Across the United States, a significant number of communities are experiencing a resurgence in the availability of local news from an evolving range of nonprofit outlets that are carving out a unique hometown niche.
In recent decades, competition and changing readership patterns have led to the closure or downsizing of multiple city or state-wide newspapers. At the same time, however, hundreds of local news outlets are springing up to fill the gaps. An October 2025 report counted “more than 300 local news startups in the past five years across virtually every state, demonstrating a surge of entrepreneurship that has come along with a wave of philanthropic support.” According to the Institute for Nonprofit News, local outlets now make up 54% of its membership.
“New growth … continues to skew local,” the institute’s 2026 index reported. “All nine outlets that became members and began publishing in 2025 covered local beats,” as did the vast majority of new members in 2024 and 2023.
There is a clear desire among American citizens for reliable information that is relevant to their daily life. Eighty percent of U.S. adults see local news as important to the well-being of their community, with 34% saying it is “extremely” or “very important,” the Pew Research Center reported in April. Yet, with the proliferation of social media and online sites, a vast majority of the public do not typically pay for such news.
That’s where nonprofit local news entities are filling a gap and shoring up an essential pillar of U.S. democracy. Information about what’s going on in and around one’s community – in the town hall, on the school board, or at the state legislature – is critical to civic participation. And evolving coalitions of philanthropic groups, businesses, and individual citizens are stepping up to meet the need.
“Under this model, local journalism is treated as a public good, essential to civic life,” according to Sarabeth Berman, head of the American Journalism Project. Without local news outlets, Ms. Berman observed in The New York Times earlier this year, “Communities no longer know themselves,” spurring polarization as well as declining civic engagement.
Americans tend to trust local media more than national sources. Through local journalism they learn about their neighbors and neighborhoods and develop shared knowledge and common cultural references and touchpoints.
Feeding this pipeline for news that helps communities bond, initiatives such as Report for America are preparing a new generation of reporters. The organization estimates that by this month, it will have placed more than 850 journalists in 465 community newsrooms nationwide. In February, it launched a partnership with Washington State University to cover every county in the state by 2029. Democratic Sen. Marko Liias from Edmonds said he supported this project to “ensure Washington’s communities have the information they need and deserve.”
Such local journalism, as Mr. Liias noted, “is the backbone of a strong, independent press – and it’s the very foundation of a healthy democracy.”