Local news can help battle disinformation, report finds. But outlets are struggling

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is shown in a television camera monitor in Toronto, Wednesday, Nov., 1, 2023. A new report that surveyed residents of small towns across Canada says a lack of local news outlets weakens community ties and affects people's understanding of how government, schools and hospitals function. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

A new report that surveyed residents of small towns across Canada says a lack of local news outlets weakens community ties and affects people’s understanding of how government, schools and hospitals function.

The report comes from the Public Policy Forum think-tank and says years of cuts to local news outlets have whittled down a critical pillar of democracy.

“The Lost Estate: How to put the local back in local news” paints a dire portrait of small-town journalism and links its decline to increased alienation and distrust.

The study included an Ipsos poll of 1,001 Canadians in communities with populations below 100,000 – with half coming from communities of fewer than 10,000.

Report co-author Andrew Phillips – a Toronto Star columnist and former editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette and the Victoria Times Colonist – says dropping ad revenues, corporate ownership models and the dominance of online platforms have especially hurt local news outlets.

It calls for fixes that include tax incentives that encourage local businesses to buy ads in local media, and philanthropic support to bolster public funds — including from local foundations and donations from readers themselves.

The report was conducted with the Rideau Hall Foundation and the Michener Awards Foundation. The Ipsos poll was conducted this year between Jan. 9 and 20.

It found 87 per cent of respondents said local news is important to democracy. It also found 61 per cent of respondents agreed that less local news leads to less knowledge about local government, schools and hospitals, and 58 per cent agreed it leads to fewer ties to the community.

A journalism research project at Toronto Metropolitan University found 252 fewer local news outlets since 2008, even after taking into account the new startups that have launched and survived since then. In just the last two years, Canadian communities lost 24 outlets.

It’s not all bad news.

The report also points to a “flourishing new ecosystem” of digital startups, such as Village Media, which began two decades ago in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. With a mission “to save local news,” it grew to more than two dozen digital properties throughout the province.

But more funding sources are needed, says the report, co-authored by Edward Greenspon, PPF fellow and former editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail; and Alison Uncles, PPF vice-president and former editor-in-chief of Maclean’s magazine.

The report suggests that a non-profit organization could fund reporters in local newsrooms for three-year terms, and for the Local Journalism Initiative — currently backed by federal funds — to also be funded by philanthropic donations and controlled by an independent board.

It also wants a portion of government ad dollars to go to local media and for community and private foundations to support local news organizations, arguing it aligns with missions to encourage community health and local democracy.

The report says the vacuum left by declining local outlets is often filled by national news — which it says is “typically more divisive” — or social media, “where truth and falsehood compete on equal terms.”

Phillips notes that’s led to increased cynicism around news in general.

“More local news is a little bit of an antidote to that,” he says.

“There are people already doing it. The question is, can we give them a bit of help and some supports and make it more likely that new organizations can come up and survive?

“People have to step in and do this, and obviously readers have to play their part by consuming it and in one way or another, paying for it.”

Poll results are considered accurate to within plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points of what the results would have been had every Canadian resident aged 18-plus been polled.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.