Catherine Bilskie, the advertising and office manager for the newspaper in Solon, Iowa, had seen many local news outlets close. So she was sure her job at the Solon Economist was about to go one Friday morning in February 2024.

But to her surprise, a new owner, Jason Brummond, appeared. He not only promised to keep her and her co-worker employed at the weekly paper but assured them raises if they agreed to an unusual new venture. And he wasn’t a wealthy benefactor or a representative from a private equity firm – he came from the University of Iowa.

It’s just one example of academic institutions stepping up to address the “news desert” crisis: Thousands of communities across the U.S. have lost local newspapers over the past two decades. And journalism faculty, staff and students are increasingly working together to either rescue legacy newspapers or start new publications for communities lacking local news outlets.

These partnerships have ranged from the Spanish-language news site Noticiero Móvil at the University of Nevada, Reno, to “Good Morning Indian Country” at the University of Kansas, to The Scope at Northeastern in Boston.

We’re journalism professors who have studied and experienced the opportunities and challenges of running community news through higher education. Our new book, “News Desert U,” asks whether this approach is one solution to saving local news. We believe the need is urgent given the stakes and the scope of the crisis.

Knowing your community

These experiments come against a grim backdrop.

Over 3,000 newspapers have closed in the U.S. in the past 20 years, including about 170 in 2025, according to Northwestern’s 2026 State of Local News report. Causes include an antiquated business model, declining advertising revenue and hedge-fund buyouts that have gutted papers. Northwestern’s 2025 report estimated that total print newspaper circulation has declined 70% in the past 20 years.

But university partnerships can show promise, we found, with the help of the next generation of journalists.

Iowa’s Solon Economist is one example. The University of Iowa doesn’t actually own the paper, or its sister paper, the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun. Still, the relationship is key to making the new venture work.

Its owner, Brummond, is also the publisher of the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, the Daily........

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