Across the United States, news deserts are growing as local papers close and communities are left without access to credible and comprehensive news and information. Northwestern University’s Medill School estimates that 3,200 print newspapers have vanished over the past two decades, leaving almost 55 million people with little or no local news – and millions more in rural areas and cities underserved by local news coverage. This has profound repercussions.
“Local news is important to inform civic participation, but its effects go much deeper. It's a social glue that connects people. Information curation matters, but so do sports, puzzles, and novelty stories," Larry DeGaris, Executive Director of the Medill Spiegel Research Center, explains.
The erosion of local news is forcing more of us to look beyond traditional news outlets to social media or national news apps without hyper-local focus. A recent Pew Research survey found that 86% of U.S. adults access news via digital devices at least sometimes, with 57% doing so often. At the same time, it remains incredibly frustrating to try to find what matters to us when news is coming from all angles, and when we have to sort fact from fiction along the way.
Since 2015, NewsBreak has leveraged advanced digital technologies to help make local news and information more abundant and accessible. The power of this technology-led vision has made us one of the leading news platforms in the U.S. – connecting more than 40 million users across the nation to personalized local news, entertainment and lifestyle stories, science and technology updates, and daily essentials like weather and traffic alerts.
But let’s be clear: NewsBreak does not write the news. We are a technology-powered “local everything” company that provides an intelligent technology platform that enables local news publishers, local businesses, and community contributors to get relevant information into the hands of people who need it. We direct our users – people who are already reading news online – to the websites of traditional publishers, helping them expand and diversify their digital audience and benefit from increased traffic.
Connecting readers to trusted sources
Our NewsBreak mobile app is available in every town in America. It provides a single point of entry where you can find news based on your interests, whether that’s coffee culture, city council politics, school board decisions, sports scores, fishing forecasts, or food trends.
You can follow your favorite local, regional and national publications and on-the-ground local contributors – and get timely alerts and push notifications to keep you in the loop when news breaks. You can even quickly compare reporting on key stories and issues from different sources. Our local contributors provide on-site reporting to verify news and go deeper, while our commenting function lets you provide feedback and join the conversation with other NewsBreak readers.
For NewsBreak user Richard Kostick, the ability to build a personalized newsfeed from an abundance of high-quality sources on NewsBreak is vital.
“We all need to know what’s happening in our communities – whether that’s the neighborhood where we live, the hometown where we have friends and relatives, or the business communities important to the work we do. As the founder and CEO of a fast-growing company, I keep up with breaking national news as well as hyper-local community news. NewsBreak lets me get a taste for news outlets that I might want to subscribe to,” Richard says.
Expanding reach and connection
Local publishers join NewsBreak both to reinforce their connection with readers who follow them and to find new readers among the more than 40 million people who already use our mobile app. These digitally savvy Americans are the ideal audience for traditional media looking to enhance their online readership by driving more people to their news sites and boosting reader engagement, which also helps to generate increased advertising revenue. By partnering with Newsbreak, publishers can also earn incremental revenues through our advertising revenue share model.
"The loss of digital advertising revenues hit local news organizations hard. They're operating on increasingly tight budgets, so any effort to claw back some of that revenue is a big deal," Medill’s Larry DeGaris explains.
Reaching new readers can also lay the groundwork for longer-term loyalty. As the NewsBreak algorithms help people discover articles relevant to their interests, they may want to become subscribers to their favorite publishers and access all that the publication has to offer.
“Local news is such a crucial part of the media ecosystem, but it’s facing challenges like never before,” says Lara Weber, communications director for States Newsroom. “By some estimates, newspapers are disappearing at the rate of two per week. That’s why we believe so strongly in what we do at all of our States Newsroom outlets.”
State-focused nonprofit news organization States Newsroom covers all 50 states and Washington and has worked with NewsBreak since February 2022.
“NewsBreak plays an important role in getting our stories out by making them available to readers for free, localized for wherever they are. Each week, our reporting reaches hundreds of thousands of readers through our partnership with NewsBreak. Collaborations like this bring local news coverage to communities where journalism resources are stretched thin,” Lara continues.
Harnessing artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools to personalize users’ newsfeeds, the NewsBreak app provides free local access to thousands of communities across the United States
Local news organizations that recently joined NewsBreak include Alaska’s Mat-Su Sentinel; North Dakota’s The Dakotan; St. John’s Citizen, for communities in St. John’s County, Florida; Idaho’s DailyFly News; Andover News from Massachusetts; Mississippi Sports Group; New York’s NepYork, dedicated to the Nepali community, and Ithaca-based 14850 Magazine; San Francisco’s Voice of SF and El Timpano, which serves the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan community; East Texas Broadcasting; and Pokes News for Wyoming sports fans.
“With 10 of the longest running radio stations in our region, East Texas Broadcasting has been passionate about keeping communities in Northeast Texas and Southeast Oklahoma informed and entertained for more than 30 years. NewsBreak helps us build stronger connections with our audience wherever they are throughout their day,” East Texas Broadcasting President James “Bud" Kitchens says.
As part of the NewsBreak ecosystem, all of our valued publisher partners have the chance to boost engagement, connect with new readers, and grow their digital audience while helping us empower people with access to the news and information that matter most. That’s a win for readers and for the news industry as a whole – with the potential to bring green shoots of opportunity back to news deserts across the nation.
SimpleFeed is a content syndication solution that helps media companies reach readers with relevant and engaging content. “With a huge nationwide audience and easy-to-use publishing and analytics tools, NewsBreak supports high-quality local journalism and is a great way for publishers to discover new local audiences,” Mark Carlson, Founder and CEO of SimpleFeed explains.
If you are interested in joining NewsBreak’s publisher network, you can apply to become a publisher through our new and improved Publisher Self Serve Portal: https://mp.newsbreak.com/pss/signup
