Over the last few days, I’ve done a bit of traveling around the central US, making pit stops in six different states. Seeing (i.e. driving through) so many distinct cities in such a short amount of time is a treat, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to conduct an informal survey on local science reporting – namely, does it exist?

Despite the emergence of online media, millions of people still rely on local newspapers as their primary source of news. Local reporting is important for an informed, engaged community, as it allows you to feel connected to the issues that affect you and your neighbors the most.

But not all subjects are sourced locally. For the most part, political, economic, sports, and entertainment sections have a heavy local emphasis – after all, people care most about their own businesses and sports teams. Science news, on the other hand, is generally distant – physically and intellectually – furthering the conception that science happens “out there” and is done by “those people.”

That’s my theory anyway, and I thought I’d check it out. First stop: Nashville.

Nashville, or “Music City,” supplies the world with country music (see this for a fitting example), and downtown (seen above) is an odd yet workable mix of kitsch and genuineness. For every cowboy hat-wearing, guitar-plucking musician that makes it big, scores of others are out there “keeping it real” in the honky-tonks. But the resulting artists’ colony yields something perhaps more meaningful than a chart-topping single: a community of people actively working to fulfill their dreams, and loving every minute of it.

The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper, has a circulation of 174,073, the 58th most-read paper in the US. The 8-page main section (is there a paper shortage I’m not aware of?) focused on the stock market’s bad day and contained no “science-only” or “science-related” articles. The Local News, Business, and Sports sections were similarly science-free. The cover story of the Life section profiled local people using solar panels in their homes, but it focused on the economics and logistics, steering clear of the science.

Science Reporting Scorecard:

Science-only articles
Local: 0
Other: 0

Science-related articles
Local: 0
Other: 0