(wdstock/Getty Images) About this research

This analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative looks at how many Americans say they have spoken with or been interviewed by a local journalist, and who is most likely to have done so.

Why we did this

Pew Research Center regularly asks Americans about their relationship with local news. This research aims to better understand the public’s interactions with local news media and adds to our ongoing exploration of their views of the media.

Learn more about Pew Research Center and our research on news habits and media.

How we did this

We surveyed 3,560 U.S. adults from Dec. 8 to 14, 2025. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel. The survey reflects the views of the full U.S. adult population.

Here are our survey questions, the detailed responses and the methodology.

This is a Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Find related publications online at https://www.pewresearch.org/pew-knight/.

About a quarter of Americans (23%) say they have ever spoken with or been interviewed by a local journalist or reporter, according to a December 2025 Pew Research Center survey from the Pew-Knight Initiative.

Responses to this question haven’t changed much since we first asked it in 2016.

Related: Americans’ Changing Relationship With Local News

Some groups of Americans are more likely than others to have spoken with a local journalist:

• Adults with more formal education: Three-in-ten of those with at least a college degree say they have done this, compared with 17% of adults with a high school diploma or less.

• People with higher family incomes: 31% of Americans with higher family incomes say they have spoken with a journalist, compared with 18% of those with lower incomes.

White adults (26%) are more likely than Hispanic (17%) and Asian (11%) adults to say they have done this, although the difference between White and Black adults (21%) is not statistically different.

Similar shares of adults in each age group say they’ve talked to a local journalist. And there is no significant difference between Democrats and Republicans on this question.

People who feel more attached to their local community also are more likely to say they have spoken to a local journalist. Among those who say they are very attached to their local community, 34% say they have interacted with a local journalist. Smaller shares of those who feel somewhat (23%), not very (20%) or not at all attached (13%) say they’ve done this.

However, we can’t say what causes what here: It’s possible that people who feel more attached to their community are more willing to talk to journalists, or that talking to journalists helps people feel more entrenched in their community. It’s also worth noting that journalists do not randomly sample the population when they’re deciding who to speak with, so some groups may have more opportunities than others to interact with local media.

Note: Here are our survey questions, the detailed responses and the methodology.

Joanne Haner is a research assistant focusing on news and information research at Pew Research Center.