Across the United States, nearly 2.5 million people, more than the entire population of New Mexico, live on or near military bases. Over the past year, researchers at the Medill Local News Initiative have studied these communities and their local news access. The results have shown that the personnel stationed at these installations, along with their families and the wider population, are dramatically underserved by local news sources. Since 2005, newspapers in these areas have disappeared at a rate four times higher than the national average. And the remaining outlets are covering these bases less and less—since 2016, there has been a 40% decrease in the number of stories about local military issues.
Base populations vary, with some of the largest, like Fort Bragg in North Carolina, or Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, being home to more than 100,000 people. Bases of this size are more than mere outposts or staging areas; they are functionally small cities. “There’s a perception of military bases being constant drilling and weapons fire,” according to Erik Slavin, editor in chief of Stars and Stripes, the longstanding overseas-focused military newspaper. “But there are also families living on these bases, there are schools, there’s a fire department, there is everything you would find in a city or a town.”
Sizable military bases also form an integral part of a local community’s economy and residential makeup—for some installations, such as Fort Riley in Kansas, or Fort Lee in Virginia, the base accounts for nearly half of the total population of the county. The ebb and flow of this population can have an outsized impact on the affairs of the larger community, as well as the obvious impact on the lives of the personnel themselves and their families. As Courtney Mabeus, a former reporter for the Virginian Pilot in Hampton Roads put it: “When [an aircraft carrier] leaves there are 6,000 servicemembers who are leaving with it. That’s 6,000 local people who’s lives are affected: husbands, wives, children, neighbors and so forth, and with that local businesses.”…