We used to have a shared reality. Then local newspapers started closing | Opinion
If you believe local news is important to American communities, a new report from Northwestern University will leave you worried.
The numbers are dire: nearly 40% of American newspapers have vanished between 2005 and 2025, according to the 2025 State of Local News report from Northwestern.
That’s left 50 million Americans with limited or no access to reliable local news, the report found.
And that’s important not just because a lot of people have lost their jobs, but because local news is intrinsic to our society, says former New York Times columnist Charles Blow.
“This is a public good that is going away,” Blow said in a recent interview. “It’s not just that there’s an industry that failed to adapt — you need news in order to become informed citizens. You can’t allow news not to exist and expect to have a functional democracy.”
Blow, a prize-winning journalist who is now a Harvard University professor, will be in Lexington on Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. at the Lyric Theatre. He’ll be discussing the issue of local news, as well as a recent documentary series he co-produced titled “Reimagining Local News,” which looks at different journalistic ventures around the country.
The event is sponsored by Press Forward Bluegrass, a local chapter of the national Press Forward initiative, which was formed in 2023 by the MacArthur Foundation with a plan to help revive and create local news with nearly half a billion dollars. The Blue Grass Community Foundation applied for some of that money to start up a local chapter.
Blow pointed out that some national media, like his former employer, are doing fine. But local news in communities is even more vital.
“The texture of community is what’s here, what’s coming, what are we celebrating, what threatens us, and no national newspaper will report that,” he said.
The first step, he said, is to stop thinking of it as a business and start seeing it as a public good.
“It’s important because once we lose a common language, then our community is lost, and then society is lost,” he said. “National data show that people actually trust local news more than national outlets because they know the people in their communities who produce it.”
The documentary series looks at various new models around the country, some of them nonprofit, digital-only models.
“These are things people are trying that are really promising, and we hope they are models that can be replicated, that will grow and be sustainable in other places,” Blow said.
In Kentucky, Press Forward Bluegrass is working in 16 counties mostly in the Bluegrass region and Eastern Kentucky, said director Melissa Newman. She’s been talking to numerous publishers and general managers to see what they most need, whether it’s more trained journalism or help with grant-writing for special projects.
“Charles created this documentary, and really his message is that local news is so much more than just news,” Newman said. “It is really that binding that brings everyone together.”
Reimagining Local News is available to stream at reimagininglocalnews.com.
The event is free, but registration is required. Guests are asked to RSVP at: bgcf.org/press-forward-bluegrass/an-evening-with-charles-m-blow.
