New Book on Local Journalism

03 Jun 2015

Journalism is changing everywhere, and nowhere is this more clearly seen or potentially more consequential than in local journalism. Yet most research on and discussion around the future of journalism focuses on national and international media rather than the smaller local and regional newspapers, broadcasters, and websites that actually support the most journalism and serves the most communities. In a new book edited by RISJ Director of Research Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, a series of authors from a range of countries analyze how local journalism is changing in different high income democracies, identify the similarities and differences between countries as well as between local versus national journalism, and discuss the consequences. The book provides a comparative and comprehensive up-to-date analysis of how local journalism is changing in the Western world, underlining both the still central role of declining print newspapers and the precarious and so far rarely realized potential of new digital media for providing genuinely local news coverage.

Photo credit: A television cameraman films outside Britain's Justice Minister Shahid Malik's house in Dewsbury, northern England May 15, 2009. © Nigel Roddis / Reuters