It’s alarming how many Americans who are most affected by management and policy decisions are oblivious to the issues at hand. This deprives them of the capacity to make their voices heard.

Here’s a particularly jarring example. On December 1st, a KFF tracking poll was released that indicated that “Most Medicaid enrollees (58%) have heard little or nothing about ongoing efforts by states to review enrollees’ eligibility that can result in individuals losing their Medicaid coverage. State Medicaid programs began to review enrollees’ eligibility earlier this year after pandemic-era protections expired, leading to millions of adults and children losing their Medicaid coverage. Among the general public, an even larger share (68%) say they have heard little or nothing about the issue.”

It's easy to blame this ignorance of vital information on the people themselves, but we believe that a great deal has to do with the alarming decline in reliable local news sources – which might be inclined to cover just this kind of news. Even the folks who rely on broadcast news are missing out. According to a November report published by the Medill School of Journalism’s Local News Initiative: “Residents in more than half of U.S. counties have no, or very limited, access to a reliable local news source — either print, digital or broadcast.”

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