Research

Layoffs continue to pummel US newspapers. Roughly a quarter of papers with an average Sunday circulation of 50,000 or more experienced layoffs in 2018. The layoffs come on top of the roughly one-third of papers in the same circulation range that experienced layoffs in 2017. What’s more, the number of jobs typically cut by newspapers in 2018 tended to be higher than in the year before. Mid-market newspapers were the most likely to suffer layoffs in 2018 – unlike in 2017, when the largest papers most frequently saw cutbacks.

The Kansas City Fed launched a project in early 2018 to outline issues of the digital divide and identify innovative approaches that communities were taking to narrow it. This report provides a summary of what we learned and opportunities for narrowing the divide. It is not intended to be a technical report.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ state broadband policy explorer lets you learn how states are expanding access to broadband through laws. Categories in the tool include: broadband programs, competition and regulation, definitions, funding and financing, and infrastructure access. As you choose categories, a 50-state map illustrates which states have adopted such laws, which includes state statutes related to broadband as of Jan. 1, 2019.

As high-speed, reliable internet access becomes increasingly important in modern life, state leaders are seeking ways to fund projects to expand this vital service. Although the mechanisms that states use are fairly consistent—grants and loans, among others—they have different approaches for distributing funds and encouraging investment. This brief explores the ways in which states support broadband deployment projects and what they aim to accomplish.

Four years ago, technology companies were widely seen as having a positive impact on the United States. But the share of Americans who hold this view has tumbled 21 percentage points since then, from 71% to 50%. Negative views of technology companies’ impact on the country have nearly doubled during this period, from 17% to 33%, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Nearly one-in-five (18%) now volunteer their impact has been neither positive nor negative or that it is mixed, or they offer no opinion.

This report examines (1) challenges lower-income school-age children who lack in-home fixed internet face in doing homework involving internet access, and (2) selected school district efforts to expand wireless access for students and the federal role in those efforts.

Members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to review issues related to identity information associated with public comments on proposed rulemakings.

Corporate choices made by AT&T and Verizon, and Frontier Communications’ dire financial condition created the growing divide between relatively modern telecommunications infrastructure in affluent urban and suburban communities and the decaying infrastructure in poor and rural ones. The result is “deteriorating service quality”, “persistent disinvestment”, an “investment focus on higher-income communities” and an “increased focus on areas most heavily impacted by competition.” When addressing service quality going forward, the California Public Utilities Commission should:

Half of Americans now have access to broadband at speeds of 500 Mbps or above. But less than half of Americans (48.5%) have wired broadband available at $60 or less per month. Availability of 500 Mbps service varies considerably from one state to another. More than 90% of people in Delaware (97%) and the District of Columbia (99%) have 500 Mbps service available to them, followed by Maryland (89%), Utah (87%) and Illinois (85%).

Some key findings about the state of the news media in 2018: