Amid growing ‘news deserts’ in the US, non-traditional media outlets are on the rise – The Boston Globe

Across the country, news deserts — places without any local news sources — are growing. But in their place, hundreds of startups have sprouted in recent years, both in large cities and remote areas that traditionally haven’t had a strong news presence.

In the past two decades, about a third of all news outlets, including newspapers and broadcast networks, shuttered permanently, leaving about 200 counties without a single one, according to a recently released report from Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative. More than 1,500 counties have just one.

Meanwhile, about 260 startups have launched across the United States since 2019, data show, including more than a dozen in Massachusetts.

However, they were largely in places with an already robust media landscape. The average county where startups emerged already had about 15 other media outlets. Only 16 of the nearly 260 startups began in true news deserts.

This comes as non-traditional media figures, including social media influencers, podcasters, and others, continue to exert greater influence on news consumption, with more than half of Gen Z turning to influencers for news, according to a Pew Research study.

Even with hundreds of new startups, the erosion of local news nationwide has directly contributed to a more polarized political landscape, media experts say. The losses devastated rural and less affluent communities in particular.

“In the absence of that local news space, the kind of national discourse becomes all that people see,” said Zach Metzger, director of the State of Local News Project at Northwestern University. “Local voter participation declines when newspapers disappear, incumbents tend to be reelected more often, there tends to be less split-ticket voting, and instead, people just tend to vote the party line.”

In the most recent presidential election, digital content creators became a magnet for viewers, as Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump eschewed legacy media to appear on podcasts and online platforms with robust social media followings.

Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which has more than 14.5 million followers on Spotify, racked up more than 40 million views in the week before the election. Harris’s appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast garnered nearly 1 million views.

The shift in media consumption trends among younger generations hasn’t helped traditional newspapers. Overall, the number of journalists in the country has declined by 55 percent in the last decade.

In New England, there are still many more news outlets than some other regions, but the journalism workforce has shrunk significantly in the past decade, the Northwestern data show.

Massachusetts has seen a steeper decline in its total number of journalists compared with the rest of the country. The Commonwealth has lost 60 percent of its reporters since 2013, the 16th highest loss among states.

There’s also a stark disparity in the number of news outlets between the eastern part of the state and the western part.

“Affluent suburbs are doing quite well, and we certainly see that in Massachusetts,” said Dan Kennedy of Northeastern University, who has written a book about news deserts and the future of journalism.

That means the gap in news access between wealthier and poorer communities keeps widening.

“We continue to have something of a crisis in local news,” Kennedy said. “Urban communities of color, and rural communities are not doing as well in replacing what they’re losing as affluent suburban communities.”

But we shouldn’t “perpetuate a narrative of loss,” said Neil Brown, president of Poynter, a journalism nonprofit, and former editor of the Tampa Bay Times. Poynter commissioned a similar report last month about the health of local news nationwide, which highlighted the growth of non-traditional media, such as news startups.

The emergence of non-traditional media includes more hyperlocal news startups that focus on community-driven issues. Many are in Massachusetts, like The New Bedford Light, which launched in 2021, and The Worcester Guardian, which was created in 2023.

“The bright spots are starting to take root,” Brown said.

Neena Hagen can be reached at neena.hagen@globe.com.