Local networks, not silver bullets, will sustain local news

For years, we’ve all waited for a savior for local news — a billionaire investor, philanthropy, the next app. But one thing has become clearer with time: While we tend to look further afield, the best answers were right here at home.

In 2026, the solutions will be local.

Across the country, people and communities are stepping up, not waiting for rescue but creating their own models of sustainability and trust. In just a few months, a library system, an economic development agency, and a group of reporters and editors have all banded together to save their local outlet from extinction. Even a cafe in Maine supplements the local outlet’s revenue with its blueberry pancakes.

Residents are taking up the cause too, complementing news outlets by becoming newsmakers themselves, whether as creators or by launching WhatsApp and Facebook groups or community newsletters to keep their neighbors informed. Together, they buck the trend toward top-down news ownership consolidation, keeping information and accountability close to the ground.

As a local news field, we continue to characterize our situation through scarcity, counted by the outlets shrinking and jobs disappearing. Those stats are undoubtedly troublesome and have real-world impacts. And yet, it’s time we embrace the abundance of people in communities who are dedicated to keeping people informed and engaged – whether it’s a university faculty member, a student, a community organization, or residents themselves. News outlets don’t have to shoulder the burden alone.

Instead, these information stewards, news leaders, and funders need to be in a constant state of conversation and idea exchange — a network of people working to connect and inform communities.

Press Forward’s 41 chapters are a part of that network now in regions and states nationwide. They bring together community members, funders, and news leaders to assess information needs and find ways to fill the gaps, to create the infrastructure communities need to navigate this time and find the solutions they need. These chapters are investing in the information needs of their community holistically, whether that’s directly investing in newsrooms, building the infrastructure they need to keep them strong, or providing access to shared services or the capacity-building and training that makes them more resilient.

In Mississippi and Kentucky, for example, chapter leaders are working on the pipeline, providing access to training young journalists who are part of the generation tuning out traditional news. In hurricane-prone Florida, Press Forward chapters are working to strengthen coverage of natural disasters, providing a space for reporters to share best practices and build statewide collaboration.

In Chicago, a group of funders came together to ensure immigrant communities are covered humanely at a time they are most vulnerable — by supporting a collaborative of news outlets that create and share content and funding legal and safety support for reporters.

The community momentum didn’t start with Press Forward, but it’s accelerating. And it’s working as we hoped it would when we launched our chapter program. For example, when the federal government pulled funding for public media, chapters in Minnesota and Alaska that were already primed around local news quickly raised millions to help stations fill the gap. Next year, these and five other chapters will be working with their stations and community partners to transform and strengthen their local news ecosystems by finding new ways to operate that build resilience and revenue. National funding will help power these locally-grown solutions.

Time and again, we see that communities value local news and information, and they are willing to fight for and support the news that works hard to engage them and answer their needs.

In 2026, the places where local news thrives will be the places where communities build it together, through steady acts of collaboration. This is the next era of local news, rooted in people and connected through networks that understand that reliable information is a shared responsibility.