State of Local News 2026: Why Barron County isn't a news desert

By Joe Morey

Free Press Editor/Publisher

A new report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism puts a number on a troubling trend: 170 newspapers closed or merged across the country in the past year. That’s more than three a week, up from 136 the year before.

The 2026 State of Local News report also found that 26 more counties became news deserts, bringing the total to 238. A news desert is a county without a locally based professional news source.

Barron County is not one of those counties. But the report is a reminder that local news cannot be taken for granted. The Barron County Free Press exists to help keep our communities informed and to keep Barron County from becoming a place where local news disappears.

A difficult year for local newspapers

Medill’s findings show the scale of the challenge. Nearly 47 million Americans now live in a news desert or in a county with just one local news source. More than 425 newspapers changed hands in the past year, 75% more than the year before. Newspaper employment fell by more than 8%, a loss of over 7,500 jobs. Nearly 80% of newspaper jobs have disappeared since 2005.

The pressure is not limited to print. Digital traffic to the websites of 100 of the largest local newspapers fell by 50% in four years. Meanwhile, the cost of producing a newspaper keeps rising. Newsprint prices were up 18% in the past year: five times the rate of inflation, according to Poynter’s report on the findings.

“In recent years, we’ve seen a steady erosion of the local newspaper industry, but that ballooned into a landslide this year,” said Tim Franklin, who led the Medill report.

Zachary Metzger, director of Medill’s State of Local News Project, put it this way: “The industry of local news has changed so much in so short a time…” Publishers, funders, readers and lawmakers are all being asked to figure out how local news can remain sustainable.

There are reasons for hope. Medill counted 75 local news startups launched in the past year, most of them digital. But more than two newspapers were lost for every startup created, and most new outlets are in urban areas. As Poynter noted, smaller independent and family-owned papers can be especially vulnerable: even a small drop in readership or advertising, or a rise in costs, can put a publication at risk.

These figures are national. They do not tell the whole story of every town or county. But they do show why a strong local news source matters, especially in rural communities, where losing one can leave residents with few ways to follow decisions and events close to home.

What local news helps a community see

Local news is about more than headlines. It is a record of the choices that shape daily life and the people who make a community what it is.

It means knowing what is happening at a county board meeting, what local schools are working on, what is going on in the courts, and which businesses are opening their doors. It means finding out who bought a property, what homes and land are available, and which neighbors are doing something worth celebrating. It means following local sports, community events and the history we share.

In my earlier piece, “Why the Barron County Free Press?”, I wrote that we have more information at our fingertips than at any other time in human history. Yet it has become harder to find out what is happening right down the road.

That is the need we are here to serve. Our coverage includes Crime & Courts, Homes & Land, business spotlights, community features, People You Should Know, Barron County Back Then, Best of Barron County, and reporting on local government and schools. Our IN DEPTH reports take on subjects that deserve more than a few paragraphs.

For readers looking for barron county news or barron wisconsin news, the important thing is having a reliable place to turn: one focused on the communities and issues that affect life here. We want to report with care, ask questions when they need asking, and give readers useful information to make up their own minds.

Why we’re free

I’ve spent 31 years in the newspaper business. When I started, I printed stories, headlines, photos and ads, cut them out and pasted them onto grid sheets. Then I ran the finished pages to the Dorrance brothers at the Rice Lake Chronotype to be printed.

A lot has changed since those days. The way people read has changed, too. Some still enjoy sitting down with a print edition and a cup of coffee. Others want to read on a phone, get a story in a digital newsletter, or watch and listen through video and audio.

Print remains at the heart of the Free Press, and we’re building around it with our website, newsletter, social media, video and audio. We want to be available in the ways people in our communities choose to follow the news.

One other choice matters to me: the Free Press is free by design. As newspaper readership declined, one common response was to charge remaining readers more. That can become a vicious cycle: fewer readers, higher prices, and fewer readers again. We’re going the other direction. If you want to read the paper, you should be able to pick one up without deciding whether local news fits your budget this week.

Our local advertisers make that possible. They are more than the businesses you see in the paper; they are sponsors of local journalism. When you shop with them, please let them know you saw them in the Free Press. Their support helps pay for reporting, printing and distribution, so our newspaper can reach readers without charging them.

Keeping Barron County informed takes all of us

A newspaper cannot do its job without readers who pay attention, share tips, ask questions and tell us what we are missing. It also needs advertisers who believe local readers matter and a community that sees the value in reporting close to home.

The Medill report is a warning about what can happen when local news sources vanish. Here in Barron County, we still have the chance to build something that belongs to this community and serves it well.

I did not start the Free Press to recreate the newspaper of yesterday. I started it to build a local newspaper for today: one that is local, independent and rooted in the people and places of Barron County.

And most importantly, one that’s free.