Deserted: Life Without Local News in Rural America

The crisis of rural news consumers abandoned by corporate owners

The devastation of local news organizations has left rural areas of the US marooned in information deserts. Nick Mathews offers a boots-on-the-ground examination of the human toll of local news’s erosion by the winds of de-localization and corporate indifference.

It is no secret that ownership transfers, corporate mergers, and hedge fund takeovers have relentlessly consolidated and closed local news organizations. Mathews exposes the impact of that process on journalism, journalists, and news consumers hungry for outlets that tell their stories. A fundamental breakdown within journalism itself, the abandonment of community news has left disgruntled and disconnected locals to piece together news and information themselves. Mathews draws on the personal experiences of news gatherers and consumers to illuminate why local news cannot be scaled. Mass-produced content inevitably severs ties to communities while distant ownership is indifferent to local concerns.

Nuanced and sympathetic, Deserted provides a vivid portrait of the people and places forsaken by journalism’s corporate owners.

Nick Mathews is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Missouri. He is the co-author of Reviving Rural News: Transforming the Business Model of Community Journalism in the US andBeyond.