Market-Based Opportunities in Local News Innovation

Medill will produce two reports after engaging a nationally known polling firm to assist in conducting primary research in local news markets across the nation. The first,to be published in late 2018, will identify the characteristics of local news markets that indicate they are ripe for innovation that can help to overcome the local news crisis in America, and identify a handful of those markets for further study. The second report, to be published in mid‐2019, would include an in‐depth study of the relationships between news producers and news consumers in those markets, and assessing the sorts of technological, news production, and information consumption innovation that can restore a healthy news environment; additional quantitative and qualitative research will be conducted for this second report.