Abigails January Program - Local News Deserts

January's program will be presented by Susan Catron, Managing Editor of The Current on the 

Growth and spread of local news deserts.

We'll look at rural (and some city) local news deserts and where they are, how they manifest and why the voids matter if you don't live in one.

News deserts exist on several planes -- the absence of an established media, the lack of action on the part of existing media, and the nationalization of local media.

In news deserts, research has found very real consequences: Citizens lose touch with local government and don't know how it works and do not engage with it, bond ratings for cities go down because of lack of oversight, voter turnout drops. New business models address the new needs, and we'll talk about a few of them.

Susan Catron is the managing editor of The Current, a nonprofit news site for in-depth journalism in Coastal Georgia. She also is managing partner for Catron Content Services LLC, a media and content consulting and coordination firm. 

Previously she was the executive editor of the Savannah Morning News and its award-winning web site, savannahnow.com from 2005 to 2020. She was also responsible for the staff and news content over time for two weeklies in Georgia, and three semi-weeklies in South Carolina plus business and Spanish-language monthlies.