“On paper, California’s local news landscape seems to be thriving. Low-population counties in the state hold their own against some of the United States’ biggest when it comes to the ratio of people per news outlet in the area. Three of California’s smallest counties — Sierra, Modoc and Colusa — have the best ratios of people per outlet (including physical papers) in the state, and appear to be miles ahead of other major counties including DC, Cook County (Chicago), Kings and Queens Counties (New York City) and King County (Seattle). A simple set of statistical calculations paints a very positive — and significant — picture of the average Californian’s ability to get local news about their county, with the exceptions of Stutter and Alpine, which both have zero local papers.”

This is a Flourish graph showing the ratio of residents in each California county per local news outlet. Counties with larger ratios (meaning more residents per outlet) are colored darker. This does not mean a smaller ratio is a healthier local news ecosystem, but it is something to consider.

Hover over each county to see a more detailed view and additional statistics.

“Matt Pearce, Director of Policy at Rebuild Local News, prefers to add a second statistic to present a fuller picture of who is bringing local news to California communities: RLN and Muck Rack’s “Local Journalist Index,” a tool that analyzes how many Local Journalist Equivalents there are in each US county. Local Journalist Equivalents, per the tool’s website, are representative of the amount of journalists in the area who cover almost exclusively local matters.

Incidentally, California ranks near the bottom of the list for LJEs per 100,000 residents on average with just 6.1, placing it at 41st out of 50 states. Four California counties — Riverside, Fresno, San Bernardino and San Joaquin — rank among the ten lowest of US counties with populations higher than 500,000 when it comes to their LJE to population ratios. Riverside came in at second lowest with just 1.7 LJEs per 100,000 people.”

This is a Flourish graph showing the number of Local Journalist Equivalents in each California county per 100k residents, determined by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack. Counties with larger ratios (meaning more LJEs per 100k residents) are colored darker. Larger ratios mean that the county has a larger percentage of journalists covering local matters.

Hover over each county to see a more detailed view and additional statistics.

Juxtapose

This interactive element allows you to directly compare the two graphs above. It was made using Juxtapose JS.