On the drizzly first Tuesday in March‚ voters crammed into a historic white clapboard meeting house on a hill in Stockbridge‚ Vermont. It was Town Meeting Day‚ when Vermonters across the state gather to debate and vote on local government. And the election for the next member of Stockbridge’s three-person select board‚ the main governing body of this town of just over 700 people‚ had drawn record turnout. As voters waited to cast handwritten ballots in a long queue that snaked around wooden benches‚ University of Vermont sophomore Sarah Andrews approached locals‚ notebook in hand. Andrews and two classmates were not just there for course work: They were there as part of UVM’s Community News Service‚ reporting for the White River Valley Herald‚ the weekly newspaper that covers 16 towns in this rural region. Small newspapers like the Herald have long been the main way of recording and distributing information about community happenings. But local news outlets are disappearing. The 2023 State of Local News report found that about half of all counties across the country have only one local news outlet‚ and more than 200 counties have none. UVM student reporters covered an unusually busy Town Meeting Day in the small town of Stockbridge. Credit: Elizabeth Hewitt As local news deserts grow‚ universities are stepping in. With initiatives ranging from student-staffed statehouse bureaus to newspapers run by journalism schools‚ these academic-media partnerships are bolstering local news. “It’s a short-term win and it’s a long-term win‚” says Penny Muse Abernathy‚ a visiting professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism‚ and co-author of the local news report.  University-media partnerships provide reliable local news coverage in communities where it is needed. In the process‚ students get hands-on experience with community decision-making in a way that shapes their careers and worldviews going forward.