Introducing

The Local News Impact

Consortium

The Local News Impact Consortium (LNIC) is developing standardized approaches to shared research methods and open-source tools to inform residents, journalists, and philanthropy in the rebuilding of local news ecosystems in communities across the United States.

the problem

Three Challenges
to Local News Ecosystems

1.

Local information ecosystems are changing faster than we can study them.

Local newspapers are closing at an alarming rate.
Commercial local news ownership increasingly consolidating.
Fly-by-night “pink slime” outlets are posing as local journalistic outlets with little transparency.
It is difficult to track growth in importance of emergent new digital outlets and other trusted messengers for local information.

2.

Incomplete data leads to unmeasurable impact.

Local news outlets, researchers, community foundations, other funders of local news (including Press Forward and its network of Press Forward Locals), often lack data needed to evaluate need and impact.
Communities in most dire need are not always able to advocate for themselves .
Assessing impact rigorously requires researcher independence.

3.

Scale, scope and expense is too large.

The broader research community is too fragmented to track these changes in a robust and consistent manner.
Scale of challenge is too large for any single institution to tackle by itself.
The research itself is costly, and risks irrelevance if disconnected from the communities being studied.

The Solution

A collaborative and open-source approach to the study of community information needs

The LNIC is led by a growing collaboration of academic researchers in partnership with mission-oriented industry organizations and journalism practitioners in states across the U.S. Created to expand the rigorous study of local information ecosystems across the United States, the consortium will develop standards, protocols and research playbooks through generally accepted best practices in local news research.

Made with Datawrapper

Goals

Catalyze collaboration in local information ecosystems research
Publish standardized survey tools and playbooks
Leverage computational methods in the collection of local, regional and national news

Approach

Develop a collaborative national database of local information sources
Reduce the cost of content collection with automated methods
Use machine learning to benchmark local information provisions
Make collaboration more efficient with shared data structure and storage

Milestones

August 2023: Initial collaborative discussions in Washington, DC
March 2024: Convening workshop in Durham, NC
May 2024: Working sessions in Minneapolis, MN
June 2024: Five working groups formed to develop standards
August 2024: Governance meetings in Philadelphia, PA

About Us

Dedicated to improving local news ecosystems through innovative, open-source methods

The LNIC is an independent research project led by researchers at Rutgers University, University of Texas – Austin, University of Missouri, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota, and University of Oregon. Learn more about our mission and meet our leadership team.

Learn more

Working Groups

Our consortium is only as strong as its partnerships.

LNIC is a new approach to a national emergency. We are building a network of community-focused researchers and funders striving to work together to revive local news ecosystems across the country.

To support our mission, we’re looking for folks to join our working groups to help us develop a governance structure to foster coordination and consensus-building as we work toward delivering recommendations for research best practices.