Why local public-interest media matters more than ever

An adaptation of opening remarks by Dr Clare Cook, Head of Journalism and Media Viability, for the European Pluralistic Media Horizon SummitMay 2026.

There is growing recognition across Europe that local public-interest media is not peripheral to democracy—it is part of its core infrastructure. Strong local journalism helps communities make informed choices, strengthens accountability, builds trust, and creates the conditions for more inclusive and resilient societies.

This is why the current moment matters. Across the sector, journalists, funders, researchers, and policymakers are asking not only how to defend independent media, but how to ensure it remains viable over time—especially at the local level, where public-interest reporting is often closest to people’s daily lives and most exposed to financial pressure.

For IMS, this conversation is both urgent and long-standing. At our information integrity conference last autumn in Copenhagen, more than 200 delegates co‑created a mandate for priority solutions in the near term. Number one on that list was the need to strengthen local media ecosystems. Second was to build and scale locally anchored public‑interest platforms. The focus now must be on institutions, trusted information, and solutions that remain rooted in communities long after external support has receded.

Journalism is no luxury

Public-interest media plays both a preventative and a progressive role. It enables citizens to make informed decisions, supports scrutiny of public and private institutions, and contributes to democratic governance and inclusive development. Journalism is not a luxury. It is part of the infrastructure that allows societies to function fairly and transparently.

Its value is also economic. Journalism helps markets function more transparently, reduces corruption and instability, and supports fairer distribution of resources. A report commissioned by the Forum on Information and Democracy argues that public-interest media should be understood not as a cost centre, but as the “central banks of the informational economy.”

Journalism also strengthens social resilience. It helps societies respond to crises, counters disinformation, and reduces vulnerability to malign influence. In an era of AI-driven manipulation and growing distrust, trusted local media is one of the few institutions capable of connecting verified information with the lived realities of communities.

Social fabric and no peripheral outcomes

What matters most is not simply the existence of media, but the strength of local and plural public-interest media. At the local level, journalism helps ensure that diverse voices are heard, minority communities are represented, and people have access to information that reflects their own context rather than distant national narratives.

This understanding has shaped years of work on local media sustainability, including early work with Nesta on Hyperlocal Revenues in the UK and Europe, and ongoing efforts by IMS to support local and niche media around the world. The reason is simple: local media often delivers context-specific solutions that larger systems miss.

Programmes such as Local Media for Democracy and Pluralistic Media for Democracy, operated by Journalismfund Europe with support from the European Commission and the King Baudouin Foundation, show what this can look like in practice. Together, these initiatives have supported more than 80 local, investigative, and niche outlets across 18 EU countries as well as Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina—reaching start-ups, digital media, newspapers, radio stations, and TV broadcasters.

What stands out across these grantees is not only editorial quality, but social contribution: inclusion of diverse voices, attention to women and marginalised communities, work in minority languages, youth engagement, dialogue across divides, and stronger access to trusted information for groups too often overlooked. These are not peripheral outcomes. They are part of the social fabric of democratic life.

Examples of impact across Europe

In Spain, porCausa worked with Latino migrant women in Madrid not simply as subjects of reporting, but as storytellers with editorial agency. Through training, co-creation, and publication, participants developed narratives on migration, rights, gender, and mental health—laying the groundwork for a community media outlet of their own.

In Latvia, Re:Baltica demonstrated through its City Chronicles project that verified information can compete with unreliable social media narratives when it is designed for the formats audiences already use. Short explainers distributed via TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube reached large audiences and helped voters make more informed decisions.

In Romania, Intermedia TV strengthened its response to disinformation by combining investigative reporting with AI-enabled workflows, public awareness campaigns, and hands-on media literacy training for more than 500 students and seniors.

Across all of these examples, media impact is not abstract. It is visible in people feeling represented, in communities recognising trusted information, and in citizens making better-informed choices.

The sustainability challenge

If local journalism is essential, then sustainability cannot remain an abstract concept. The real question is practical: what makes independent local media viable year after year?

The answer is complicated by a harsher external environment. Donor funding has contracted sharply, while domestic politics, fiscal pressure, and geopolitical reprioritisation have all affected support for independent media. At the same time, platform dynamics are shifting: the era in which technology philanthropy could partially compensate for market failure is narrowing as regulation, copyright disputes, and AI-driven distribution reshape incentives.

The challenge is not only scarcity, but fragmentation. Resources remain split across separate lanes—media development, philanthropy, platform support, domestic capital, and impact investment—with too few shared pipelines, underwriting norms, or trusted intermediaries.

Meeting this challenge requires change on both the demand side and the supply side. On the demand side, local media needs stronger business capacity, diversified revenue streams, sound governance, audience and membership models, and the ability to adapt continuously. There is no single transferable business model for public-interest journalism. Adaptability is the model.

On the supply side, the sector needs capital pathways that are locally governed, policy-aware, and aligned with how media organisations actually operate. That means looking beyond donor support alone to a broader mix of businesses, philanthropies, community funding, cooperative models, diaspora finance, banks, and public instruments—all structured with strong transparency, governance, and editorial safeguards.

This is the basis for treating media not only as a public good, but also as a sector worthy of investment when the right protections are in place. The firewall between financial interests and editorial decision-making remains non-negotiable. Editorial independence is the condition on which all sustainable models depend.

What next?

The next phase of work should focus on validating what already works and scaling it intelligently: flexible and core funding for local and community journalism, tailored capacity development, regional hubs for shared innovation and research, peer learning across similarly sized outlets, and stronger methods for defining and measuring impact from the outset.

This agenda should also connect with wider European policy discussions, including recent work from the Media Policy Lab, negotiations around the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework, the European Competitiveness Fund and broader efforts to position media as part of Europe’s democratic resilience and competitiveness architecture.

At a time when commitments to press freedom feel increasingly fragile, including around disruption to World Press Freedom Day, the goal should be clear: to help build a media ecosystem that is resilient, independent, locally supported, and trusted by the public it serves.

Local public-interest media is not a side issue. It is foundational to democratic life. Strengthening it will require long-term commitment, smarter financing, and deeper collaboration across journalism, policy, philanthropy, and investment—but the case for doing so has never been stronger.

For more information about the PM4D programme please contact IMS Head of Journalism and media viability Clare Cook; or programme manager Emma Lygnerud Boberg.

The Plural Media for Democracy programme is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.