Local news was a focal point at the recent FTC workshop, “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" Reed Hundt reported on the Knight Commission recommendations and emphasized the role of local news in promoting the traditional U.S. policy goal of localism both in newspapers and in broadcasting. Matthew Gentzkow reported on his study that the entry and exit of newspapers from local communities have the most pronounced effect on voter participation in local elections. Tom Rosenstiel emphasized again that local newspapers have more reporters on the ground to cover local news stories than all other local news entities combined, and drew the logical conclusion: Economic threats to local newspapers strike at the heart of the availability of information concerning the issues of public importance to local communities.

Now, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that most local news still comes from traditional media: local newspapers and broadcast stations. Pew studied 53 media outlets in Baltimore during one week in the summer of 2009. The findings document what many observers have noted: Fully 83 percent of stories were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information. Of the 17 percent that did contain new information, nearly all came from traditional media. Of this 17 percent, 48 percent came from general purpose newspapers, 28 percent from local television stations, 13 percent from specialty newspapers, 7 percent from radio Web sites and 4 percent from new media.

This is not as surprising as some seem to think it is. Several years ago, all local news would have been produced by traditional news media. That’s what makes them the traditional news media. So the fact that new media haven’t replaced old media yet should not be startling. But this evidence does confirm the worry that the economic troubles of the old media might leave a gap in what we have taken for granted, namely, an adequate supply of basic information about the issues of public importance in our local communities.

So what does this evidence mean for policy? One reaction is to push for more support for old media outlets like newspapers and broadcast stations. Traditional news outlets are likely to react this way. Surprisingly, some new media advocates like Jeff Jarvis also seem to view this kind of study as simply making the case for preserving the newspaper itself. But as Clay Shirky said in his famous posting on this issue last year: What we need is news, not newspapers. News in text, video or audio format needs to be produced before it can be distributed. So the real task is to find a way to channel economic resources to news production.

Another policy reaction to the evidence that local news is still overwhelmingly produced by traditional media is to push for more support for local news production. Public policy should focus on ways to support local news gathering. As the economic base of local newspapers continues to erode, a mix of philanthropic funding, peer news production, new business models and public funding will be needed to provide local community news.