Previous posts have discussed the crisis in local news. Steven Waldman and Charles Sennott at The Atlantic:
In this moment, the bottom is falling out economically for local news organizations. Those small businesses in your town that are closing left and right? They are also advertisers for your area paper. And the stock-market collapse that has halved your 401(k)? It’s also devastating the local foundation that funds nonprofit news organizations. Many news outlets are taking down their paywalls to make information on the coronavirus more accessible. That decision—although the right one—means lost revenue too.
At Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms and helps pay up to half their salaries, we have been receiving some urgent warnings from our partner newsrooms: Their finances are cratering, to the point that they’re not sure they can afford even their half of a reporter’s salary.
The Los Angeles Times announced earlier this month:
The twice-weekly Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader, two community newspapers owned by the Los Angeles Times, will now publish weekly. The publications will continue to be inserted into The Times on Saturdays. Wednesday print editions will end. The News-Press and Leader post stories seven days a week online, as well as on social-media platforms. No changes are planned in coverage. Our journalists will continue to cover government, crime, schools and sports. This was a business decision. Print advertising, which supports much of the newsroom operation, declined significantly enough on Wednesdays to warrant consolidating on Saturdays, which has greater circulation.