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New York State

What New Yorkers Want From Local News

New York Focus traveled across the state to meet with communities about their local news needs.

Alex Arriaga and Kate Harloe   ·   December 11, 2024
Photo collage from events New York Focus hosted across our four listening sessions. Photos in the collage show community members smiling at one another, journalists listening intently while participants speak, and speakers gesturing with their hands.
New York Focus traveled to Rochester, Albany, Potsdam and Syracuse to gather information from local communities about the local news landscape of New York. | Photos: Marke Anderson, Courtney Staton, Charlie Teich and Mike Greenlar | Collage: New York Focus
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Every day, New Yorkers rely on systems shaped by lawmakers and moneyed interests within state and local governments. And every day, New Yorkers look for news and information to help them navigate these systems. As the number of local newsrooms around the state has sharply declined — where do people turn?

With generous support from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, we set out to answer this question. Between the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024, New York Focus traveled to cities like Rochester, Albany, Potsdam, and Syracuse to gather information from local communities and media partners to understand the local news landscape of New York.

Read our full report here.

Here are our key findings:

  • New Yorkers are eager for change. Residents explained that the decline of local news has left a major hole when it comes to finding basic civic information about municipal, town, village, county, and even state government. The New Yorkers we surveyed expressed a deep frustration at the lack of transparency they experience at all levels of government.

  • Information gaps contribute to New Yorkers’ feelings of scarcity. People expressed a deep desire to engage with the state’s political processes to address issues in their communities, but felt generally unable to access or understand those processes. In many cases, information gaps left them feeling unable to participate in their own communities and in the democratic systems of the state. They were particularly interested in more information around housing and healthcare systems.

  • Newsrooms want to change, too. A lack of resources often leaves newsrooms feeling unable to provide the basic level of civic information that community members request and need.

Here is some of what we heard at each of the locations:

Four people are photographed sitting around a table. One person in a cap is speaking and others are looking at him, he is gesturing with his hands open in front of him.
Attendees of the Rochester listening session gathered at Third Presbyterian Church. | Marke Anderson

In Rochester, 21 attendees joined a community listening session at Third Presbyterian Church. Participants expressed:

  • Resentment over what they see as a pessimistic narrative surrounding Rochester. They felt even when compared to other cities in Upstate New York, Rochester gets a negative portrayal.

  • A feeling of scarcity around information pertaining to social services and a hunger for deeper, data-driven reporting on topics like public safety and criminal justice.

“With the income disparity in Rochester, there are a lot of people who don’t seek out news because it seems pointless, or overwhelming and depressing,” said one resident. “People therefore don’t have access to news that could actually empower them and give them some hope.”

A group of people sitting in chairs arranged in a circle in a carpeted and brightly lit room at the library. You can see at this angle that there are two other discussion groups happening in the same room.
Attendees of the Albany listening session gathered at the Albany Public Library. | Courtney Staton

In Albany, 36 attendees joined our community listening session at the Albany Public Library. Participants expressed:

  • Concern over the lack of accessible information for non-English speaking communities, specifically Spanish speakers, and how that could put communities at risk when navigating public health crises such as the COVID pandemic.

  • A desire for closer scrutiny of municipal government in Albany, as opposed to state government coverage. Interestingly, people with some of the greatest access to state government operations said they still struggle to navigate information surrounding court decisions and state legislation, and that there is a need for clear communication and transparency.

“Where’s the programming for and by marginalized communities?” one attendee asked. “If we can’t get messages out through the media, we’re gonna suffer.”

Thee groups of people sit in chairs arranged in circles for discussion in a brightly lit room at Potsdam Town Hall.
Attendees of the Potsdam listening session gathered at Potsdam Town Hall. | Charlie Teich

At Potsdam’s Town Hall, 24 attendees joined the listening session that we hosted in partnership with North Country Public Radio (NCPR). They expressed:

  • Frustration over the political polarization in the North Country and the media’s role in amplifying such divisions.

  • A desire for more information on accessing social services such as addiction treatment services, transportation, disability services and resources for local business owners.

“If people could take advantage of benefits, it would have ripple effects for the greater community” one attendee said.

Attendees of the Syracuse listening session gathered at the Syracuse Northeast Community Center. | Mike Greenlar

Nineteen people attended our listening session in Syracuse, held at the Syracuse Northeast Community Center in partnership with Central Current. Participants expressed:

  • A desire for greater transparency and media scrutiny around development projects, such as the incoming Micron Technology plant and the I-81 construction project.

  • A desire for more explanatory journalism that can break down decision making at different levels of government and empower people to participate politically.

“It is hard to understand how Albany policies will impact us in Syracuse [or our] county,” a resident said.

At a white table, three people sit with sticky notes in front of them where they were responding to questions. One person stands behind them and holds a white paper where they are sticking their notes.
Participants at the Rochester listening session respond to discussion questions using sticky notes. | Marke Anderson

Survey

We wanted to learn about local news needs outside of the locations we visited, so we conducted a digital survey asking New Yorkers how they access news about their communities, and how empowered they feel to participate politically with the information they have. We collected 164 responses. Here are a few highlights.

“Do you feel you have a voice in the political processes that govern your life and communities? Why or why not?” Many respondents shared feelings of disempowerment:

“Yes, because I serve on the planning board and am involved at the local level. No, because I am not a wealthy political donor and we all know that money drives politics.”

Some respondents acknowledged that they have a voice in politics through the work that they do, but that their level of political access is abnormal.

“Yes. But I say that as someone who comes from a point of privilege by growing up in Albany, in a family that taught me to be involved from a young age. I also say this as someone who works for the NYS Legislature, is heavily involved in my local community’s politics and has the opportunity to vote. I do, however, feel that the opportunity and ease of access to have a voice in government is limited to those who have the above privileges. Not everyone — most people in fact — have not had the opportunities to have their voice heard that I have.”

And others felt left out because of their status in a marginalized group, and some said a lack of government transparency was a cause of political disempowerment.

“No. True community engagement has been stripped out of the process — partly by legal and in-practice weakening of state Open Meetings Law; partly by public hearings now dysfunctional through archaic legal notice publicity; partly due to apathy; and partly because local press is routinely out-maneuvered or under-staffed regarding timely notice.”

Selfie of six smiling journalists inside a public radio office.
New York Focus staff visits North Country Public Radio newsroom in January, 2024. Pictured from left to right: Akash Mehta, Alex Arriaga, Sara Scafidi-McGuire, kate harloe, Maha Ahmed, and David Sommerstein.

Perspectives from Local Newsroom Leaders

We were also able to interview local newsroom leaders about their efforts to respond to the needs of their audiences. We heard that outdated or poorly designed government websites contribute to a lack of transparency because they are so difficult to navigate — even for journalists. And despite a strain on resources and newsroom capacity, we heard enthusiasm from journalists to produce local news that responds to residents’ needs and empowers communities to engage civically.

“The Senate and Assembly system for looking up votes, [for example], is completely opaque,” said David Sommerstein, news director at NCPR. “It’s impossible to see who voted for what. It’s hard for journalists to find their way through it, let alone someone who wants to engage in a small way.”

We also learned that there are already coalitions forming across the state between media organizations who share resources and reporting. In the North Country, a collection of newspapers began sharing political stories during an election and continue to share stories with one another. And this year, a new statewide coalition emerged: the New York Public News Network, which is a collaboration between every public radio station, and some TV stations, in the state.

Lessons

At the conclusion of this listening tour, we have a few final reflections.

We learned how important collaboration is to the future of local journalism in the state – and to meeting New Yorkers’ information needs. We also witnessed the extent to which New Yorkers want to be heard — and experienced how community listening is a critical way for newsrooms to listen. This report only skimmed the surface, and we plan to continue visiting other cities, towns, and regions across the state.

At New York Focus, we’ve already started to apply some of the lessons learned from this research, and we hope that the findings in our report can guide other local news organizations.

At New York Focus, our central mission is to help readers better understand how New York really works. If you think this article succeeded, please consider supporting our mission and making more stories like this one possible.

New York is an incongruous state. We’re home to fabulous wealth — if the state were a country, it would have the tenth largest economy in the world — but also the highest rate of wealth inequality. We’re among the most diverse – but also the most segregated. We passed the nation’s most ambitious climate law — but haven’t been meeting its deadlines and continue to subsidize industries hastening the climate crisis.

As New York’s only statewide nonprofit news publication, our journalism exists to help you make sense of these contradictions. Our work scrutinizes how power works in the state, unpacks who’s really calling the shots, and reveals how obscure decisions shape ordinary New Yorkers’ lives.

In the last two decades, the number of local news outlets in New York have been nearly slashed in half, allowing elected officials and powerful individuals to increasingly operate in the dark — with the average New Yorker none the wiser.

We’re on a mission to change that. Our work has already shown what can happen when those with power know that someone is watching, with stories that have prompted policy changes and spurred legislation. We have ambitious plans for the rest of the year and beyond, including tackling new beats and more hard-hitting stories — but we need your help to make them a reality.

If you’re able, please consider supporting our journalism with a one-time gift or a monthly gift. We can't do this work without you.

Thank you,

Akash Mehta
Editor-in-Chief
Alex Arriaga is the audience engagement editor at New York Focus, where she leads the organization’s strategy to reach audiences throughout the state. She was previously an engagement reporter at The Marshall Project, where she reported on prisons and jails with a specialization… more
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kate (k.e.) harloe is a freelance journalist and writer based in Albany, New York. Over the past decade, she has worked at a range of local and national newsrooms across the country. She often writes about media system reform; she also works with… more
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