I run The 824 Journal, an independent music and culture publication covering Long Beach and the surrounding communities. Much of my work involves photographing shows and writing about the people and moments that make them worth remembering. A performance can mean a great deal to the people in that room, even if it never becomes a national headline. Local coverage gives those moments a place in the record of a community.
That is part of why losing local journalism concerns me. Who is still showing up, paying attention, and following what happens afterward? We depend on people doing that work to understand where we live, from the decisions that affect our neighborhoods to the artists and small businesses that help shape them. When there are fewer people available to cover those stories, we lose more than something to read.
The numbers, plainly
The loss of local news is happening across the country. Northwestern’s Medill School counted 213 U.S. counties without a local news source in its October 2025 State of Local News report, up from 206 the year before. About 50 million Americans had limited or no access to reliable local news. In the previous year alone, 136 newspapers closed, more than two each week.
California has more than 400 outlets, according to Medill’s 2024 report, but still ranks near the bottom when measured against its population. Having hundreds of outlets sounds reassuring until you consider how many communities they need to cover.
Here in Southern California, we have watched newsrooms get smaller. The Los Angeles Times cut at least 115 newsroom jobs in January 2024, more than a fifth of its staff, after cutting more than 70 the previous June, according to Fortune. Another round followed in May 2025. LAist cut eight positions that same month and said it had eliminated 61 since 2023.
In Long Beach, the Post laid off nine people in March 2024, just months after becoming a nonprofit. According to FORTHE, its newsroom had fallen from 26 staff members to eight in roughly seven months. In April 2026, it joined The LA Local, a nonprofit network of community newsrooms across Los Angeles County. The Press-Telegram, meanwhile, belongs to Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group.
These changes affect how much a newsroom can reasonably cover. Fewer reporters means less time to attend meetings, follow up with sources, visit a neighborhood, or stay with a story after the initial attention fades. The things happening in those communities do not slow down because the newsroom has fewer people.
People still say local news matters. In Pew Research Center’s 2025 surveys, 80 percent of Americans said local news outlets were at least somewhat important to their community, but only 12 percent had paid for local news in the past year. Paying for a subscription is not possible for everyone, and subscriptions alone cannot solve every newsroom’s problems. But if we value having someone there to do this work, we also have to consider what allows them to keep doing it.
What actually goes away
When people hear that local news is disappearing, they might think about city council meetings going uncovered or officials facing fewer questions. Those are serious losses. Research has linked newspaper closures to changes in civic participation, voting, and even the cost of borrowing money for public projects. The effects reach people who may never have subscribed to the paper.
A 2014 study in Political Communication found that civic engagement declined in Denver and Seattle after each city lost a daily newspaper in 2009, while comparable cities did not experience the same drop. A 2018 study in the Journal of Communication found that split-ticket voting declined after a local newspaper closed, suggesting that voters relied more on party labels when local information was harder to find. Research by Pengjie Gao, Chang Lee, and Dermot Murphy, shared by Brookings in 2018, also found higher municipal borrowing costs following newspaper closures. Their findings suggest that losing local scrutiny can have financial consequences for the communities left behind.
Culture coverage deserves a place in this conversation, too. In 2017, Columbia Journalism Review reported that the Orange County Register had eliminated its pop critic and music editor in 2014. Of roughly 200 members of the Jazz Journalists Association, fewer than 10 still held full-time newspaper jobs. An outlet can remain open while the people who covered its local music and arts communities are already gone.
For a smaller music scene, those losses matter. A band playing a 200-capacity room might have an incredible night, but without coverage, fewer people outside that room will hear about it. A review can give someone a reason to listen, attend the next show, or consider booking that artist somewhere else. It also leaves something for the band and its audience to return to years later.
The same attention matters when a venue closes or an arts budget gets cut. Someone needs to ask what happened, who is affected, and what the community stands to lose. A closure announcement can tell us that a place is gone without telling us what it meant to the people who spent their time there. Those people deserve to be part of the story.
That is why I care about documenting local music and culture. These performances, spaces, and communities are part of our history while they are happening. Coverage helps people find them, understand their importance, and remember what was there. They should not have to become famous before we decide they are worth writing about.
Why small and independent matters
There are reasons to be hopeful. Medill counted more than 300 local news startups launched over five years, most of them digital. Nonprofit outlets are also doing work their communities need. Voice of OC covers Orange County government, CalMatters reports on state issues, and LAist serves communities across Southern California.
Funding that work remains a challenge, even when support is announced publicly. In August 2024, California and Google announced a five-year package reported at roughly $250 million to support journalism. By May 2025, the state had reduced its first-year commitment from $30 million to $10 million, according to CalMatters. The California Civic Media Program now includes $20 million, split between the state and Google, with grants of up to $250,000 per newsroom and awards expected in fall 2026.
That support matters. I also want music and culture coverage to be part of the conversation about what communities need from local journalism. Writing about an artist, a neighborhood venue, or a gathering can help people understand the place they call home. I would want to look closely at the funding requirements before assuming where a publication like The 824 Journal fits.
For a small independent publication, the work starts with being there and taking an interest in what people are doing. We photograph, ask questions, and put time into stories that might otherwise go undocumented. We cannot provide everything a fully staffed daily newsroom can, but we can contribute coverage that our communities would have less of without us.
Sometimes that means publishing the only review of a show or documenting a moment that mattered to the people in the room. Years from now, someone may look for that performance, that artist, or that place and find what we preserved. That matters to me, even when the audience for a story is small. The people who were there should have something to return to, and the people who were not should have a way to learn about it.
What you can do
If you value local coverage, there are a few ways to help keep it going.
Pay for it if you can. Choose a local outlet you read and support it through a subscription, membership, or donation. Even a few dollars a month can help cover the work that goes into a story. Consistent support gives a small publication a better idea of what it can afford to take on.
Share the stories you care about. Send an article to a friend, a band, or a group chat that would appreciate it. If a story helped you discover something in your community, pass it along. That gives someone else a chance to find it without depending on whether it appears in their feed.
Tell us what is happening. A show worth covering, a venue facing closure, a new space opening, or a permit decision that could affect local performances are all things we want to hear about. We cannot be everywhere, and we will not know every story on our own. A reader reaching out can be how that coverage begins.
Show up when you can. Attend the local show or the council meeting where a venue’s future is being discussed. Bring a friend to see an artist you think deserves a bigger audience. Coverage can help draw attention to these places and decisions, but the people who participate help shape what happens next.
Sources
- Northwestern Medill Local News Initiative: News deserts hit new high and 50 million have limited access to local news, study finds (Oct. 20, 2025)
- Northwestern Medill Local News Initiative: The State of Local News: 2024 Report
- Northwestern Medill: Medill report shows local news deserts expanding (Oct. 23, 2024)
- Pew Research Center: Local News Fact Sheet (updated July 9, 2026)
- Pew Research Center: Americans’ Changing Relationship With Local News (May 7, 2024)
- Brookings Institution: Financing Dies in Darkness? The Impact of Newspaper Closures on Public Finance (Gao, Lee, Murphy; Sept. 2018)
- Journal of Communication: Newspaper Closures Polarize Voting Behavior (Darr, Hitt, Dunaway; Dec. 2018)
- The Journalist’s Resource (Shorenstein Center): Civic engagement declines when local newspapers shut down (summary of Shaker, Political Communication, 2014)
- Fortune: Los Angeles Times layoffs: 20 percent of newsroom, 115 jobs (Jan. 24, 2024)
- NBC Los Angeles: LA Times laying off more journalists (May 2, 2025)
- FORTHE: Accusations of Union Busting and Mismanagement Beset the Long Beach Post as Layoffs Decimate Newly Formed Nonprofit Newsroom (March 2024)
- Long Beach Post: Who owns the Post?
- Long Beach Post: A new chapter for local journalism in Long Beach (April 28, 2026)
- Long Beach Post: Journalists at Press-Telegram, Grunion Gazette and sister papers launch drive to unionize (Feb. 24, 2021)
- LAist: LAist cuts staff by 5%, citing ongoing budget strain and potential federal funding loss (May 6, 2025)
- CalMatters: Google’s $125 million deal with California for local news is already shrinking (May 16, 2025)
- Northwestern Medill Local News Initiative: A Big Tech Local News Precedent? (Oct. 28, 2024)
- Office of the Governor of California: Governor Newsom announces $20 million in grant funding matched by Google (July 14, 2026)
- Columbia Journalism Review: Curtains fall on arts critics at newspapers (Jan. 6, 2017)
- Report for America: Voice of OC newsroom profile
