A news desert is a community either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at a grassroots level. In other words certain areas that do not have a constant pipeline for a metro newspaper to keep them up to date whether that be in politics, economics, education, ext.. This is usually caused by financial constraints where towns do not meet income levels to support this and the government doest even lift a finger to try and help. Local newspapers can be produced but quality and reliability are questionable. Today a little bit over 200 counties nation wide are considered news desserts and in the state of North Carolina we have six. I did a little research on News Deserts concerning the average family income, poverty rate, and education level. In these areas poverty rate ranged from 12- 28 percent out of ten towns considered deserts. College education ranged all the way down from only 10 percent to 30 percent of people . The average income level ranged from 33,000 a year to barely scraping 60,000 a year. The average income in America for 2020 was around 67,000 a year. These people are worried about paying for their families, food, doctors appointments, debt, bills, and have no concern in investing into a metro newspaper putting them at an even more disadvantage, again keeping the poor poor.
As probably assumed a lot of disadvantages come along with living in a food desert. These include less engagement in democracy. People simply do not know what is going on in the government and no one is helping, so why should they care? In turn means less people voting taking away from their voice and the amended right. Second being petty and grand corruption. Societies in these areas can easily be manipulated and taken advantage of by the rich. Things can easily be done under the table for people sitting in power like governors and senators looking to do what is best for them. Another issue includes political polarization, people just go along with which ever party they affiliate with whether the party is making good decesions based on their moral compass. They have no idea if the party based on a particular issue is looking in their best intrest.
In my opinion food deserts are a cry for help in the American Society and will slowly but surely spread as time goes on. Sure people can easily access sources of news via internet. The question is, are they? Or are they to concerned how are they going to pay for there kids doctors appointment. To not even have the option of picking up a metro newspaper is crippling for the people living under these conditions. Like said in class all that money spent on unnecessary wars could easily be budgeted in to get these counties out of this situation. I am sure how but, some how some way a lot of the population in these areas are probably being taken advantage of. Lack of knowledge is a disadvantage and its the ammo used in fire for corruption. Whether that be, like said before, governors and senators acting in ways for their best intrest or even money being mishandled and used in ways that are unethical. Overall, we need to find a way to put a cease to news desserts before they spread so our society is not controlled by a bunch of rich people. Not saying it already is not , but having a say is what matters and we need knowledge to be able to have a say.
https://www.usnewsdeserts.com
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/life-in-a-news-desert.php
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