This article provides a firsthand account of research conducted for the Federal Communications Commission in connection with its inquiry into communities’ critical information needs and how well they were being met by local news and information sources. I detail the industry and political pressures brought to bear in opposition to that inquiry and the extent to which opposition to this kind of research undermines the development of prosocial local information ecologies. Finally, I discuss what can be done to develop research in this vein and shore up local information needs.
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