Local News Map
About the project
PINF’s vision is for everyone to benefit from public interest news that speaks to them, for them and with them.
We wanted to find out how well (or poorly) every community in the UK is currently provided with news, so that we can encourage philanthropists and policymakers to target their resources on the local areas of greatest need.
The project has two components: a live map displaying local coverage information for each Local Authority District in the country, and a series of reports that are created upon each iteration of updating the data that provide a snapshot analysis of the state of local media provision in the UK.
Any map is an imperfect, approximate version of reality. Ours is no different: we did not have the capacity to map every single route by which public interest news is conveyed in a local area.
To make the project manageable, we applied a criteria to define local news outlets, which you can see in the Definitions section of the latest report.
Click on each component to learn more. You can also read more about the project's origins.
Map
The map exists live on the web. Your first view of the map is of the UK and the boundaries of local authority districts. The districts are coloured according to the number of local news outlets that claim to cover them. The darker the blue, the more news outlets there are in that district. You can filter this view by the type of media and/or whether the outlet is independently- or corporate-owned. The map highlights areas that are news deserts or at risk of becoming news deserts. Those districts that appear white on the map have no dedicated outlet that covers solely that district (even if they are covered by a regional outlet).
When you select a district, you can see the locations of the newsrooms of the outlets that cover that district (or the registered legal address where we could not find a newsroom address). A list of ‘cards’ on the left-hand side will also show you the outlets in that district, with more information and links to their websites. Independent outlets are in blue, corporate outlets in orange. Where a newsroom is not located in the area that it serves, you will see a dotted line to the location of the newsroom (or the registered address). You’ll notice – via those dotted lines – that many newsrooms are not located within the area that they serve. When you select an outlet, you will either see another dotted line to the location of its registered office address, or, if it is registered in the local authority district it serves, a note saying that it is owned locally.
Reports
Now we have the raw data, we can produce snapshot analyses of the state of local news provision in the country, by for instance calculating correlations between the presence of local news outlets in an area and any other dataset at a local authority level.
In July 2023, we released our first report.
In May 2024, we have released our second report.
Our first analysis of the data, in July 2023, showed:
• 4.1 million UK residents live in a local news desert, meaning that they live in a local authority area that has no dedicated local news outlet, whether print, online, radio or TV.
• Millions more live in ‘news drylands’ that are only weakly served with local news.
• While London makes up over 13% of the UK’s population, it has only 4.5% of the local news outlets.
• There is a strong correlation between deprivation and local news coverage. The more deprived the area, the fewer the number of news outlets, controlling for population size.
• News oases - areas with many local news outlets - can also be found, with the highest number of outlets in Cornwall, Bristol and Dorset. Controlling for population, Scottish councils and some English rural areas can be seen as news oases.
If you’d like to do your own analysis or you have hypotheses about the correlations between local news outlets and other characteristics of local areas, such as health or environmental data, please do get in touch.
FAQ
Which outlets are mapped?
Due to limited capacity, the map only includes local news outlets that are legally incorporated (i.e. a registered company, charity or society). The project would have required significantly greater resources to include unincorporated local news outlets, such as sole traders, voluntary collectives, Facebook/NextDoor/WhatsApp groups, blogs, printed newsletters, and so on - potentially an impossible task to complete.
What counts as local?
The map only includes ‘local’ outlets, which for the latest edition is defined as outlets covering an area that makes up fewer than five local authority districts. With greater capacity, we would be interested to develop a regional news mapping of those outlets that cover five or more districts.
Would PINF consider changing our methodology?
We are seeking additional funding to build on the map, which would allow us to continue to update the methodology, the data-checking tools, and the visualisation, for an ever more accurate and detailed picture. However, no map will ever perfectly reflect the constantly changing variety of news outlets.
Could this data be crowdsourced?
We continue to review the best ways to collect the most comprehensive and accurate data possible. Many hands can make light work, but the up-front cost to build a crowdsourcing platform and the ongoing costs to maintain and solve disputes is not currently available to us.
Can I submit a correction or a suggestion?
Please do, using this form. We may not be able to act on this information without new funding for the mapping project.
Local News Map
A living product to understand local media in the UK
Reports
Local News Map Report – April 2024
Our second report on local media provision, investigating the best and worst covered districts in the UK.
Deserts, Drylands, and Oases – March 2023
Our first report on local media provision, investigating the best and worst covered districts in the UK.
