This month was a big one for political news, obviously … but as we come closer to the U.S. election, one of the elements that will probably never get as much attention as it deserves is the importance of local news and the role that it plays in helping people understand who is running for all the local elections that will be contested this year too. The critical role local news can and must play is a topic Pew Research explores in a multi-part series that just released its continuation this week.
The research has some interesting but not entirely surprising data points, such as the finding that people seem to value local news and describe it as important yet only 15% of people report actually paying for it. 85% say local news is at least somewhat important to the well-being of their community.
