My work in local news over the last 25 years or so has roughly coincided with the field’s long-term structural decline, which is why the recent groundswell of philanthropic support and community focus on rebuilding what we’ve lost has been so gratifying to me. But in our renewed efforts to irrigate news deserts and save local journalism, I worry we’ve given short shrift to an essential exchange of value that defines the relationship between local news and its consumers.

It is that value exchange that I am investigating this year as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, because I believe it will be of increasing importance to local news sustainability as AI upends news discovery and other funding sources prove tenuous.

Here’s how I would describe it:

• There are two kinds of value journalism can bring to the world: the public good that we recognize as a cornerstone of healthy democracy and the consumer good,1 those more personal benefits that motivate people to pay attention and support us. The two can overlap (and probably should overlap more), but they will always diverge in part.
• Local journalism derives its value as a public good primarily through the trust and impact it earns from engaged, loyal audiences. Without their loyalty, there can be no trust2 and no impact, and therefore no public good.
• Audiences, meanwhile, can reward journalism in two ways: with their sustained attention and with their financial support — both of which are primarily motivated not by altruism but by **self-interest **((People say they appreciate journalism’s public-good qualities — and, of course, many do open their wallets for that reason — but research suggests more people tend to show their appreciation for the tangible benefits they receive as news consumers: access to useful information, a clean and inviting user experience, membership in a community, a rewarding diversion, etc.)).

All this is why audience service is so much more than a cost of doing business: It is the means by which we earn the trust and the impact our audiences bestow on us. And it is the fuel for a consumer revenue stream (whether in the form of subscriptions, memberships or donations) that is likely to be the most reliable part of local publishers’ long-term sustainability equation.

Acknowledging this will not diminish the importance of public-service journalism — including that which falls well outside of the “consumer good” definition. Indeed, key parts of our work have long been subsidized in one way or another by revenue derived from other journalism, or from non-journalism benefits. (What are the successful New York Times Cooking and Games products if not, in part, a subsidy for less profitable kinds of journalism?)

I’d argue one reason why local news audiences have dwindled is that, as the benefits of local news bundles have gradually fallen away (remember TV listings?), we haven’t been filling that gap with other local information offerings that are similarly indispensable to people.

So, what does a focus on consumer value entail?

• A shift from “story” to “service”: The new first question is not “What story do we want to tell?” but “What problem are we solving, and for whom?” This necessitates a better understanding of our users’ needs3 and how to fulfill them.
• New metrics for value: Conventional analytics tell us almost nothing about the value we’ve created4. Newsrooms must develop metrics around user actions that correlate with moments of value delivery (e.g., completion rate, saves/shares, comment engagement, ratings) and track how quickly and regularly users experience those moments (Time to Value).
• Incentives for promoting loyalty: We need a new “middle ground” between volume goals and impact measures that rewards audience service as a core journalistic excellence. For example, let’s find ways to celebrate “utility wins” and help orient newsroom culture toward problem-solving and trust-building, not just clicks and conversions.

It is not a rejection of our public service mission to say that a business model built around utility (a need) is more durable than one built around altruism (a wish). Now, a fundamental question for local journalists — and not just audience and product people — must be: What are we doing every day to deliver the kinds of benefits that earn us the sustained attention and financial support we need to fulfill that mission?

The press may be the only industry specifically protected in the Bill of Rights, but that is not what gives journalists power. Whatever power we have (including our staying power) is vested in us by the audiences who pay attention to us and choose to trust us and support our work.

In 2026, I believe we will turn our attention more fully to their needs.

Eric Ulken is a 2026 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford and was most recently vice president of product management at The Baltimore Banner.

1. What are some ways journalism can function as a consumer good? See my recent post for the JSK site on that. I’m working on compiling some specific examples and would love to hear yours: [email protected] [↩]
2. The extent to which media usage and trust are correlated remains an open question — we know that people sometimes use media they don’t trust, for example — but at least it seems fair to say that people are unlikely to trust media they never use. [↩]
3. Constructs like jobs-to-be-done (What “job” is the user “hiring” our journalism to do?) help shift our thinking from content-out to audience-in. The User Needs framework (now 9 years old!) is one helpful way of applying jobs-to-be-done to journalism, and some local news organizations have created their own custom taxonomies of audience service. [↩]
4. Two examples of ways conventional analytics fall short: Paywall conversion counts can measure the user’s reaction to a promise of value but tell us nothing about whether that value was realized. Engaged time tracks time spent while ignoring the value of time saved. [↩]