The working group on studying audiences and the public has several aims around ensuring that audience-centered research concerning local information needs, interests, and news consumption behaviors remains an essential focus within local news ecosystem research alongside the focus in other working groups on the supply of local journalism.

This group seeks to identify and consult with key experts who study news audiences in academia and industry, across think tanks, and philanthropy, with the goal of developing a shared resource library, common toolkits, and guides around conducting rigorous local news audience research. These efforts will also highlight important considerations and trade-offs that researchers and funders should weigh when designing such studies of news audiences and the public.

The journalism employment working group seeks to establish a consensus view around best practices for measuring how many journalists are employed in journalism roles in local communities. The group will produce an integrated literature review that analyzes past and present approaches for measuring local news employment and provides an analysis of the tradeoffs and limitations around these approaches.

Additionally, the working group will develop a set of key questions and methodologies to explore rooted in an ongoing review of prior research. Longer term, the group plans to conduct pilot efforts in order to assess differences across these approaches.