Across America, corporate ownership and closures are leading to vast ‘news deserts’

Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst and E. W. Scripps are out. Digital First Media, GateHouse and Civitas are in.

That’s one of the conclusions reached by a group of researchers from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which on Sunday published a report examining the effects that corporate ownership and digital disruption have had on local news across the United States.

The results aren’t encouraging: In the last decade, several hundred newspapers have shut down, merged or gone weekly as they were passed from owner to owner.

The report, titled “The Rise of a New Media Baron and the Emerging Threat of News Deserts” documents the trend toward corporate consolidation and emphasizes that the future of local news rests on companies that are often beholden to faraway investment partnerships:

Newspapers represent only a fraction of their vast business portfolios — ranging from golf courses to subprime lenders — worth hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars. Their mission is to make money for their investors, so they operate with a short-term, earnings-first focus and are prepared to get rid of any holdings — including newspapers — that fail to produce what they judge to be an adequate profit.

Researchers illustrated the damage disruption and consolidation have done to local media, showing a United States pockmarked with newspapers that have been closed or merged since 2004.

The report’s findings include: