July 10 (UPI) -- A third of all U.S. counties do not have full-time journalists, according to a new report by the non-profit Rebuild Local News and journalism aggregator Muck Rack.
The United States averaged 40 full-time journalists for every 100,000 residents in 2002, but that average has dropped to 8.2 in 2025, according to the Local Journalist Index of 2025 report.
"In 2000, many Americans lived in a community with journalists ... whose job it was to cover school board decisions, announce small business openings and closures, root out corruption at city hall, warn commuters about road work and trumpet the exploits of high school teams," Muck Rack said.
"Today, most of those journalists are gone," Muck Rack said. "Even as the country has grown, we've lost journalists."
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