Coronavirus Is Hammering the News Industry. Here's How to Save It.

[Thaddeus]

Coronavirus Is Hammering the News Industry. Here’s How to Save It[link:https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/coronavirus-news-industry-newspapers-journalists-layoffs|
Published in Jacobin by @VWPickard

The media landscape in the United States is increasingly grim. In recent weeks, thirty-three thousand news workers have lost their jobs or had their hours and pay slashed. Newspaper chains are going bankrupt as vulture capitalists pick over the remains. With advertising revenues decimated, local news outlets are hollowing out, silencing an important source of information when it’s needed most.

But it’s important to understand that commercial journalism, always prone to crisis, was collapsing long before COVID-19. The newspaper industry had already shed over 50 percent of its employees since the early 2000s. The virus, more an accelerant than a cause, simply kicked over a teetering edifice.

[...]

Some analysts blame Google and Facebook for devouring most digital advertising revenue. But while these firms should be brought to heel for a host of social harms, identifying monopoly power as the primary source of the journalism crisis misdiagnoses the problem. There’s a deeper pathology at work: capitalism and journalism have always been at odds. It’s time to sever their unholy union.

Read the rest of the article here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/coronavirus-news-industry-newspapers-journalists-layoffs

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I have three subscriptions to newspapers.

Two are online only, one is print our local paper in our small city. Today they notified us that they would only be printing a paper Wednesday through Sunday. it is terrifying many times the local media are who are on top of the bad things the impact us every day. The media are all we have between us and the oligarchs.