Assessing Washington’s local news ecosystem: journalistic infrastructure and news production capacity

Local news is declining across the United States. Our study contributes to understanding this phenomenon by providing the first comprehensive account of Washington state's news ecosystem and descriptively operationalizing two theoretical concepts: journalistic infrastructure and news production capacity. Drawing on a survey, we assess the presence of news outlets constituting the state's journalistic infrastructure and descriptively operationalize news organizations’ news production capacity by examining ownership types and structures, annual budgets, publication frequency, and staffing numbers. Our findings indicate limited media diversity across the state, suggesting a vulnerable journalistic infrastructure and diminished news production capacity, with implications for democratic society.