Layoffs and cutbacks in online news are an existential threat to democracy.

Friend,

BuzzFeed News was once seen as the future of online news. Now it’s gone.

Vice News was once celebrated as the internet-based hope for investigative reporting. Now it’s bankrupt.

This year alone, layoffs and cutbacks have been announced at so many news sites that it’s nearly impossible to keep track—all driven by rising costs and declines in website traffic due to the greed of venture capital and changes in the big social media algorithms.

But what makes the graveyard of online news media so dangerous for democracy is that it’s coming after two decades of newspapers gutting newsrooms or going out of business, leaving fewer and fewer reliable news sources to inform the public and hold the powerful accountable.

At Common Dreams, we’ve never taken a dime of advertising or charged a subscription fee. But we’re still affected by these same broader forces that are driving up our costs and making it harder for people to find news they can trust.

That’s why our periodic fundraising campaigns are so crucial to everything we do—and to meet our Mid-Year Campaign goal, we need readers like you to do whatever possible to reach it.

Will you donate right now to help make sure we don’t fall short?