Local news as civic infrastructure

200 US counties have no local newspaper. Another ~1,500 are effectively news deserts — insufficient news-content production hours per capita to sustain civic accountability. Universal programs and free elections cannot be sustained on a foundation this weak.

Journalism support is routed through public media — CPB and PBS affiliates — rather than standalone journalism grants. Existing CPB infrastructure, with statutory editorial-independence guarantees and decades of viewpoint-diversity practice, is the appropriate administrative home. A separate federal journalism grant program was considered and retired in favor of this routing.

1. Competitive nonprofit newsroom grants — administered through existing CPB infrastructure. News-desert counties (the 200 with no local newspaper) receive priority.
2. AI / search content stipends — for newsrooms whose work is absorbed into LLM training and search-engine snippets.
3. Matched investigative funding — 2:1 federal match on private investigative-journalism support.

Editorial independence is guaranteed by statute. The Accord does not specify what journalism should say.

The COMPASS Local-news desert indicator (Credibility primary, Civic Life cross) measures both the structural gap (counties without daily/weekly newspaper or local newsroom) and the pressure gap (news-content production hours per capita). When a county crosses the desert threshold, the CPB-administered grant pathway activates for that jurisdiction.