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News deserts are places around the country that have vacancies in news, meaning that they have no working newspapers or credible sources that allow people to receive credible information. 

This is a serious issue, and as time has gone on, the amount of news deserts has only increased. 

Laura S. Washington, re-enforced this concept when she was doing research and she came up with the term based on certain people not receiving information. She often saw that this was prevalent in low income neighborhoods, where vital information did not reach such neighborhoods and their occupants on a timely basis. 

Media corporations play vital roles in insuring that society runs smoothly and information is dispensed out to the general public. With that being said, there has been a steady rise of news deserts throughout the world that lead to many people questioning what local news will look like in the near future. 

Many have called this a "crisis"among the amount of news deserts that are popping up around the world. Consequently, many organizations around the country are now starting to help prevent the loss of any more deserts popping up. As such, the Knight Foundation, recently announced a 7 million dollar investment to support local news organizations in swing states, while also helping curb the spread of misinformation. 

With a major presidential election on the horizon, it is extremely important for the proper information to be vetted to the public for their viewing. 

Just most recently in 2017, the Colombia School for Journalism released a map that displayed the news deserts across the United States. Most notably in Texas, two counties that had a combined population of 1.3 million people, had no credible sources and was among the largest news desert in the country. 

Of the 3,143 counties in the U.S., more than 2,000 counties no longer received any daily newspapers.  Furthermore, 171 of those 3,143 counties with a population of 3.2 million residents combined had no newspaper at all. 

The loss of jobs is hitting this industry hard as well. According to the Suburban News Desert, 

"Due in large part to the digital news revolution, coupled with a societal move toward social media, the past two decades have seen a sharp decline in print circulation at daily and weekly newspapers and thus advertising dollars, forcing the layoffs of more than 40,000 journalists from 2004 to 2022 ". 

This loss in jobs is also affecting the local communities. Local journalism has been a vital part of keeping small and local government officials and agencies accountable but the more and more that these decrease the less accountability that will be held. 

These communities now fall in as the most vulnerable for fake news and misinformation and it is clear that filling these "deserts" is important in order for every day functions to be carried out. 

This is not an issue that is solely happening in low income and low populated areas.  In fact, New York, which is the number one news market in the world, reports losing 205 newspapers since 2005. 

The rise of news deserts, is a growing crisis that threatens more people than less. These effected areas face the risks of misinformation and so much more.