Дефицит местных журналистов и инициативы по обучению работе со сложными темами

The Open Notebook The Open Notebook workshop in 2024. Early-career science communicators at an Open Notebook workshop in 2024. As the editor of Isthmus, I am keenly aware of what stories, meetings and events we can’t cover due to a lack of staff and resources. I am also keenly aware of what is no longer covered by Madison’s traditional “dailies” — the Cap Times and Wisconsin State Journal. Executive Editor Kelly Lecker has herself noted that the State Journal, with its downsized newsroom, can no longer be “a paper of record,” covering all events. So the findings in the newly released Local Journalist Index 2026, a follow-up to last year’s survey, come as no surprise. According to the report, a project of Rebuilding Local News and Muck Rack, the hemorrhage of local journalists nationwide continues. There are now roughly eight local reporters per 100,000 residents, an 81% decline since 2002, when there were about 40 journalists per 100,000 people. About 70% of counties across the country — home to approximately 208 million people — have fewer journalists than the national average. Dane County, with a population of more than 588,000, comes out pretty well in comparison. We have about 14 full time journalists per 100,000 people, which beats both the national average and state average of about 11 journalists per 100,000 residents. Technically the study measures a “local journalist equivalent,” which takes into account not just full-time staff, but part-timers and freelancers too. Journalists, under the study, are defined broadly to include podcasters, Substackers, those working at newspapers and digital-only outlets and in TV and radio, “as long as they published their work online.” Researchers wanted to zero in on “community-level journalism” and “true local reporting” so they excluded syndicated or widely distributed articles that focused on national news. Most Wisconsin counties fall short in the survey. Those doing better than the national average include Milwaukee, Eau Claire, Lincoln, Marathon, Rusk, Oneida and Price counties. For this year’s survey, researchers also looked at what stories are being published, reviewing headlines and text from more than 4 million articles published from January to March 2026. They found huge coverage gaps, especially in healthcare and education. “In our sweep of websites, nearly 77% of U.S. counties produced zero education articles mentioning a local community during those three months,” the researchers wrote. “Some 76% had no local articles about health.” Instead, crime stories often got top billing. “Crime has always been a big topic in local media, but it appears that as local reporting capacity declines, crime coverage as a proportion of the total becomes even greater,” the report says. Researchers surmise this is because as newsrooms shrink, the beats that generate the most website traffic are preserved. “Education, health and environment topics that require sustained reporting are often the first to disappear entirely.” That finding is not news to Siri Carpenter of The Open Notebook, a nonprofit she co-founded in 2010 to support the work of journalists who cover scientific topics. “As the media industry has been dealing with the financial blows of the last two decades, it is harder and harder for media outlets to support those specialized positions, both for reporters and editors,” she says. Carpenter, who lives in Madison and has a doctorate degree in psychology, launched The Open Notebook while she was still doing freelance science reporting for Science magazine, Scientific American, The New York Times, LA Times and other national publications. “There weren’t really resources out there for learning,” she says. “I was learning on the job as is the case for the vast majority of people. Science journalists like me come out of the sciences, but not journalism.” The Open Notebook offers services to journalists working for specialized publications and at local news outlets. “By our calculations, fewer than 3% of U.S. journalists have any formal training in covering health, science or the environment,” says Carpenter. The organization provides training, mentorship, workshops, and such online guides as “Science reporting quick tips.” “We try to support any journalist who does any kind of reporting that incorporates scientific evidence, whether that is in areas of health, the environment, education, sports, crime, transportation, or anything else,” says Carpenter. Beth Skogen Siri Carpenter of The Open Notebook. Carpenter: ‘Our mission is to try to equip journalists on any beat to incorporate scientific evidence, data and perspectives into their stories.’ “Our mission is to try to equip journalists on any beat to incorporate scientific evidence, data and perspectives into their stories,” she adds. “We try to take the intimidation out of the reporting by making sure journalists have the tools and the community support and confidence to include scientific evidence even if they don’t think of themselves as science journalists.” Having tools and confidence seems like a key piece in all of this. My strength has never been in math or science and, as our own pool of staff writers and experienced freelancers has shrunk in recent years, I have become more reluctant to assign complex science and health stories. One way The Open Notebook seeks to build confidence and experience is with its Science Reporting Navigator, an interactive tool. It was built in partnership with the Reynolds Journalism Institute, specifically with local journalists in mind. Carpenter says this tool can be used by journalists to cover a breaking news event like a flood or a bridge collapse or a measles outbreak, as it guides reporters through a series of short, accessible lessons designed to help them quickly understand the scientific dimensions of that issue, find and make sense of relevant data, and identify appropriate scientific experts who can provide context. Or let’s say local reporters are covering their county’s emerging policy around large AI data centers and wants to connect the local issue to national trends — a particularly salient issue for many reporters now in Wisconsin. Carpenter says the reporting navigator has a set of lessons that will “help them find and incorporate the appropriate scientific context.” The idea, says Carpenter, is that “you don’t need to know what you don’t know — just tell us your situation and we’ll help you find what you need. And we try to do that in a way that removes the intimidation that a lot of reporters tend to feel when it comes to reporting on science, health or the environment.” In July, The Open Notebook is coming out with its second book, The Best Science Stories and How They Work, edited by Carpenter and published by the University of Chicago Press. (The Craft of Science Writing came out in 2020, with a second edition in 2024.) As the title suggests, the book is a behind-the-scenes look at how high quality science reporting gets done. On Sept. 15, Carpenter will be at Mystery to Me bookstore to discuss the book with Kelly Tyrrell, a science and health writer who directs communications strategy at Open Notebook. Carpenter says her group remains committed to supporting science journalists, but is equally focused on developing support materials and programs for reporters on any beat, from health to sports. Says Carpenter: “There is no beat that journalists cover where there isn’t scientific evidence that’s relevant to the stories on that beat.”