LNIC Research Reports // DRAFT

SCOPE IT: 7 Steps Towards Understanding the Journalism Employment Landscape

Dr. Jennifer Henrichsen, Assistant Professor
Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University
August 2026 | Download Report (PDF)

Table of Contents

SCOPE IT: 7 Steps Toward Understanding the Journalism Employment Landscape

Introduction

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Appendix A: Sample Survey Questions

Appendix B: Table of Strengths/Weaknesses of Various Approaches

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STEP 3

Outline Your Geographic Scope

Once you have determined the purpose of your study, you must also clearly define your geographic scope. Are you measuring local journalism in a particular community, city, or county? Statewide? Regionally? Nationwide? Are you measuring local journalism by a Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA), which is  “an area that contains a central county that has a substantial urban population, along with any adjacent communities that have a high level of integration with the central county,”1 or perhaps a Designated Market Area (DMA)?

This should flow clearly from the purpose, audience, and debates you have already identified, but may nonetheless come with some nuance — namely, determining the unit of measurement for contextualizing local journalism employment (e.g., outlet-level, county-level, state-level). For example, even if you know that you are analyzing local journalism employment in a particular state, you must decide whether you will include a county-by-county breakdown of the statewide ecosystem. If so, this will impact your measurement tools and data analysis.

Calibrating these parameters at the outset is critical because it determines whether the data you are using can be credibly aggregated or disaggregated to provide a representative-enough view of the ecosystem you intend to study.

This decision involves significant methodological nuance, as information ecosystems rarely respect administrative boundaries. For example, a statewide analysis might mask local labor gaps or news deserts if the data is not broken down to the county or census-tract level. Conversely, a county-level focus may fail to account for regional newsrooms that provide “spillover” coverage across multiple jurisdictions. Calibrating these parameters at the outset is critical because it determines whether the data you are using can be credibly aggregated or disaggregated to provide a representative-enough view of the ecosystem you intend to study.

  1.  Congressional Research Service, Core Based Statistical Areas, July 3, 2024, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF12704/IF12704.1.pdf
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Table of Contents — UPDATE THESE

INTRODUCTION

SCOPE IT: 7 Steps Toward Understanding the Journalism Employment Landscape

CONCLUSION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A: Sample Survey Questions

APPENDIX B: Table of Strengths/Weaknesses of Various Approaches

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