News Item

“Facebook has taken over”: How residents find local info when local newspapers aren’t doing the job | Nieman Journalism Lab

The decline of local newspapers isn’t just a problem in the U.S.: A new report looks at how residents of communities in the U.K. get their local news and finds that social media — mainly Facebook groups and pages — is now the primary way they get information about the areas where they live.

The research was led by Stephen Barclay of City, University of London, and funded by the Charitable Journalism Project, an initiative to help U.K. newsrooms gain charitable status. The researchers interviewed and conducted focus groups with residents of seven communities around the U.K.

While the report is titled “Local news deserts in the U.K.,” the seven communities examined do, in fact, have some traditional local news sources, but these are seen as inadequate and in many cases have been hollowed out, or merged and centralized.

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Source: “Facebook has taken over”: How residents find local info when local newspapers aren’t doing the job | Nieman Journalism Lab