ABSTRACT
Rarely has news deserts research examined a suburban region teeming with media outlets, and little attention has been paid to the neighborhoods of color within such an area. Through surveys and interviews with over three dozen community-based organization leaders and journalists, as well as a six-month, community-by-community audit of the coverage provided by 14 media outlets, this study aimed to determine whether one can reside in a news desert in densely populated Nassau County, NY, a suburb of New York City that is reported on by a wide range of large and small media outlets. In particular, we focused on the predominately Black and Brown neighborhoods therein. The majority of community-based organization leaders within these six areas contended the news media focused heavily or nearly exclusively on crime within their neighborhoods, and those perceptions were largely borne out in the quantitative data, except in the case of the two community newspapers, the Franklin Square-Elmont Herald and the Freeport Herald.
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