This week’s action: Make one high-value coverage area easier to find or use.
In today’s fractured media landscape, people seek news from local and national media outlets, as well as AI chatbots and independent creators, according to the latest research from the Media Insight Project. This month we’re making the study, which surveyed both adults and teens as young as 13, actionable for local news leaders.
What the survey says: The largest portion of U.S. adult and teen survey respondents (41%) said that local news is best at giving people useful information when compared to national news, influencers and AI chatbots.
There are splits across age groups: about a third of teens 13-17 and older adults think local news is doing extremely or very well at covering the most important issues in their community and getting the facts right. But the adults between those two groups — working-age adults from 18-49 — are less likely to agree, with only 2 in 10 saying local news does this extremely or very well.
The most followed local topic across all ages was local weather or traffic (65%). About half of American teens and adults (49%) also regularly follow local crime and public safety news.
What it means for local news: Americans already see local news as the best source of useful information, and they turn to it most for key topics that affect their daily lives. Make these coverage areas your audience regularly needs or relies on more visible to better show your unique value.
Try this
Start here: Identify a coverage area in your newsroom that provides value — local expertise, accountability, context or utility — that an AI summary, generic aggregation or outside source can’t.
Take action: Make that high-value coverage area easier to find or use. You could do this by publishing an FAQ, “what you need to know” piece or social carousel, or by adding a module to a newsletter.
Reflect: What signals did you see of increased visibility or use? These signals might include views on your site; clicks in a newsletter; or comments, saves or shares on social media. How might you better show your unique value in other coverage areas?
Dig deeper
- From the study: Local news and Strengths and weaknesses of news sources
- Are you just covering your community? Or are you building something for them?
- Guiding people to practical information: Key takeaways from experiments in ‘service journalism’
- How the Dallas Morning News’ Instagram became a lifeline during the historic Texas winter storm
