Don't Let a News Desert Turn You into a Plagiarist: A Field Guide

You're a reporter in a county that has lost its last newspaper, and your editor just told you to write a story about a city council meeting you couldn't attend. What do you do?

That's the question this article answers. I'm going to walk through a realistic scenario, step by step, using the facts we have about the state of local news. And I'm going to give you a direct answer: you do not fabricate, you do not lift from another outlet, and you do not pass off press releases as reporting. You do something harder, but more ethical.

The Scenario: A News Desert with a Deadline

Imagine you're a reporter for a small digital outlet in a county that, according to the Local Journalist Index, has no full-time local journalist. Your county is one of more than 1,000 in America with zero local journalists (Muck Rack / Rebuild Local News). You're covering the school board, and the meeting is at 7 PM. Your editor wants a story by 9 PM for the morning newsletter. You're the only reporter, and you have a family obligation that night. You can't attend.

The easy route is to take the agenda, read the official minutes that will be posted later, and write a summary from that. But that's not reporting; that's rewriting a public record. The ethical route is to tell your editor you can't cover it, and suggest alternatives: call the board president, interview a parent who attended, or find a community member who livestreamed it. But let's be realistic: your editor is stretched thin, and the pressure to produce something—anything—is immense.

The Facts on the Ground: Why This Happens

Your situation is not an anomaly. The U.S. has gone from about 40 local journalists per 100,000 residents in 2002 to just 8.2 in 2025, a 75% decline (Muck Rack / Rebuild Local News). Two-thirds of counties are below the national average. When local news disappears, the few remaining reporters are overworked and under-resourced. The temptation to cut corners is real. But that's exactly when ethics matter most.

The Ethical Trap: Plagiarism and Fabrication

Let's say you find a well-written article about the same meeting from a neighboring county's paper. You think, "I'll just rewrite a few sentences and credit them." That's plagiarism, plain and simple. The SPJ Code of Ethics is clear: accuracy, verification, attribution, and avoiding plagiarism are non-negotiable (Journalism course curricula). If you can't verify a fact, you must say so. If you take someone else's reporting, you must attribute it—but even then, you're not adding value to your community.

The Legal Angle: FOIA and Open Records

What about the Freedom of Information Act? You could file a FOIA request for the meeting's audio recording. FOIA gives you the right to request records from federal agencies, but it doesn't cover local school boards. State open-meetings laws might, but they vary. The point is, you have legal tools to get information, but they don't replace being there. Observation is a core reporting skill (Journalism course curricula). You can't observe remotely.

What a Good Editor Would Do

If I were your editor, I'd tell you to do this: first, be honest with me about your conflict. Second, pitch a different angle: interview a parent who attended, or call the board president for a phone interview. Third, if that fails, we publish a note saying we couldn't attend, and we link to the official minutes when they're posted. That's transparency. In an era where trust in news is at 30% in the U.S. (Reuters Institute), the last thing we need is to erode trust further.

The Bigger Picture: Why Ethics Matter Now More Than Ever

Local journalism is collapsing. Newspapers have closed at a rate of more than two per week in the past year (Medill State of Local News). When a paper closes, its website dies and its reporters are laid off. The few remaining outlets are the only source of original reporting for their communities. If they cut corners, they become part of the problem. The public already worries about misinformation: 73% of Americans are concerned about telling truth from falsehood online (Reuters Institute).

My Recommendation: Embrace the 'Slow News' Approach

Here's my specific recommendation: don't chase the daily deadline at the expense of ethics. Instead, build a story over a few days. Talk to multiple sources, verify facts, and use FOIA requests for documents. It's okay to be slower if you're accurate. The public values trust more than speed. In fact, local TV news and local newspapers are the most trusted news sources in the U.S. (Reuters Institute). That trust is your currency. Protect it.

Sources

• Muck Rack / Rebuild Local News (Local Journalist Index 2025) - https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2025/07/10/local-journalist-index-rebuild-local-news-muck-rack/
• Medill State of Local News 2025 - https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/were-losing-the-race-against-time,258373
• Journalism course curricula (NWACC, CCAC) - https://catalog.ccac.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=13&coid=24234&print
• Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 (United States) - https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/united-states
• Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 (key findings) - https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/overview-and-key-findings-2025-digital-news-report
• FOIA.gov (Freedom of Information Act) - https://www.foia.gov/