How the current epidemic of news deserts and ghost papers threatens democracy

Ghosting the News tells the most troubling media story of our time: How democracy suffers when local news dies. From 2004 to 2015, 1,800 print newspaper outlets closed in the U.S. One in five news organizations in Canada has closed since 2008. One in three Brazilians lives in news deserts. The absence of accountability journalism has created an atmosphere in which indicted politicians were elected, school superintendents were mismanaging districts, and police chiefs were getting mysterious payouts. This is not the much-discussed fake-news problem -- it's the separate problem of a critical shortage of real news.

America's premier media critic, Margaret Sullivan, charts the contours of the damage, and surveys a range of new efforts to keep local news alive -- from non-profit digital sites to an effort modeled on the Peace Corps. No nostalgic paean to the roar of rumbling presses, Ghosting the News instead sounds a loud alarm, alerting citizens to a growing crisis in local news that has already done serious damage.

"An excellent introduction to the essential problem of our republic. With a wake-up call like this one, we still have a chance." ?Timothy Snyder

• We started tracking this book on July 14, 2020.
• This book was $10.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 34 times in the past 1,983 days.
• The current price of this book is $8.38 last checked one day ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past 90 days is $7.12.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $1.99.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on June 27, 2025.
• This book has been $1.99 8 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $11.99 last reached on October 17, 2020.
• This book has been $11.99 one time since we started tracking it.

• Politics & Social SciencesPolitics & GovernmentUnited StatesState & Local Government

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 100 Pages
• File Size: 17 KB