About 1,300 U.S. communities have completely lost news coverage as more than one in five newspapers have shuttered in the past 15 years. Many of the nation’s remaining 7,100 newspapers have essentially become “ghost papers” — little more than advertising supplements. Half of the 3,143 counties in the United States have only one remaining newspaper, and most of those are small weeklies.

That being said, I feel like it is important to spend a little time celebrating some of the vibrant local reporting that is still taking place across the nation. As an absolute news junkie, there are a number of ways that I keep up with important local reporting, the quality of which never ceases to impress me.