Serving Rural Communities

Local and public media stations are among the most trusted sources of news for Americans. They have a unique opportunity to serve rural communities across the U.S., which comprise about one-fifth of the nation’s population and span 97% of the country’s land mass. Rural public media stations play an essential role in providing local news, weather, emergency alerts, and cultural programming to dispersed populations that may have limited access to communications, internet, healthcare, education and other critical services. As local newspapers shutter, public media stations have an opportunity to fill the gap left in these potential news deserts. However, to serve these communities effectively, public media organizations must understand the distinct experiences, perspectives and challenges rural audiences face.

Rural America is diverse. While many associate rural life with agriculture, farming, and fishing, these communities represent just over one percent of the workforce, with nearly two million civil workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, rural populations include long-standing multigenerational families, Indigenous and Black communities, immigrants, and other workers tied to industries like manufacturing, mining, energy, and seasonal tourism.

Furthermore, rural identity is not solely geographic; it is deeply connected to culture and history, often shaped by economic shifts, policy changes and access to resources. Despite this complexity, media narratives have oversimplified rural life, portraying it through outdated stereotypes or focusing on isolation, economic decline, political leanings, struggles with infrastructure or tragedies.

Public media stations must also recognize that many rural Americans feel mainstream media have neglected or misrepresented their communities. A 2023 Reuters Institute study found that communities that perceive themselves as ignored or stereotyped by the press experience a deep erosion of trust in news.

Additionally, rural residents expressed frustration over national media coverage that fails to reflect the reality of their lives. “Rural participants in the US complained about depictions reducing rural areas to ‘corn fields and pig farms’ and of people like them as being a ‘bunch of hicks,’’ the study says.

Just as public media has worked to rebuild trust with other underrepresented communities, it must take the same care in engaging with rural audiences through accurate, inclusive and locally relevant engagement initiatives and reporting.

Obstacles and challenges

There are several key matters that newsroom staff will confront when trying to reach out to immigrant communities.

Identity
The term “rural” means different things to different people. For many, it evokes images of farmlands and pastoral landscapes.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were over 66 million people living in rural areas in the last national survey conducted in 2020. The Bureau defines rural as “all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.”

“In general, rural areas are sparsely populated, have low housing density, and are far from urban centers. Urban areas make up only three percent of the country’s entire land area, but are home to more than 80% of the population. Conversely, 97% of the country’s land mass is rural, but only 20% of the population lives there,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Identifying as rural” can be related to different factors, such as belonging to a place, a way of life or a shared history. It does not mean being isolated, uneducated or economically disadvantaged.

Americans living in rural areas are not a monolith. It is crucial for public media stations to consider a wide range of factors influencing their way of living and thinking, such as their generation, family and religious background, ethnicity, income, education and even hobbies.

Geography
Unlike urban areas, rural stations often broadcast across tens of thousands of square miles, requiring tailored outreach strategies to engage with communities and audiences across vast distances. Regardless of where your newsroom is located – whether it’s in an urban or rural area – connecting with rural communities will require you to cover large distances either physically or virtually. Avoid “parachuting in” to report on one story — remember to always close the engagement loop by following up in person whenever possible, or by phone or online.

The Rural News Network considers that a station is a rural station if the coverage area and news plan includes one or more of the following: “remote towns or unincorporated areas”; “a city or county with a resource-based economic history – such as logging, mining, agriculture, tourism seasonality”; “communities of people who must travel lengthy distances to obtain basic goods and services, like groceries, health care, school or fuel”; “geographic features that affect access and transportation, such as mountains or islands”; “a town, a community, a county without a dedicated, on-the-ground news source.”

Connectivity
Reliable internet and cell phone connectivity are essential in modern society, yet many rural communities in the United States continue to face significant challenges in this area. The lack of dependable broadband and mobile service hampers access to education, healthcare, economic opportunities, and the vital information media outlets provide.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) provides further insight into disparities among urban and rural areas. A report published in 2024 indicates that rural residents were less likely than urban residents to use computing devices (93% of rural households compared to 96% of urban households) and were less likely to have a broadband internet subscription (87% of rural households compared to 91% of urban households).

However, there are also some exceptions, such as Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts, where rural broadband subscriptions surpassed urban broadband subscriptions.

In contrast, Virginia, New Mexico, and Alabama showed the largest urban–rural disparity, with all three states showing lower subscription rates in rural areas. “Urban broadband rates exceeded rural broadband rates by eight percentage points in Virginia and seven percentage points in both New Mexico and Alabama.”

Furthermore, according to the Bureau, as of 2023, nearly 150,000 households all over the U.S. still rely on dial-up connections.

Additionally, rural adults are less likely to own a smartphone or tablet, further limiting their digital access, impacting your engagement initiatives while making it more difficult to communicate and disseminate information about them.

Familiarity
Although being close and familiar with the communities you serve helps one understand the nuances of their experiences, when journalists live and are embedded in the rural communities they serve, this proximity can also become a challenge.

“You know every person in the stories and you are going to see them [in the community],” said Tim Marema, editor of the Daily Yonder, which covers rural news in the U.S., in Reporting on Rural: The How and the Why, a webinar organized by the Rural Journalism Collective.

This familiarity can also create a higher level of expectations among your audience. “We were somehow designated the watchdog of the community and have some special status,” he added. “Knowing your audience personally affects how you communicate with them.”

Lack of data
Sometimes, finding data about very remote or unpopulated areas can be a challenge and journalists have to work around anecdotal knowledge or understanding. Datasets from rural areas are notoriously fraught with limitations like low response rates or small sample sizes. That makes following trends or making statistically sound inferences particularly hard, if not impossible at times.

According to In Search of “Good” Rural Data, published by The Urban Institute, “many of the datasets that policymakers, practitioners, and researchers rely on to understand and guide resources to rural communities fall short in representing rural realities.”

For instance, “the indicators of prosperity in rural places are distinct and require different measures from urban ones.” The report also highlighted that key factors such as entrepreneurship, agricultural employment, government capacity and volunteerism, among others, are essential for understanding rural communities. However, it noted that these aspects are “often poorly covered by existing public data sources.”

Even when data is available, collecting and reporting it in rural areas presents unique challenges due to smaller population sizes. The ACS by the U.S. Census Bureau is often the primary source for comprehensive data on demographics, housing, and income across different regions. However, in rural communities with low population density, the ACS relies on smaller sample sizes, requiring multiple years of data collection to ensure statistically reliable results.

Keep in mind that these delays in collecting data might impact the timeliness and accuracy of your reporting and the use of this data to shape engagement initiatives.

Core competencies

There are many ways that public media can serve rural communities. However, your organization needs to commit to what you have the bandwidth to do and can sustain. Launching initiatives and not maintaining them long-term can be counter-productive since communities can feel disappointed if they see an outreach attempt later abandoned. It is preferable to thoroughly analyze the engagement initiatives that can be carried out and only undertake those that can be sustained over time. Some competencies you should consider central to your success include:

Staffing and time
Know your staff, the work hours they have available to do the work you envision on engagement, and how much time you can intentionally give them to complete initiatives.

In many cases, rural communities need more than your newsroom can produce. Thoroughly analyze your capacity and set realistic goals and expectations for your engagement initiatives. Meet at least once a year — or once a quarter — to discuss initiatives you can take. Commit to a consistent presence by setting a realistic bar and succeeding.

Community partners
Organizations: As in many other communities, local partners in rural areas who can act as connectors are essential to your engagement initiatives and reporters.

Many public media newsrooms are partnering with local nonprofits that serve their communities and co-hosting events and listening sessions to collect insights into coverage needs and interests. Lean on community leaders’ connections and make yourself visible to community partners.

Take a cue from Prairie Public: They connected with county and city government workers in the small town of Watford City to learn who they should be talking to.

Make the events a safe and collaborative process with the communities. Host inclusive and balanced community gatherings. Review the generation, ethnicity, gender, background, affiliation, location, etc., of people invited to the initiatives. Remember that rural residents, who represent 20% of the U.S. population, are diverse and not monolithic.

Curate the event environment to make people comfortable — plan initiatives and sessions around traditions, music, arts, and food. Bring people together around these universal ways of expression to engage with them.

Individuals: Sometimes it just takes earning trust with one person to start making inroads in rural communities. Organizations can be slow-moving machines, but a source who you’ve built a relationship with can introduce you to more of the community and point you in the right direction as you explore other stories. They become your “community ambassadors.”

Read about how a relationship with the right person in rural Colorado opened the door to key sources for a three-part series on water issues.

How do you find them? Look for people who are involved with multiple organizations – even those that aren’t related to your work. Do they own a business and coach a little league team and attend a book club? Have they lived in the area for decades? Are they brand new but highly involved?

Once you’ve laid this foundation, you’ll find that calls that previously went to voicemail are getting answered, emails get responses, and some people may even start contacting YOU first.

Language
As media professionals, we often lack the language, skills, or resources necessary to accurately and respectfully cover rural communities, especially if we are unfamiliar with their realities. To foster engagement and trust, it’s essential to be intentional about the language we use. Here are key recommendations to ensure fair, nuanced, and stereotype-free reporting on rural communities:

Avoid the “rural vs. urban” divide that often frames these two communities as opposites, reinforcing a “us versus them” simplistic narrative. Don’t introduce these communities as worlds apart. Use words that describe rural areas regarding their strengths, resilience, and contributions to society.

Bypass language that reinforces stereotypes. Rural life has long been portrayed as simplistic, outdated, or isolated, a framing that ignores the cultural richness and diversity present in these communities. Refrain from describing rural areas solely through their challenges without also reporting on their solutions and successes. Be mindful of words like “quaint,” “hard-working,” or “nature lover” that could be seen as “positive” but paint an incomplete and naive picture of rural life.

Use language that improves accuracy. Terms like “dying towns,” “job deserts,” “left behind,” or “deep America” should be used with caution. If they must be mentioned, ensure they are balanced with solutions and local voices.

Choose words that connect. Lean on wording that promotes empathy and identification with rural communities by underscoring sameness, not differences.

Travel
In-person outreach is as important in far-flung rural communities as it is in urban or suburban neighborhoods. The resources needed for all that travel can add up, though. Planning far in advance and having a clear goal and strategy for your rural reporting trips can go a long way (if you’ll allow the pun).

Many newsrooms have taken on “reporting road trips,” condensing lots of travel into a short timeframe. You can build a reporting road trip around a specific story, like Alaska Public Media and Montana Public Radio did for the elections. Or, you can embark on a “listening tour” to better understand and build relationships in new places.

Holding regular “reporter office hours” in a certain town can be another great way to show your commitment to a rural community. Set a specific date and time to return to a community each month and let people know you’re coming and why — think flyers, posting Facebook groups, and getting support from a local ambassador to spread the word. It can be helpful to have a set of questions to get the conversation started. This is also a great time to work on building relationships with sources or community partners.

New types of content and platforms
To serve rural communities with news and information about issues that are important to them, you need to get the word out about your project or initiative.

And when we say get out, we mean it. Journalists need to get out of their digital comfort zones and engage with rural residents where they are.

This doesn’t mean you won’t use digital tools to engage with rural communities. It just means you should consider whether the community you’re trying to reach has connectivity limitations when you’re planning outreach and deciding how to distribute content.

Visit the community and ask them how they get the news. Facebook groups can be a great way to reach these communities. However, election campaigns have shown that text messaging can outperform emails when it comes to reaching a rural audience. SMS texting clubs are a useful way to engage people with low connectivity since they require less cellular data than social media and websites.

When organizing listening sessions, try to include livestream broadcasting to ensure people from remote areas can attend, as the Gulf States Newsroom did while engaging with the rural community on a new congressional district. You may consider offering both an in person session as well as a virtual meeting to accommodate a wider range of people.

Key tips for reaching Rural audiences

Get to know the community
Talk with local nonprofits and consider partnering with rural-serving organizations, hosting events and listening sessions that address specific issues affecting them. These relationships provide a sounding board for your public media organization to understand how your ideas resonate and to hear more about what community leaders feel they need from coverage and content. Ask about the cultural nuances when communicating with these communities. Test your content ideas and ask for feedback.

Set objectives
Establishing clear and measurable objectives is crucial in effectively engaging with rural audiences. Begin by identifying what success looks like for your news organization when it comes to serving them. Are you aiming to increase rural readership or viewership by a specific percentage within a certain time frame? Do you want to enhance trust and credibility among rural audiences, or are you focused on increasing in-person engagement? Defining specific outcomes will provide a framework for measuring progress and adjusting your strategy as needed.

When setting goals, consider the unique needs and preferences of rural communities. Understanding them will help you define realistic, culturally sensitive goals that align with your audience’s experiences.

Listen
Immerse yourself in the community, learn from them and listen to internal and external stakeholders. Seek input from rural staff members, local community leaders and experts, and trusted organizations that serve these populations. Their insights can help you identify gaps in coverage, uncover potential barriers to engagement, and shape goals that reflect the true needs of the community. Visit shops, parks, fairs and places where the communities live. Be there for the joy, too!

If your staff is embedded in the community you serve, constant communication is even more important. The Keene Sentinel team in southwestern New Hampshire wrote a monthly letter — yes! letters — to their rural readers to maintain ongoing communication with them.

Explain your role in the community and who does what within the newsroom. Allow your staff to introduce themselves to the community and share what they do daily to show commitment. And ask over and over again: How can we serve you?

Fortify
If you aim to offer content relevant to rural communities by featuring stories about their culture and issues affecting them, ask yourself: Do you have the staff to make this happen?

Although audiences still value local news outlets and are the most trusted in keeping Americans informed about their communities, culturally competent media outlets require leaders and journalists who can share mutual respect and understanding with their audiences. This role is critical to overcoming barriers and fostering a culture of trust.

Co-create
Avoid parachute journalism when serving rural communities and develop collaborative projects where their members have a key role in the production process.

Seek out a wide array of voices representative of rural people’s diversity in geography, generation, ethnicity, culture, history, economy, and more.

If possible, consider offering community members training on journalism to help them understand the process and set them up for success.

Make content relevant and useful to rural audiences. Offer value that answers questions and/or addresses needs. Go back to them and ask for their feedback and collect their opinions on where a story did or did not excel or how it can be improved next time.

Educate yourself
Humbly educate yourself to understand the historical challenges and strengths the rural communities in your area have experienced. Research what stories have been told and learn from previous coverage.

Follow rural-based journalists, scholars, historians, local libraries, and advocacy groups that focus on underreported aspects of rural life and can provide rich oral stories about the communities.

Expand beyond traditional government reports and national data by consulting local community-led initiatives, which provide more nuanced perspectives and help you gain a deeper understanding of the area.

Analyze the current narrative that emphasizes aspects of farming and agriculture and shift it following community advice. Ask rural communities what stereotypes they would like to change, what narratives they don’t feel comfortable about, or have been historically overlooked. Ask questions such as: Is there anything about how the media portrays you or people that feels inaccurate? What’s the one thing you want people to understand about your community?

Dialogue
Keep an open dialogue with your audience and staff. Listen to feedback and make improvements.

Additional Resources

From our stations

Stations have detailed their work-around content and audience engagement for Rural communities. You are encouraged to learn from their examples and adapt their lessons to your community: