The leading U.S. newspapers lost a whopping 20 percent of their daily subscriptions during the pandemic. USA Today led the decline with the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times also suffering significant losses. (Poynter, August 31, 2021, by Rick Edmonds)
The pandemic has also led to the shut down of over 85 local newspapers. Most of the affected are weeklies in small communities, in most cases, the only source of news about the actions of school boards, city councils and county commissioners. (Poynter, August 31, 2021, by Kristen Hare)
Help may be on its way for local news outlets reports Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post, August 31, 2021, in the form of Congress’ bipartisan initiative, the Local Journalist Sustainability Act. That act would use tax credits to give local news organizations some financial support while figuring out how to survive in an online world.