Friend,
The state of the U.S. news media is dire. In just the first 8 months of the year, 7,200 people were laid off across the industry.
One hundred jobs cut at CNN. Four hundred at Gannett, the largest U.S newspaper publisher, and 450 at McClatchy, which owns dozens of local papers.
Buzzfeed, SPIN, and Vice slashed jobs. ThinkProgress, a nonprofit progressive media outlet, shut down entirely last month. The left-leaning Splinter News was shuttered last week.
But the consolidation of our media and massive downsizing of newsrooms isn't just a crisis for the industry—it's a crisis for our democracy.
News outlets all over the country are driven by the demands of a shrinking handful of giant corporations that are beholden to advertisers and investors, gutting what was once a cornerstone of our democracy: an independent press.
And it's all happening as we live through the most dangerous time for global democracy in decades.
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