An alarming number of independent publishers and small chains closed papers last year, new Medill study finds

For years, the U.S. has lost more than two newspapers per week on average, thanks, in part, to growing consolidation. But this past year, the majority of closures were papers belonging to smaller chains and independent owners, according to a new report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Medill’s 2025 State of Local News report tracked 136 newspaper closures over the past year, up from 130 last year. In total, the country has lost nearly 3,500 newspapers and more than 270,000 newspaper jobs over the past two decades, leaving 50 million people in “news deserts,” areas where people have limited or no access to reliable local news sources. 

The closures this year primarily affected papers belonging to smaller, independent owners. They include the shutdown of the 141-year-old Chesterton Tribune in Indiana and the Eagle Times in New Hampshire, both of which left news deserts behind in their wake. The trend is concerning, said Medill chair in local news and professor Tim Franklin, because unlike the owners of large chains like Gannett and Alden, those independent owners tended to live in the communities their papers covered.

“These small, independent owners are the ones that were trusted,” Franklin said. “There was a glue between the owners and the community that is now unraveled.”

He noted that small, independent owners tend to live in rural areas with less access to capital. Rising newsprint costs and declining advertising demand have increased pressure on those owners. Zach Metzger, the report’s author and director of Medill’s State of Local News project, added that newspapers belonging to longtime, independent owners often lack a succession plan for when their owner dies.

Most of the papers that have closed were weeklies, which the report defines as papers printed fewer than three days a week. But the number of dailies has also declined. This year, for the first time, there are fewer than 1,000 dailies remaining in the U.S. The report further notes that more than 80% of those “daily” papers print less than seven days a week due to publishers seeking to save money by reducing print days.

In the wake of Congress’ decision this summer to take back funding for public broadcasting, the report examined the finances of stations and found that roughly 10% of stations received more than 40% of their funding from the government. The stations that were more heavily reliant on federal funding tended to be in poorer, more rural areas. 

Historically, public broadcasters have been some of the more stable news outlets, Metzger said. The clawback of funds could change that, however, as outlets scramble to make up for what was once a reliable source of revenue.

“It places public broadcasting stations in a position where now they are — even more so than they were before — competing with other news outlets in the larger philanthropic and nonprofit space,” Metzger said. “That, I think, is going to put added pressure on these stations over the next two to five years, even beyond this immediate emergency.”

Public broadcasters play an important role in reaching news deserts. The study found that “primary stations,” those that produce original reporting, reach 46% of news desert counties and 53% of countries with only one news source. Those figures jump to 82% and 90%, respectively, when “repeater” stations are included. 

One positive trend researchers identified was an increase in successful news startups. Over the past five years, more than 300 new outlets have launched, and while they don’t replace the outlets that have disappeared, Franklin called the number “encouraging.”  

“It used to be … that pretty much every year, the same number of startups would die as would start up,” Franklin said. “What we’ve seen over the last couple of years is an actual net increase in startups.”

The “vast majority” of those startups have popped up in metro areas, however, leaving behind the rural and less affluent areas that are more likely to be news deserts, the report notes. The report also found that of the 10,000 largest journalism grants distributed over the past five years, 98% of grant dollars went to organizations in urban areas. 

The report also found a marked increase in network digital sites, like those run by Axios and Patch. After identifying 742 sites across 23 network groups in last year’s report, researchers this year found 849 sites across 53 networks.

The trend is likely a result of the lowered barrier to entry for networks seeking to establish a new site, Metzger said. The centralized infrastructure means lower overhead costs, allowing networks to more easily create a new site and focus on the reporting, instead of worrying about things like site design or back office operations.