Max Jones

The death of local newspapers is a disaster that will really play out in the decades come to come, especially with declining media literacy. The thing here is that a lot of jabrones lump everyone in "The Media" together. "The Media" can technically consist of multi-million dollar ESPN takesman, a crime reporter from the Grand Forks Herald and an NFL podcaster. But the person covering crime or local politics for say the Lexington Herald-Leader isn't some CNN anchor making millions or some high-profile political columnist. It's almost always a regular Joe or Jane who lives in the community they cover and makes just enough to pay the bills. Sure, some online and independent sites will fill in some gaps. But if you are a young person and you see this, why on earth would you enter the local news profession given the annual drumbeat of layoffs and AI eventually covering some of this stuff? Smart young people will rightfully flee to anything safer, which is everything else. A disaster.