But efforts to require agencies to take out ads with local news sites have had spotty results

Connecticut is not a “news desert” in a traditional sense. It’s a state with plenty of outlets but shrinking reporting capabilities.

On paper, the state’s information needs look well served: There are 4.36 news outlets per 100,000 people, according to the State of Local News Report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. That ratio is better than in 37 other states.

“We are experiencing news poverty,” said Bruce Putterman, publisher of The Connecticut Mirror. “Local coverage is thinning and leaves residents less informed about their schools, town halls, and statehouse.”

Connecticut has 159 news outlets. There are three public broadcasting networks, 19 digital sites, and 17 daily newspapers. Yet most of those dailies, once the backbone of the news ecosystem, are “shells of their former selves,” Putterman said. The number of newspaper employees has fallen 65% since 2013.

What is more, in a digital market dominated by national news platforms and the big tech middlemen, small publishers struggle to compete for advertisement dollars, even when the advertising campaigns target local audiences.

To ease pressures on local media, Connecticut lawmakers proposed a budget-neutral fix. In 2025, Connecticut considered SB 1230, which would have required state agencies to dedicate at least 15% of their print and digital ad budgets to Connecticut-based publishers producing original news. Modeled on efforts in New York City, the measure sought to stabilize local journalism by redirecting existing government budgets.

It was the third consecutive year lawmakers put forward a similar bill, and it failed again. Even so, Putterman supports a fourth try. The real impact, Putterman says, would be for hyperlocal and ethnic outlets that are often one- or two-person operations.

“If they could get $25,000 out of the state,” he said. “That’s a half a reporter. It just relieves a little bit of the pressure on the poor person who’s working 20 hours a day to serve their town.”

Two wins: Stronger media, better reach

Connecticut is not alone in eyeing public-information budgets as a lifeline for local news. In 2025, at least four other states sought to support local journalism through local advertising mandates. Proposed bills in Maryland, Minnesota and Nevada failed. They would have required state agencies to steer 15% to 50% of their advertising expenses to in-state outlets.

Vermont is the outlier. Its still-active H.244 would set the most aggressive bar yet, directing 80% of annual advertising across print, digital, radio and TV to vetted Vermont news and broadcast organizations, with a carve-out for tourism campaigns.

More states are proposing advertising set-aside bills because they offer a quick fix. They do not seek new funding but redirect dollars governments already spend, for instance, on vaccine reminders, road-closure notices, and benefits enrollment into publishers that actually serve the communities those messages target.

“It’s not an entitlement,” said Matt Pearce, policy director at Rebuild Local News. “Like all advertising, it’s a competitive bidding process. What makes it attractive to policymakers is that it’s essentially budget-neutral. You’re asking agencies to allocate the dollars they already have differently.”

Local news advertising allocation bills share a common architecture. They clearly define “local media” (original reporting for in-state audiences, a physical presence in the state, at least one local journalist, ownership transparency) and exclude advertisement campaigns aimed primarily out of state. Often, these bills require the local government institutions to publish annual reports detailing advertising spending and recipients. 

The proponents of these bills recognize that the benefits are twofold: Taxpayer money stays in local information ecosystems instead of flowing to national big tech platforms or cable networks, and public-service messages reach people who might otherwise be missed.

“Community news outlets, for instance, may have better connections with non-English-speaking populations,” Pearce said. “Going with community media is a way to help build trust and get access to audiences that Facebook isn’t going to get you as well.”

The only enacted measure resembling these set-aside proposals is in California. AB 1511 (now Chapter 352, Statutes of 2024) takes a procurement-first approach to equity in government outreach. It requires state agencies that spend government funds on marketing or advertising to adopt plans to increase buys with qualified ethnic and community media. Those outlets are defined as publishers and broadcasters that produce original, community-specific news for groups such as immigrants, Tribal communities, non-English speakers, LGBTQ+ community members and low-income neighborhoods.

A city-level solution: San Francisco backs community media

While lawmakers debate in state capitals, some cities are testing a government-advertising experiment on the ground, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

In 2022–23, San Francisco spent roughly $1.5 million on advertising across all platforms, yet a 2023 Budget and Legislative Analyst report found that only seven of the 98 media outlets operating in San Francisco received any of those dollars. In 2024, San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution urging city departments to spend at least 50% of their advertising budgets with community and ethnic media outlets.

The policy is nonbinding, but advocates say it is reshaping the marketplace. “We have been able to get departments to do campaigns with our local and ethnic media outlets,” said Maya Chupkov, media and democracy program manager at California Common Cause.

Chupkov recognizes the resolution is not enough on its own. Relationships are the key. She organized meetings of city officials, newsroom leaders, and local marketing agencies to discuss opportunities and audience reach.

“What came out of that was a department deciding to run a campaign and partner with our news outlets,” Chupkov said. “That’s just a tangible example of if we’re sharing information with each other and presenting it as an opportunity to reach your target audience, it could work.”

Beneficiaries of the San Francisco advertising resolution include outlets like the Bay Area Reporter, which often teams up with The Wind (San Francisco’s only independent Chinese-language paper) and El Tecolote, a bilingual Spanish-English paper. Such partnerships help departments reach Chinese- and Spanish-speaking residents with information about services and public-health campaigns.

“It’s really important to build relationships with each department and help them see how this will be useful to them,” Chupkov said.

Preventing favoritism in government ad deals

New York City’s 2020 resolution requiring agencies to place 50% of community-outreach advertising with local outlets has funneled more than $72 million to neighborhood and ethnic media.

The success comes with a warning. In New York, critics argued that Mayor Eric Adams directed advertising to outlets friendlier to his administration. “Government advertising is a place where we see among the greatest risks for potential government favoritism,” Pearce said, which is why he and his colleagues at Rebuild Local News recommend safeguards such as third-party review of eligible publishers.

Publishers stress that ethics come first. “I stand by our editorial independence policy, we are not going to compromise our integrity for $5,000,” Putterman said.

But integrity was not the key hurdle that stopped the advertising bill in Connecticut.

“The governor’s budget chief opposed it because he believed – incorrectly, I think – that it would undermine the effectiveness of state advertising investments, that it would be interfering with the marketplace,” Putterman said.

Pearce said that often the state government agencies oppose the bills because they view them as regulations that limit their freedom. 

“The biggest resistance is from the state agencies themselves,” Pearce said. “They make a point that, ‘This does not increase our own advertising budgets. It just tells us where we have to spend what we have.’”

Even with momentum in cities, Pearce cautions against viewing advertising support as a cure-all. “There’s not gonna be any one policy that saves journalism,” Pearce said.

In his view, government advertising, like other public subsidies, is one leg of a three-legged stool, alongside innovation and philanthropy, that together can help sustain local journalism.

Živilė Raškauskaitė is doctoral candidate at the Missouri School of Journalism.

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Cite this article

Raškauskaitė, Živilė  (2025, Oct. 9). Ad dollars from cities or states could be a lifeline for community news media. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/requiring-governments-to-advertise-in-local-news-organizations-has-had-spotty-success/