A new statewide report from Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication reveals a worsening crisis in Washington’s local news industry, echoing national patterns of newsroom closures, declining civic engagement, and deepening media inequality. The report identifies news gaps in rural counties as well as some dense, urban areas across the state.
Titled From News Deserts to Nonprofit Resilience: Assessing the Health of Washington’s Local News Ecosystem, the report presents the most comprehensive analysis of Washington’s local news landscape to date. Researchers found that more than half the state’s counties fall below the average number of news outlets per capita, with two counties lacking a single qualifying news source. Many existing outlets operate with budgets under $250,000 annually, which indicates small staffs, diminished operational expenditures and resource constraints—conditions which the report says accelerate “a crisis” for local journalism and democracy.
The report’s findings are based on an original statewide database of 353 active outlets and insights from 32 interviews with journalists, editors, publishers, civic leaders, and scholars. Researchers assessed outlet ownership, budget, publication frequency, and geographic distribution, mapping an industry in crisis.
