+1,000 colleges & universities are in a county with a lower working journalist rate than the national average (8.2)

In 2002, the US had 40 journalists per 100,000 people on average. Today it's 75% lower, at 8.2. Map shows only four year colleges or universities with +500 students enrolled

Local Journalist Equivalent is a new metric introduced by Muckrack akin to a Full Time Equivalent employee, or FTE. This county level data was merged with university data from IPEDS database to create the map above.
Chart: Ben Cooley, Center for Community NewsSource: MuckRack/Rebuild Local 2025, IPEDS 2023Get the dataCreated with Datawrapper