone. There are now fewer than 1000 daily print newspapers in the U.S.
Today, 50 million Americans live in counties that can be considered news deserts. In 1,525 U.S. counties, there is only a solitary local news source. There are 212 counties in the U.S. with no news outlets, including 17 counties in Georgia. Many Americans lack access to reliable news about their community.
News deserts tend to be in rural communities, poorer counties, and counties with low levels of education. A lack of local news is often paired with limited access to internet connectivity, which further widens the information divide. Federal funding cuts to public broadcasting threaten to make matters worse. In news deserts, people are less likely to be informed about issues that impact their lives.
Access to local news has consequences for communities. Civic engagement increases when there is access to local journalism. Access to local news is correlated with people running for office and voters participating in elections. Voters tend to become more partisan in the absence of local journalism. There is some evidence that the cost of government increases and government corruption goes unchecked in the absence of local journalism.
We are all a product of our media climate. The media we consume varies over time and across generations. My mother watches the nightly national and local news on television each night. My father gets his news from the local public radio station, subscribes to the London Review of Books and other periodicals, and utilizes his public library to borrow books. Unlike my baby boomer parents, I access news through my computer and smartphone. Media shapes our perspective on politics and our understanding of social problems impacting our communities.
Pew Research Center’s News Platform Fact Sheet offers some insights on how Americans get their news. 86% of U.S. adults report getting news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet at least some of the time. Older Americans get much of their news from TV and print media, but younger people increasingly turn to news websites or apps, social media, and search engines. Podcasts and AI chatbots are on the rise as alternative sources of news.
Local journalism matters. Along with my colleagues at the College of Coastal Georgia’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies, I contribute to our weekly From the Murphy Center column here to “provide insight and information on important economic and policy matters.” This is my fortieth column in The Brunswick News. Most of my columns challenge readers to apply a sociological perspective to contemporary social problems—overdose deaths, teen mental health, or news deserts. In the print edition of the paper, my columns appear below Dick Yarbrough and next to Billy Graham. Most sociologists don’t have the privilege of keeping such company.
It is my hope that readers of all demographics and political viewpoints learn something from each of my columns. I am proud to support local journalism and contribute to our Golden Isles community.
Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.
Reg Murphy Center