In journalism, local news covers events that would not be of interest to another locality, or otherwise be of national or international scope. It, in contrast to national or international news, caters to the interests of the local community and focuses on local events and issues. Some key features of local newsrooms include regional politics, weather, business, and human interest stories. Local news readership has been declining in recent years, according to a recent study. As more and more television consumers tap into streamed programming, local news viewership is declining. Nikki Usher, an associate professor at the College of Media at the University of Illinois, argued in "The Complicated Future of Local News" that "critical and comprehensive local news is a recent invention, not a core element of the history of American democracy." Conversely, citing Alexis de Tocqueville in the second volume of Democracy in America (1840), political scientist Robert D. Putnam noted in the first edition of Bowling Alone (2000) that differences between the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation in the United States versus Baby boomers and Generation X in local civic association membership rates and various forms of civic and political engagement was significantly associated with generational differences in news consumption broadly and of newspaper subscriptions especially, such that Americans born before 1946 reported in a Yankelovich Partners survey at the end of the 20th century that they derived belongingness from local newspapers at more than twice the rate of Americans born after 1964.
Television Opt-outs of local television news are frequent before, during, or after national evening news television programming. Television networks can also commission or make provisions for local stations to produce longer standalone local news programs. Some local television markets/viewing areas within a country may even have a dedicated 24-hour local news channel. Local news stations have also started covering less and less local politics in favor of stories that they believe will garner more clicks or attention. A study has also shown that there has been less investigative journalism within local news stations in recent years.
Differences Local news largely covers the following:
local sports local crime and justice local weather local business and economy local events local education local politics local traffic updates (especially during morning and evening newscasts) National and international news, however, tend to cover a wider range of content, including news concerning specialized institutions of wide-ranging international power or influence, such as:
(inter)national political and intergovernmental events stock markets (inter)national sports competitions regional environmental events media/entertainment events science/technology events air traffic/aviator transport events defense/security events
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