Examining Gaps in Journalism Curriculum to Solve the News Desert Crisis

Abstract

This exploratory study uses semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews (n = 32) with journalism educators at universities in Europe, Australia, North America, and the South Pacific to examine the current state of local news pedagogy. While these journalism educators understand the significance of the news desert crisis, their efforts to engage their students around the issue often fall short. Using an ecological framework of system theory, this paper argues that journalism higher education has largely failed in helping repair or preventing the crisis facing local news.

Finding solutions to the “systemic market failure” (Olsen et al., 2020, p. 673) of the journalism industry is increasingly urgent as news deserts expand. The most recent U.S. State of Local News report found that 20% of the nation’s population either lives in a news desert or in an area at risk of becoming one (Abernathy, 2022). By one prediction, “one-third of American newspapers that existed roughly two decades ago will be out of business by 2025” (Sullivan, 2022, para. 4). The loss of local news is also having a “profound” impact (Nielsen, 2015, p. 2) from the United Kingdom to Brazil to the Philippines to Australia (Bautista, 2020; da Silva & Pimenta, 2020; Mayhew, 2019; Public Interest Journalism Initiative, 2021). Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism notes the news crisis “has in many ways been felt most acutely at the local level,” thereby creating “the potential for a serious democratic deficit” (Centre for Community Journalism, 2023).

While many studies have examined why the journalism industry is in crisis, this study seeks to better understand how journalism higher education is—or is not—addressing it. The U.S.-based Center for Community News estimates millions of Americans receive local news from student journalists produced in classes or news labs at over 100 universities (Watts, 2023). However, using an ecological framework of system theory, we argue that journalism education has largely failed in recent decades to do its part to help repair or prevent the crisis facing local news. Ten years ago, Pavlik (2013) argued that journalism education needed to step up to “stop or even reverse the dramatic decline suffered in the world of traditional media” (p. 215). Through semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews with nearly three dozen journalism educators at universities in Europe, Australia, North America, and the South Pacific, this exploratory study examines the current state of local news pedagogy a decade after Pavlik’s call to action.

The Problem of News Deserts

Across the globe, the future of local journalism is uncertain. Rapid advances in digital technology decimated the business model that sustained newspapers and other legacy news organizations for much of the last century (Nielsen, 2015). At the same time, corporate media empires are buying and often gutting or closing once-vibrant newspapers (Barnes et al., 2022). Locally owned broadcast news stations are also becoming less common, contributing to a dearth of local coverage (Martin & McCrain, 2019). The particulars of these challenges play out differently “community to community, or country to country, but they are profound and share certain commonalities across most high-income democracies” (Nielsen, 2015, p. 2). The COVID-19 pandemic created a slew of new challenges for local publishers, and many news organizations closed permanently in 2020 and 2021 (Barnes et al., 2022; Finneman, Mari, & Thomas, 2023; Finneman & Thomas, 2022). This decline in local news has serious implications for democracy as dwindling news organization resources are linked to lower civic engagement (Hayes & Lawless, 2018).

These gaps in local information ecosystems are often described as news deserts, defined by Abernathy (2020) as “a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.” Although the concept was originally developed in the United States, it has gained traction in other parts of the world (see Giannasi, 2023). The term has also been subject to criticism from those such as Usher (2023) who argue it overly focuses on print media and creates a sense of “false nostalgia” (p. 239) without sufficiently critiquing harms perpetuated by legacy newspapers in their coverage of historically marginalized communities. Ferrier, meanwhile, coined the concept “media deserts” and advocates for considering not just a community’s access to traditional journalism but also its broader “media conditions” (Media Deserts Project, n.d.). Similarly, a team of Canadian researchers prefers “news poverty” to describe how shrinking news organizations contribute to a lack of “timely, verified news about local politics, education, health, economic and other key topic” (Lindgren et al., 2017, para 4). Regardless of the precise terminology, Mathews (2022) found real impacts on a community after the decline of local news as “‘life is harder’ without the newspaper” (p. 1260).

The future of local news remains precarious around the world due to continued challenges wrought by economic instability, geopolitical unrest, and continuing technological changes (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2023). Some legacy publishers are also resistant to adjusting their business models (Finneman, Ferrucci, & Mathews, 2023). Efforts to solve the local news crisis have been multifaceted as journalists, citizen groups, nonprofit organizations, and universities launch startups aimed at serving the information needs of different communities (Barnes et al., 2022; Clegg & Kennedy, 2021; Finneman, Heckman & Walck, 2022). However, to date, these efforts have not been enough to reverse the industry’s substantial decline, and, in many ways, journalism educators and the institutions that employ them remain untapped resources in the fight to rebuild local news. As Pavlik (2013) argues, “media are undergoing tumultuous change, and media education needs an equally profound reinvention” (p. 215).

The Problem of Journalism Education

In the last decade, journalism educators have been expected to teach an increasingly long list of skillsets. In 2015, professors were advised on “rethinking the future” in regard to incorporating multimedia and smartphones into their courses (Walck et al., 2015, p. 235). More recently, Markovikj and Serafimovska (2023) found a deficiency in teaching mental health resilience, while Mesmer (2023) concluded journalism courses need to include content about dealing with hostility. Likewise, media and information literacy (Jamil et al., 2022), trauma training (Newman et al., 2023), diversity (Finneman, Hendricks & Bobkowski, 2022), and artificial intelligence (Pavlik, 2023) are stressed as ever-more important to incorporate in the classroom. At the same time, journalism faculty face criticism from the industry for putting too much emphasis on technology and not enough on basic skills like writing, critical thinking, interviewing, and deadlines (Ferrucci, 2018). With constant demands and limited resources, it’s not surprising U.S. journalism program directors have struggled to agree on what should be core curriculum (Blom & Davenport, 2012).

In the case of news deserts, however, the stakes are substantially higher than teaching a journalism student how to use a particular social media app. As Pavlik (2013) asked, “If there are no jobs or careers for journalists or other media professionals, at least not the jobs they have occupied for more than a century, what is the role of professional journalism and mass communication education?” (p. 212). He argued curriculum that included innovation and entrepreneurship was key “to a robust professional future for the field and students seeking a media career” (p. 213). Furthermore, he forewarned that “the challenge confronting journalism and mass communication educators is how to prepare future journalism and media professionals and leadership for an industry in radical transformation” (p. 212). However, journalism education historically has had difficulty adapting to change, particularly when confronted with a disruptive innovation (Christensen, 2013; Ferrucci, 2018).

The relationship between journalism education and the news desert crisis can perhaps best be explained in the context of Hendrickson and Tankard’s (1997) study examining system theory in relation to news, particularly in regard to an ecological framework to address social problem complexity. They draw upon the work of Liska and Cronkhite (1995), who describe a system as “constituted of a number of interacting subsystems [that] all work together for survival” and how “a change in one part of the system may have substantial ramifications throughout the system” (p. 95). In news ecology, the journalism industry, future journalists (students), and those who research journalism and train future journalists for industry (educators) rely on each other to keep their mutual system functioning. Bronfenbrenner (1979) said a system breaks down if some elements are missing or disruptive: “like a three-legged stool, it is more easily upset if one leg is broken, or shorter than the others” (p. 5). In the last 20 years, the U.S. industry alone has steadily lost 2,500 newspapers (Abernathy, 2022). Yet, within this time, neither journalism educators nor the future journalists prevented or substantively repaired the broken element within their ecological system, thereby perpetuating the cycle of disruption. Therefore, we sought to answer the following research question: How do journalism professors view the current state of pedagogy in addressing the news desert/local news crisis?

Method

We conducted 32 semi-structured qualitative interviews with journalism faculty primarily affiliated with major research institutions from 14 countries ¹ and representing 31 schools in May and June 2023. The institutional review board of the first and third authors’ academic institution granted approval for this international human-subjects research. A mix of purposive and snowball sampling was utilized to find faculty at major colleges and universities who could answer questions related to local news and curriculum. The researchers began by contacting journalism faculty known to have a research interest in local news. As Campbell et al. (2020) note, purposive sampling is used to increase research depth, choose participants more apt to provide useful responses, and most effectively use finite research resources (see also Kelly, 2010; Palinkas et al., 2015). From there, the U.S.-based research team asked for help finding additional international faculty. Through snowball sampling, “a few identified members of a rare population are asked to identify other members of the population . . . for constructing a frame from which to sample” (Thompson, 2002, p. 183). Each researcher focused on recruitment in a particular geographic area, primarily North America, Europe, and Australia. All but one of the 32 interviews took place over Zoom; one participant asked to submit answers via email. The interviews ranged from 20 to 30 min and included questions related to local news, curriculum, student knowledge, and the role of faculty. All interviews were transcribed and anonymized.

To conduct the data analysis, the researchers utilized Carvalho’s (2008) discourse framework that emphasizes “objects” in textual analysis. The aim is to find “what events/specific issues are associated to the broader issue under consideration” (p. 168). The researchers asked participants a dozen questions but focused specifically on content related to implementation of news desert curriculum for this study. Each researcher read all of the transcripts for a first round of open coding to establish familiarity with the data (Hall, 1975). From there, a constant comparative strategy grouped related concepts into dominant categories (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002). The researchers used triangulation and consensus and compared findings through frequent discussions while selecting evidence for each theme (Finneman & Volz, 2020).

Findings

The final sample included 19 women and 13 men with a median age of 48 (ages ranged from 30 to 70) and a median of 13 years in teaching (years ranged from 2 to 35). Overall, participants said they believe universities do have a role in addressing the news desert crisis, with a 54-year-old male associate professor in Canada calling it “a central part of our role.” A 54-year-old male lecturer in Europe said, “It’s their [universities’] role. They are in the lead. If they don’t do it, nobody does it.” Some answered in terms of research, while others discussed teaching. However, pedagogical gaps became clear as respondents gave mixed answers on how aware they think students are about news deserts and the challenges with local news. Furthermore, most thought universities are not doing well in teaching journalism students about these issues. Most notably, few reported that they teach solutions that could help repair the crisis.

Lacking Communication

About 25% of participants believed their students were aware of news deserts and challenges with local news. Another 25% said students weren’t familiar. The remaining half gave a sliding scale of responses. What was quite clear, however, is that respondents don’t think universities are doing enough to teach students about these issues, thereby indicating that journalism education isn’t adequately upholding its end of the news ecology system. A 59-year-old female professor in Canada said universities are “doing a terrible job” as she blamed the “bums in seats” funding model for influencing what is taught:

Universities are better at selling what they perceive students and their parents want, which are well-paying, stable jobs. The journalism industry isn’t providing that. We are not really teaching what students need to know about journalism because that’s not a model that’s financially attractive for a variety of reasons, not within the institution and not within the field of journalism.

Similarly, a 39-year-old female lecturer in Europe wasn’t sure if other universities discuss local news issues because programs struggling to stay open have other priorities, “like, what’s contemporary, immersive media, this, that, the other, thereby pushing topics like local news to the background.” A 48-year-old female associate professor in Europe expressed concern about scaring off students by telling them about the gravity of the challenges facing local journalism: “You have to be careful not to sort of paint too bleak a picture.” A 44-year-old female U.S. associate professor said journalism schools talk a lot about journalism dying and don’t take a solution-oriented approach like other majors do:

We talk to them [students] about how big this issue is, and we keep harping about how the industry is in trouble, but I don’t know if we do a good job of giving them agency or ideas for what they could do about it, right?

she said. In other words, educators believe there are both external and internal factors that prevent them from addressing problems within the news ecology system.

Several respondents said they couldn’t answer how well universities are doing teaching students about these issues since they didn’t know what other schools are doing, illustrating the problematic nature of silos despite being part of a global system. A 60-year-old female U.S. professor of practice said, “I try to look at the curriculum a little bit from other schools, but I’m pretty busy with what I’m doing and I don’t think I’m immersed enough in what everybody else is doing.” A 42-year-old female U.S. assistant professor said she’s “definitely in a bubble in terms of journalism educators.” A 45-year-old male instructor in Canada said he’s talked with others about research related to local news but not about teaching. These educators are indicating that the subsystem within journalism education itself is lacking communication that makes it difficult to work together on system repair.

Only a few of the 32 educators expressed some optimism. A 63-year-old male U.S. professor pointed to efforts at the University of Missouri, Arizona State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Kansas to address the local news crisis. “So, I think we’re seeing movement. I think we’re seeing growth on this. My question, is it fast enough, given the pace of change?” he said. A 64-year-old female professor in Canada said whether a school is doing enough to teach students about local news issues depends on whether an institution has faculty interested in the topic:

I think it’s getting better because local journalism and research on local journalism used to be the poor, ugly sister of journalism research and scholarship, but I think there’s been an absolute surge in interest in this as people have recognized what’s being lost, and, and so I think it’s changing.

As a whole, however, it was clear more communication is needed across universities on teaching strategies for local news. A 44-year-old male professor in Europe thought “it could be good to exchange experiences because that could inspire those of us who are not dealing with it systematically.” A 42-year-old male associate professor in Europe said discussing the topic hinges on the ability of journalism educators to understand the issues and be willing, and able, to explain them. As is clear below, this is indeed a pedagogical problem.

Lacking Ideas for Solutions

A striking finding was how few professors engage with students on solutions despite believing universities have a role in addressing the news desert crisis. As noted earlier, Bronfenbrenner (1979) said a system breaks down if some elements are missing. The interviews for this study made clear that solutions and repair strategies were lacking within the journalism education subsystem of news ecology. Multiple participants notably paused after being asked, “What kind of solutions is your university teaching to address news deserts?” A 49-year-old male professor in Europe said, “I don’t know if we talk much about that.” A 43-year-old male teaching associate professor in Europe was blunt, saying, “We don’t actually. We just say this is super important.” A 45-year-old male instructor in Canada said he didn’t think his colleagues were doing anything specifically to address news deserts or to “target students somehow to be a part of a solution to news deserts.” A 35-year-old female associate professor in Europe said, “Uh, solutions? I don’t really think we include that in the lectures. I would be interested to hear about the solutions if you have an idea of some.” A 62-year-old female U.S. faculty member said the topic isn’t incorporated into her graduate classes. A 46-year-old female associate professor in Europe said, “I guess sometimes we talk to them about some of the initiatives that are being launched . . . it’s not a sort of major focus.” A 44-year-old female associate professor in Canada said her program was about to undergo a review and hoped for discussions about local news concerns when addressing curriculum: “We all know journalism’s having a hard time, but more than ever, we need fresh ideas and new approaches. I just feel like we’re all being pulled in different directions.” These gaps in curriculum matter. If academia isn’t actively working to practically solve or repair one of the industry’s biggest problems—and, thereby, to help fix the news ecology system—then it’s difficult to see how or when these challenges of news deserts will be overcome.

Some participants answered the question with strategies that have been commonly taught in journalism schools for decades and, therefore, are not specific to the current crisis of local journalism. A 54-year-old male lecturer in Europe and a 62-year-old male lecturer in the United States talked about experiential learning and having students cover events and local beats. A 42-year-old male associate professor in Europe and a 60-year-old female professor of practice in the United States mentioned bringing in professional local journalists as guest speakers. A 64-year-old female professor in Canada discussed an innovation class centered on exploring different storytelling strategies. A 53-year-old female lecturer in Australia described her students doing enterprise/investigative reporting. While these skillsets are useful to journalism students, they did not stop news deserts from occurring, nor have they reversed their decline. In other words, continuing to maintain the same ecological framework is not sufficient when a portion of the system is broken.

Several participants mentioned more proactive efforts, which ranged on a scale from passive lecturing to active engagement. A 63-year-old female professor in the United States has her class watch a video and read articles that talk about the decline of local news and why local news is important. A 41-year-old male U.S. assistant professor said he lectures about local journalism’s struggles, the economics of news, technological disruptions, changing audience habits, and new models. Two other male U.S. professors said they assign research projects related to news deserts or underrepresented populations. A 48-year-old female professor in Malaysia said news deserts are not formally implemented in the curriculum, although students are assigned to report on marginalized communities. A 45-year-old male associate professor in Canada said his school offers courses on reporting on Indigenous or Black communities. Only a few participants directly discussed teaching students financial skills in relation to local news. A 53-year-old female lecturer in Australia said her university requires students to take an entrepreneurial course:

They’re preparing them for news deserts and that kind of landscape by making sure they have skills that can be adaptable if they can’t get work or they don’t have a desire to go out to remoter areas to get jobs.

A 42-year-old female assistant professor in the United States discussed a master’s program aimed at providing news outlets with student work while also teaching students about underserved communities and how to fund local news: “Is it public funding, is it taxpayer funding, is it donations, is it sponsorships, and what do those look like? Are there some hybrid models that, you know, we can approach and learn from?” Although this study is exploratory with a small sample size, the fact that it’s not common even among faculty who are experts in local news to actively engage students with news desert solutions is, arguably, indicative of the state of journalism curriculum more broadly. Scattered individual efforts of system repair are admirable and needed, but a systemic problem is going to require a larger systemic solution.

Some participants reflected on why solutions are lacking in the curriculum. A 56-year-old male journalism department leader in Europe said, “We do what we always have done. We teach what we have always taught, and we do it in the same manner. That’s part of our problem is that we are not too innovative.” Professors too often recycle prior syllabi and, while they may consider making updates, “we tend to not do it too much in reality,” he said. A 44-year-old female associate professor in the United States said she asks students how they would fix news deserts: “Then they come up with ideas, which are just more of the same because, as a journalism school, that’s kind of what we teach them.” A 59-year-old female professor in Canada said research faculty have occasional conversations. However,

it’s not simple. It’s complicated. It’s really labor intensive for faculty . . . and those of us who are senior enough to take on that work are frankly getting close to retirement when we kind of don’t wanna do it anymore.

A 32-year-old female program coordinator in Europe said solutions are hard: “It’s a bit more easy, I think, to talk about what is, what can we see, how this occurred. As academics today, it’s easier to look backwards than to look forwards and find solutions.” This self-reflexivity helps explain why the journalism education and future journalists cog in the ecological framework have not fixed the industry sector of the system.

Discussion

The journalism educators interviewed for this study understand the news desert crisis and want to help solve it—but for a variety of reasons, including some beyond their control, few are able to make the kind of sweeping curricular changes necessary to address such a complex, systemic problem. Many of the professors interviewed expressed frustration at their inability to do more to address news deserts. In some cases, they needed guidance on how best to engage students around issues related to local news. Others, meanwhile, struggled to navigate increasing workloads, dwindling resources, and constant pressure to attract students to their programs.

These findings, while not generalizable beyond the subjects in this study, suggest gaps in journalism curriculum as well as the need for more collaboration across institutions and international borders. The results also illustrate that, while much of the attention goes to the journalism industry itself for being a broken system, more emphasis needs to be placed on the broken systems within journalism education that prevent it from doing its part to repair the ecological system. This research should serve as a warning to the news ecosystem that the news desert crisis appears unlikely to resolve anytime soon if significant changes are not made within both the industry and academic subsystems to take serious steps to address the problem.

While local news conditions vary widely from place to place, there are still likely opportunities to find common ground and share resources and best practices. It is also imperative that higher education leaders prioritize finding ways for their institutions to address the news crisis. As this study shows, the problem is too big for individual faculty members to tackle alone. In the same way, journalism schools are attempting to embrace artificial intelligence, immersive technology, and other digital innovations, they must also position themselves and their students to combat the news desert crisis. As such, it is not enough to just support research on the crisis but also to engage in conversations at the local, state, national, and international levels about how to incorporate solutions into journalism pedagogy.

Limitations to this exploratory study include its sample size and emphasis on faculty who already have an interest in local news. Future research should survey a broader range of journalism professors, including those at smaller universities, to better understand the scope of inclusion of local news in collegiate curriculum. Additional investigation is also needed of university programs known to operate news desert publications with students and what can be learned from them. Furthermore, more research is needed to examine the state of local news and journalism curriculum in the Global South.