Local News
Impact Consortium
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.
Three Challenges
to Local News Ecosystems
Challenge 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.
Challenge 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.
Challenge 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 was created to expand the rigorous study of local information ecosystems across the United States. It will develop standards, protocols and research playbooks through generally accepted best practices in local news research. Our goal is to establish “minimum data set” standards in identifying commonly accepted measures and variables to enable data-sharing across communities and systematic evaluation of changes in ecosystems over time. The Knight Foundation wrote about the project in June.
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
A collaboration among researchers and practitioners dedicated to improving local news ecosystems through innovative, open-source methods
The Local News Initiative Consortium 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. The steering committee leading the development of the project includes (in alphabetical order): Stephanie Edgerly, Tim Franklin, Damon Kiesow, Regina Lawrence, Talia Stroud, Benjamin Toff and Matt Weber.
Our Reach
Led by a growing collaboration of academic researchers in partnership with mission-oriented industry organizations and journalism practitioners in states across the U.S.
Made with Datawrapper
Join us
The consortium is only as strong as its partners.
We are building a network of community-focused researchers and funders striving to work together to revive local news ecosystems across the country. LNIC is a new approach to a national emergency. To support this work we’re looking for folks to help us develop a governance structure to foster coordination and consensus-building as we work toward delivering recommendations for research best practices.
So far we have established working groups addressing steps in the data collection and analysis pipeline from Database Creation, Audience Research, Content Collection, to Content Analysis Methods. Additional groups will develop recommendations to facilitate coordination between researchers, training in use of the developed standards and public engagement work.
Sign up for our Slack and email newsletter to learn more. Questions? Please email us directly at update@localnewsimpact.org.