News Deserts
Have you ever gone a day without receiving any information regarding the news. What about not hearing about a momentous event that happen within the United States or even a couple towns over. The term describing these actions is a News Desert. A news dessert refers to a community that is no longer covered by daily or non-daily newspapers. The term emerged in the United States after hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers were closed in the 2000s and the 2010s.
Some may not know the apparent issues of having news deserts but, the issues that arise from this is detrimental to communities. For a little bit more clarity 1,558 of the nation's 3,143 counties have only one news outlet. This correlates to 203 town that are news deserts with zero newspapers anywhere not even one. Meaning there are likely thousands of communities that simply do not have access to local news.
As a result of the dramatic shrinkage in the number of local news outlets in recent years, as well as the decrease in local news coverage by surviving newspapers. The expansion of news resources has seized to exist or move towards more densely populated areas. This also arises due to the financial distress of local papers not being able to afford keeping someone on the pay roll. Most people believe that the information and news can be accessed online and via television. But that is not the point of news deserts. The news regarding local town policies or votes for government officials is lost due to no one reporting events. The ramifications trickle down to the, “risks of reducing the diversity of views and opinions,” says former deans and professors like Martha Minow form Harvard university.
Society constructs their days based on what is going on in the world at that time. Whether that is what traffic looks like because of the possibility of a crash on the highway, what they are going to wear because of the weather, or even who the next President of The United States is going to be. News deserts as we already talked about affects people in the present now imagine what society as a whole would react if there was no news. Society would come to a halt and collapse. But luckily news deserts won’t continue to spread to the extent of the extinction of news. But a certain demographic does certainly get affected. Communities on the side of the less fortunate typically suffer from news deserts. The community does not have enough resources to keep media outlets afloat. Along with the poorer side that is affected the next demographic is the elderly.
The Elderly are used to local newspapers and sometimes are not that informed on the aspect of technology. Yes older individuals understand that one can attain information from news media outlets about things happening in the world but I believe they are less interested in the nation instead of local events. For my generation which is gen z, news deserts are not going to be prevalent in my time. The reason is that I have come to learn quick on where to get information regarding news. Still young enough to pick up on the technological advances that help me attain information.
News deserts will forever be prevalent but I belive that they will no longer exist in due time. The reason is that as the global population grows people are going to move to more poorer places which would entail more economic opportunities. This would help buttress local news outlets and eventually news deserts would be something of the past.
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