Canada commissions project to map local news deserts

The Canadian federal government has commissioned a multi-phase, multi-year project to create a local news directory aimed at identifying "news deserts" and areas of news poverty across the country. Canadian Heritage is working with independent industry experts to map out regions that lack adequate local media coverage.

April Lindgren, a professor emerita at Toronto Metropolitan University, noted that while absolute news deserts may be rare, many regions suffer from newsrooms that lack the staffing to cover essential municipal, business, or environmental issues. Lindgren highlighted that finding reliable local news is increasingly difficult due to AI misinformation and the ban on news content on Meta platforms.

The Investigative Journalism Foundation is utilizing artificial intelligence to assist the government in compiling the directory. The AI will perform an initial data collection pass from sources like Statistics Canada and Google, which will then be verified by human reviewers, including local librarians.