BUFFALO, N.Y. — Local newspapers serve as a vital check on public institutions, including law enforcement, according to new research from the University at Buffalo School of Management.
Forthcoming in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, the study examines the societal cost of the ongoing decline in local journalism, including its impact on the accountability of local police agencies to the public and the integrity of data reported by law enforcement and such related officials as medical examiners and coroners.
"As local news deserts expand, it becomes increasingly relevant to understand what happens when media oversight disappears and what the potential solutions could be," says study co-author Joshua Khavis, PhD, assistant professor of accounting and law in the UB School of Management. "Without local newspapers to hold public agencies accountable, officials may face fewer reputational and political consequences for misreporting. This can make it easier to obscure the true nature of crime and causes of mortality reported to the public."
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To analyze the relationship between the loss of local journalism and distorted crime reporting, the researchers built a dataset of newspaper closures using information from prior research and from the University of North Carolina’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media. They began by matching each closure to area law enforcement agencies using the Federal Information Processing System county code. Then, using crime data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, including statistics on cases of rape, murder and theft that were cleared or classified as unfounded, they compared agencies in counties that lost a newspaper with those in nearby counties that did not. They also analyzed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention death data to test whether newspaper closures affected how deaths were classified.
The researchers found that while overall crime rates and county death rates remained unchanged, there was a significant increase in rape cases classified as unfounded. They also discovered a shift in the cause-of-death determinations away from homicides and toward suicides following the closure of a local newspaper.
The findings offer insights for communities as they navigate the loss of local newspapers. By encouraging investigative reporting or forming an organization or network dedicated to monitoring irregularities in crime statistics, communities can identify and deter police misreporting.
"Communities that have lost their newspaper may benefit from developing alternative oversight mechanisms to monitor local agencies and to keep them honest — whether through audits, citizen watchdog groups, investigative journalism projects or digital transparency initiatives," says Khavis.
Khavis collaborated on the study with UB School of Management alumnus Hoon Ki Ha, PhD ’24, assistant professor of accounting, State University of New York at Brockport School of Business and Management; and Jesse Norris, PhD, associate professor of criminal justice, State University of New York at Fredonia Department of Social Work and Criminal Justice.
