How many journalists cover Philly
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Whenever I think about reporting, two edicts come to mind: Journalism is a daily crisis memorialized, and it's about doing the best for the most.
- That's a mashup of what one of my Daily Lobo colleagues told me early on in my career, and I've carried it with me as a guiding star.
Why it matters: There are fewer reporters across the country doing the best for the most.
- And that makes every day we continue to churn out newspapers, newsletters, Substacks, whatever your medium, even more of a daily crisis memorialized.
Driving the news: The U.S. now has 8.2 "local journalist equivalents" (LJEs) for every 100,000 people, down 75% from 2002 on average, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick reports.
- That's according to the Local Journalist Index 2025 from Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News, a local journalism nonprofit.
The big picture: About two-thirds of U.S. counties have a below-average number of local journalists, per the index, an ambitious project aiming to illustrate "the stunning collapse in local reporting."
- To crib Biggie: Less journalism, more problems.
- You can draw a pretty strong line between the lack of local reporting and our country's biggest problems: more polarization, less civic engagement, and not enough fact-driven gatekeepers to watchdog corruptible public officials and help us sift through the absolute tsunami of information we have available at the click of a mouse.
Threat level: Americans could once dutifully rely on the Big Three — ABC, NBC and CBS — to set the agenda on what was important.
- Now with the saturation of social media, it's turning into Big Me — opinion makers and slant artists delivering hot takes for clicks rather than community good.
Yes, but: Philly's lucky that we're bucking the trend. We have about 13 journalists per every 100,000 people, or about 201 total.
- And our collar counties — Bucks (6.5), Montgomery (8.2) and Delaware (7.9) — are toughing it out.
The latest: It doesn't help when local public media outlets like WHYY must scrap to plug holes after Congress clawed back $1.1 billion in federal funding.
State of play: Sometimes the absence of sunlight makes you realize how much you miss those muckrakers doing the disinfecting.
Our scrappy team at Axios Philly does our best to bring you the most.
- Sometimes that's being a check on the local media ecosystem, while feeding you a steady diet of the biggest news in our region — from the garbage strike to the inner workings of the Parker administration to SEPTA's existential crisis.
- Mom and Dad always said you have to eat your vegetables (that's those stories you need to be a healthy, engaged citizen), but we also can't go without a little dessert and a brewski or two to make it all go down.
The bottom line: Smash that subscribe button, gurrrl! Or pay for the Inky, become a City Cast Philly neighbor or help support our good friend, Billy Penn.
- No one wants to read media's obit. That's a daily crisis we don't want memorialized.