2024 Report: Local News & Information Ecosystems

October 2024

In 2020, Impact Architects developed a Healthy News and Information Ecosystem framework, with support from Democracy Fund, Knight Foundation, and Google News Initiative. The goal of this framework was to create a standardized way to assess the health of a local news ecosystem, including its strengths and opportunities, in order to compare across ecosystems and assess change over time. We prioritized using freely available, public data sources in order to ensure the framework would be accessible to anyone interested in assessing their local news and information ecosystem. We piloted the original framework in nine ecosystems.

In partnership with Democracy Fund in 2024, this latest version of the Local News and Information Ecosystem Framework incorporates indicators to measure civic engagement and democracy in ten ecosystems: Arizona; Chicago, IL; Colorado; Georgia; Michigan, as well as Detroit; New Jersey; New Mexico; North Carolina; Oklahoma; and Washington, D.C.

A note: The full report is 280 pages, which you can find in the link to the right. We recommend starting with the introduction below and then each ecosystem, chapter by chapter.