Our Hometown Blog

As 2025 draws to a close, we’re taking a look at trends within the publishing industry that are having the greatest impact on newspapers and the communities they cover. With the continuing contraction of papers, local governments are beginning to take steps towards adapting to a shifting media environment. These efforts to protect one of the main pillars of public accountability are also serving to maintain a revenue source many community newspapers have grown to rely on.

The three pillars of accountability established by the Government in the Sunshine Act include the distribution of public notices, FOIA, and open access to public meetings. Serving as a neutral entity that is both free from outside influence and publicly accessible, newspapers have held the distinction of being a community’s primary source for public notices. These notices, in turn,n have provided papers with a consistent revenue source that has helped maintain their operations.

As news coverage across the country shrinks, many communities have been left without a consistent source of local news. The UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media defines these “news deserts” as “a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.” 

Based on 2025 reports by Northwestern MEDILL, the number of communities without a reliable local news source has hit a record high in the past year. 136 newspapers have closed in the past year, leading to 213 counties being considered “news deserts,” and an additional 1,524 counties only having one active newspaper.

There is some hope, though, as many publishers and local governments are taking steps to adapt to the modern media environment. In 2025, 80% of local news startups in the past five years have been digital publications. With new publications adopting a more digital-focused and cost-effective model, state and local legislators are revising many of their guidelines around public notices.

The past year has seen the passage of at least nine pieces of legislation directly referencing the lack of newspapers in specific communities, which now allows public notices to be published either on a digital news website or within a newspaper adjacent to or related to the region without a dedicated publication of its own. These laws span across multiple states, including Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, South Dakota, and Texas.

While some may see this loosening of guidelines around public notice publication as a step towards reducing the role newspapers play in community accountability, it is preferable to the move towards removing newspaper publication requirements entirely, as some states have begun passing. 

The main takeaway from this development is that digital news publications can now be seen as equally valid as print newspapers. This is further enforced by the number of states that have moved within the past year to begin developing digital databases exclusively dedicated to public notices. 

As these trends continue, companies like Our-Hometown are developing paths forward to both help legacy papers increase their digital publication capabilities through programs like the Digital Initiative and increase coverage areas to combat news deserts through their Public Meetings tools.

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