In Brazil, approximately 20.6 million people —equivalent to 10.2% of the population— now live in news deserts, municipalities without any local media outlet.
That’s a 7.7% decrease from two years ago, the last time the Atlas da Notícia (News Atlas) was released.
The change, in part, is due to the emergence of digital journalism initiatives in previously silenced areas, said Sérgio Lüdtke, coordinator of the News Atlas research team.
"The latest editions of the Atlas prove this trend [of decreasing news deserts]," Lüdtke told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “The fragility lies in the stability of the businesses that emerge in the silenced areas.”
The survey, conducted between October 2024 and June 2025, looked at 5,570 municipalities and identified 2,504 as news deserts. This means that, on average, of every 20 Brazilian municipalities, nine are news deserts.
Compared with the last survey from two years ago, 251 municipalities were no longer classified as news deserts, while 43 entered this category.
"A municipality isn't a news desert by chance. There are a number of obstacles there that impede the emergence and permanence of journalistic initiatives. We're talking about financial sustainability, but also security for journalists and a lack of support from society and the government," Lüdtke said. "I always say that information should be public policy and treated in the same way as education, health and safety."
In the previous edition of the Atlas, released in August 2023, there was also an 8.6% reduction in news deserts in the country. This was the first time since the survey began in 2017 that the number of municipalities considered news deserts was lower than the number of cities with at least one news outlet serving their population.
The reduction in municipalities without local news coverage is primarily a result of the emergence of new digital initiatives in areas that previously had no outlets, as Lüdtke explained. He also highlighted the growth of radio, especially in areas with limited internet access, and the gradual inclusion of community radio stations that produce news in the News Atlas database.
"There is an accelerated digital transformation, with print media being replaced by digital media, which, in some ways, prevents some municipalities from becoming news deserts," the journalist said.
According to Atlas data, the number of digital projects rose from 5,245 to 5,712, an 8.9% increase compared to the last survey. Among online media outlets, 1,856 —a third of the entire segment— are registered in the Atlas database as individual initiatives or blogs. In addition to the shift from print to digital media, another trend highlighted by the survey was a migration of self-hosted news sites to social media platforms.
"Many of these new online initiatives operate exclusively on social media platforms, without an anchor website. They have a local scope, operate independently, have a very lean structure. Many are individual initiatives, and all face the enormous challenge of seeking sustainability while operating in places that offer limited opportunities for diversifying financing models," Lüdtke said.
The sharpest reduction in news deserts, in absolute numbers, was in the Northeast. In the region, 143 municipalities were no longer considered news deserts, and 283 new local initiatives were incorporated into the Atlas database, a 10.96% increase compared to the previous survey.
Even so, the region has, in absolute numbers, the largest number of news deserts, with 890 municipalities without local journalism initiatives, equivalent to 49.61% of the total number of municipalities in the Northeast.
"The Southeast and South also saw a considerable reduction in deserts. These results can be explained by the growth of online journalism, a segment where there are few economic and technological barriers to entry, and by the addition of some radio stations, mainly community radio stations, to the Atlas database," said Lüdtke. "Also, by a larger number of contributors, which helped us explore areas considered deserts more broadly. But it's important to emphasize the resilience of journalism and the purpose of serving citizens that is inherent to our field."
Among the initiatives that became part of the Atlas's database this year is Coar Notícias, a fact-checking project focused on the Northeast and North regions of Brazil. Based in Piauí, one of the poorest states in the country, the outlet currently publishes two fact-checks per week and one article per month. Coar also has a podcast with special monthly reports and distributes audio fact-checks to nearly 200 local radio stations.
Most of the team is volunteer and does not work full-time on the project. Three members are paid, and the team also includes three people with visual impairments, two of whom are completely blind.
Marta Alencar, founder of Coar, told LJR she maintains the project with calls for proposals and her own resources.
“I work to pay some members, but no one pays me,” she said. “This is already a major challenge for anyone leading independent projects, because it's not easy to secure sufficient funding to keep the project running."
The lack of financial resources has meant the team produces less content, she said.
Alencar said working with journalism and fact-checking in regions considered news deserts or near-deserts is a major challenge, as she often has to explain to the people living in these places what verification is, because they often don't even know how to distinguish between news and opinion.
Since the team at Coar is small and most members work voluntarily, efforts to reach more people are limited, she added.
Regarding the reduction of news deserts in the Northeast and the increase in digital initiatives mapped by the Atlas, Alencar says that residents themselves are interested in learning about what's happening in their cities through WhatsApp groups. However, she warns that beyond the initiatives listed by the Atlas, there isn't always fact-checked and verified information.
"News deserts aren't information deserts; that is, there is information circulating there, even without a journalist," she said. "The number of local websites and pages has increased, but this doesn't represent quality, locally independent information.”
“I wrote an article in 2023 and mentioned a near-news desert in Ceará, which had only one outlet in the city, a website run by a City Hall Communications Director,” she continued. “He earned over R$10,000 (about US$1,800) per month and didn't publish a single article verifying information, merely reproducing press releases and even having City Hall advertisements on his website."
Lüdtke said this phenomenon of public authorities shifting from being a source of information to an outlet, instead of encouraging public policies that incentivize or support the permanence of the local press, is a common characteristic of the internet and has become more evident at the municipal level.
"There are no public policies that incentivize or support the continued existence of local journalism outlets. Instead, the government has become a competitor to journalistic initiatives by maintaining websites that publish local information of interest to city halls," he said.
Even with the positive numbers, online journalism isn't immune to market challenges. Since the survey began, the Atlas has detected the closure of 651 online outlets, with 334 having closed since the last survey in 2023.
"The Atlas didn't investigate the reasons for closures in general, but other studies we've conducted show that unmet challenges to economic sustainability are the determining factor," Lüdtke said. "Sometimes this is due to the founders' lack of management skills, and sometimes because they couldn't find funding sources in the region that could guarantee the continuity of these initiatives."
The News Atlas database currently has 14,809 news outlets operating in Brazil, distributed among 5,712 online outlets, 4,994 radio stations, 2,852 print media outlets and 1,251 television stations.
