REPLAY: Minnesota's local news landscape is quietly growing, but it's not immune from industry pressures

The Minnesota Journalism Center launched its latest research report with a conversation about the health of local news in Minnesota

On Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, the Minnesota Journalism Center re-launched -- focused on supporting and connecting student journalists and professional journalists, and researching both -- with a table-setting conversation about the realities of the local news environment across Minnesota.

The conversation kicked off with a look at The first comprehensive effort to map every news organization in the state of Minnesota. It also tracks closures, ownership changes and newly launched organizations since 2018.

     EXPLORERead the full report and explore the map

For those working in or around local news in Minnesota, it's been clear that the state -- at least, anecdotally -- resides in an unusual space in the story of local news in the U.S.: While we’re by no means immune to the financial and logistical pressures facing journalism across the country, we have a flourishing landscape of startups and long-established news organizations.

This data supports many Minnesota journalists' anecdotal experience with precision: For every two news organizations that have closed since 2018, another has launched. Minnesota doesn't have any areas that qualify as "news deserts" in the traditional definition. While there's a considerable cluster of news organizations in the Twin Cities metro area, counties outside the metro have more than their share of news organizations, when compared to the distribution of the state's population. (That is: There's a higher ratio of news organizations to Minnesotans outside the Metro than within it.) 

And the conversation that followed on Friday connected that data to the experiences of journalists in vastly different organizations based in vastly different communities across the state. Their insights were moderated by Heidi Holtan, director of content and public affairs for KAXE/KBXE public radio in Grand Rapids (here's how to become a member). The rest of the panel:

This conversation is just the beginning of the Minnesota Journalism Center's work in the state -- just the first in what we hope will be many conversations. We want to be a resource for journalists, newsrooms and the communities they serve across the state: A place to connect, to learn, to create and to collaborate. 

Questions about the data? Contact MJC director Ben Toff. Want to get involved in the Center's work with local journalists? Contact Meg Martin. Want to work with the MJC's student programs? Contact Gayle (GG) Golden. Have updates for our newsletter or suggestions for training opportunities? Contact Regina McCombs.