Financing Dies in Darkness? The Impact of Newspaper Closures on Public Finance. Brookings Institution. Pengjie Gao, Chang Joo Lee, and Dermot Murphy. September 24, 2018
Local newspapers in the United States have been steadily declining in recent years. Accompanying this change was a decline in statehouse reporters who play an important role in gathering information about local governments and reporting it to their readers. Related academic studies in the political economy space show that geographic areas with reduced local media coverage have less informed voters and lower voter turnouts, removing the incentives of local politicians to work hard on behalf of their constituencies. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
[PDF format, 40 pages].
