NiemanLab

07/10/2025

A group of journalism advocates from the nonprofit Rebuild Local News and the tech platform Muck Rack say they have counted — for the first time — how many journalists remain in the United States.

The numbers, as might be expected, aren’t particularly sunny.

By using data never before tapped for this purpose, “we now know just how severe this local journalist shortage has become,” they write in a report released Thursday titled “Local Journalist Index.”

Researchers from Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack used the tech platform’s proprietary media database to get to their numbers. They filtered information, analyzed local journalism content from around the country, and deployed algorithms to create what they call a “Local Journalist Equivalent” for each U.S. county.

What they found when they landed on their final figures was a nosedive in the number of working American journalists since researchers sought to gauge that number, though by different means, more than two decades ago.

“The shortages of reporters are more severe, and I would say more widespread, than we thought,” Steven Waldman, the founder and president of Rebuild Local News, told me. “We knew there were really egregious pockets, but this shows it’s everywhere. It can be a big city or a suburb or a small town and you could have a real shortage of reporters.”

From the Bronx to Dallas: “Severely undercovered”

The report found that more than 1,000 counties — one out of three in the nation — do not have the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist.

“And the ‘better off’ parts of the country are in lousy shape, too,” the report states. “More than 2,000 counties have less than the national average,” which is an 8.2 Local Journalist Equivalent.