Curbing the decline of local news by building relationships with the audience

In the struggle to find sustainable business models, many local news sites have turned to engaged journalism, which draws from social exchange theory and aims to build relationships with audiences. The causal impact of these initiatives is unclear, but important given that local news sites are critical information sources and face dire economic situations. In this study, 20 news sites were randomly assigned to launch a six-month engaged journalism initiative where journalists reported on audience questions or to continue their current practices. Although not a panacea, over time traffic and subscription data and a two-wave survey of audience members across the sites (n = 3,998) show that the initiative resulted in more subscriptions and more positive audience evaluations. The results highlight the applicability of social exchange theory to questions of local news viability and illustrate that engaged journalism can improve relationships between newsrooms and the communities they serve.