October 14, 2025 (Updated )
Journalists have been sounding the death knell for local newsrooms for decades. As far back as 1958, Francis Williams bemoaned the closure of 225 papers in the preceding 40 years. Fast forward to the 2020s and more than 265 local papers have closed between 2005 and 2020, with fewer local newspapers in Britain today than at any time since the 18th century. But the problem isn’t just about the physical newspaper; it’s also about the revenue, output, and who’s reading it.
Analysis by Press Gazette shows revenue from the sector is now a quarter of the size it was in 2007 when adjusted for inflation. Perhaps it’s not surprising; open a local news website and you’ll likely be bombarded with flashing ads, cookie requests, and geographically dubious content. But with the best part of the century to solve the problem, why has Britain abandoned its small newspapers? And why haven’t we been able to bring local news into the digital age?
“Everybody goes on about the crisis in journalism, and how difficult it’s been”, says George Brock, the chair of the Charitable Journalism Project (CJP). “But the people who are hit hardest are local and regional papers, community papers.” The decline is multifaceted; a digital world means fewer people paying for a print newspaper, while the money which would have been spent by advertisers moves to other businesses. After all, if your audience is scrolling a phone rather than thumbing through the pages at the corner shop, it’s probably where you want to be.
Data from Reach Plc, which owns 300 local papers across the UK, shows an annual loss of £1 billion in advertising spend in a decade, with the majority going to Facebook and Google. Newspapers have tried to plug the gap with online adverts, but the reality is that it barely touches the sides. The result is redundancies and cutbacks, shrinking the number of employees to a third of what they were in 2007.
Journalist Brian Aitken (L) received training on the job at local newspapers, while Hannah Massoudi (R) worked while studying in London.
Shrinking opportunities are also contributing to a decreasingly diverse and accessible industry. Previously, local papers could be a training route into the industry, as Brian Aitkin recalls. He was 18 when he got his first job in journalism; he didn’t attend university, joining the Aberdeen Evening Express straight from school. The local paper funded his NCTJ qualifications, and he stayed for 11 years before becoming an editor at the Lincolnshire Echo and The Journal.
Today, such a route is rare, with 82 per cent of journalists university-educated. Hannah Massoudi is an early-career journalist from a working-class background in Loughborough, which “does not have good regional coverage at all”. She moved to London to train, where “it was predominantly all middle-class people who simply had little things [I didn’t], like not having to work [while studying]. I struggled there massively because I didn’t have that [spare] time.” She’s enjoying her current role with Bristol 24/7 Magazine, but it’s not easy. “By the nature of it [being a community interest company], you don’t get paid very much. Despite having a full-time job, it’s very hard to maintain a lifestyle somewhere as expensive as Bristol.”
The result brings us full circle to content, with stretched published often pushing an ‘eyeballs-first’ strategy. In late 2024, two memos sent to Reach Plc reporters described pageviews as “the best thing we’ve got right now”, with another setting an expectation of reporters writing some eight pieces a day. Similarly, a Newsquest scheme launched in 2022 sees reporters on daily papers receiving bonuses if they pull in more than 500,000 views a month.
For their part, the big four (Reach Plc, National World, DC Thompson, and Newsquest now own nearly 90 per cent of local titles) will tell you they do care about rigorous reporting. Take the Together for Change campaign against knife crime in Bristol, which saw Reach Plc’s BristolLive and National World’s BristolWorld team up with independent publishers The Bristol Cable and Bristol24/7 to call for change. Meanwhile, at the 2024 Media Freedom Awards, Jilly Beattie of BelfastLive was recognised for exposing a bigamist fake doctor and Will Hayward of WalesOnline for an investigation into donations accepted by the first minister.
Good journalism is still happening — but it’s difficult to tell if it’s happening at the same rate as before. And, with long reads analyses and in-depth investigations more costly to write and a gamble in terms of traffic, it’s only logical we’re seeing more and more quick turnaround stories designed to pull in hits and make money, burying what really matters.
The CJP goes so far as to describe the emergence of British “news deserts”, where the hollowing out of regional newsrooms has left pockets of the country with no dedicated local coverage. Its research shows communities are relying on social media and direct correspondence from local government and police, without professional journalists interrogating or contextualising the claims made. So, what happens next?
One answer potentially lives in the growing independent sector, armed with new ideas about revenue streams to rejuvenate local news and keep quality news alive. One new local paper experimenting with a digital business model is QT. Launched in 2023 by Brian, the subscription-based online paper aims to restore independent news to the North East without “obtrusive advertising or pop-ups or clickbait headlines.”
Across its initial 24 weekly editions, the site managed to amass 700 paying subscribers before stopping operations due to financial difficulties. Brian explains the team is on hiatus while they rethink their business model and hope to relaunch. Indeed, making subscription-based regional news sustainable requires a culture shift where people recognise that quality news is a valuable commodity they should pay for. “There’s always going to be a general reluctance on some people’s part to pay for online information, which is rather bizarre when you think of how many millions of people used to pay for newspapers,” he says.
Currently, only three per cent of Britons pay for online local news. Still, some independent local outlets have successfully capitalised on loyal subscribers; Mill Media is often the poster child of optimism for local journalism. Founded in Manchester in 2019, the email-based outlet has expanded in cities across the UK, emailing in-depth investigations to those paying a few pounds a month. In 2023, the company told Press Gazette they’d turned over £400,000 and were employing nine staff members across three cities. It might be smaller than local newspapers at their height, but it’s certainly more sustainable.
Reflecting on The Mill’s success, Brian believes “steady incremental growth in subscriber numbers is the way, because it takes a while for the brand recognition to take hold.” The Mill’s growth might also be particular to its urban bases, with large audiences of readers waving spare cash to invest in quality reporting, something rural and deprived communities lack. Either way, “the long-term future of journalism will only be achieved with people paying for news again.”
It’s also an idea spreading to larger groups. Ian Carter is the editorial director of Iliffe Media, which publishes titles such as KentOnline and the Stamford Mercury. He says they’ve gained thousands of paying subscribers in 2024. Writing on his blog, he reflects: “There’s a sense of relief at no longer primarily chasing clicks, obsessing about whichever celebrity is topping Google Trends, or writing the same story multiple times across 100 different websites. Instead, you can lean back, pay attention to what your most engaged readers really value and try to service them accordingly.” However, he stresses it’s a blended model, and won’t be their biggest revenue stream anytime soon.
So, what can fill the gap? For many, it involves top-down action by the Government alongside bottom-up innovation. There is limited support available for UK publishers in the form of VAT exemptions, innovation grants, and the BBC’s Local Democracy Scheme, however many would like to see this go further, such as with direct subsidies for editorial production, as in the Nordics.
Joe Mitchell (L) of the Public Interest News Foundation and George Brock (R) of the Charitable Journalism Project are both looking for new ways to sustain journalism.
Joe Mitchell, deputy director of the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) says that grant funding is “a big bit of the missing picture in the UK.” He compares the funding of local news with the public service provided by libraries: “We don’t expect libraries to find a business model. It’s a library, it’s a provision of information, for the benefit of all. We might need to start thinking of local information, news provision as a library.”
Similarly, the CJP argues newsrooms should be able to get charitable status due to their contribution to the public good and help local papers navigate the legal obstacles to do so. Recently, Guildford Dragon News was recognised as a charity after an 18-month process, the first local paper to have successfully fought for the designation.
Charitable status can help local papers survive by lowering taxes and enabling them to access more sources of funding. In the US, philanthropic subsidies are a key financial pillar for independent and local news outlets. Here in the UK, independent paper The Bristol Cable revealed much of their funding comes from two US-based organisations because of “the lack of a philanthropic ecosystem for journalism in the UK”.
George explains charitable status isn’t a fix-all solution: “Saving and reconstituting local journalism is going to be something which requires a whole different set of methods. It really does depend on the social geography, the society […] you’ve got to try and fit the journalism to that.”
All the ingredients are present for the rejuvenation of local news; we have the digital tools to create and share engaging quality reporting, a wealth of tried and tested approaches to kickstart grassroots journalism, and a public that’s consuming more media than ever. Whether it’s pushing for grants, awarding charitable status, or encouraging subscriptions, we have the tools to fix this crisis. Now we just need to use them.
