Daily Kos staff writer Mark Sumners explains the multifaceted collapse of news outlets. Please read.

Friend, at a time when the United States is facing an enormous crisis in just trying to hold on to representative democracy, and there may be more news than ever that absolutely demands to be reported, [the resources to do that reporting are disappearing.]( Like other industries, the news media suffered during the first years of the pandemic. But while the rest of the economy has come roaring back, that’s not the case with news. 2023 was a godawful year, with layoffs in the news divisions at CNN, NBC, and ABC. The Washington Post made deep cuts in October and newspaper chain Gannett chipped its news division by 6%, according to Poynter, which declared 2023 “the worst year for the news business since the pandemic.” [2023 was a rough financial year for Daily Kos and 2024 is shaping up to be just as difficult. Support progressive news and activism with a donation of $5 or more to Daily Kos.]( [DONATE]( As Axios reports, 2024 appears to be a continuation of that trend. This is a presidential election year, which might be expected to generate more interest and more revenue. Except it’s not happening. Revenue and readership are still headed down and major cuts are ripping through news outlets of all sorts, whether they are print, broadcast, or online. The biggest reason is simple: Ad revenue is no longer adequate to support news organizations. But the deeper reason behind that decline is elusive and while everyone scrambles to find some alternative, lights are shutting off in newsrooms across the nation. If “Democracy dies in darkness,” as The Washington Post’s motto insists, it’s starting to look pretty dim out there. And nightfall may not be far away. [That's why I'm asking you to help Daily Kos survive hard times with a donation of $5 or more.]( [DONATE]( Pew Research reported in November, that traditional news media’s audience continues to decline. That’s true of newspapers, national news networks, and their online incarnations. The two exceptions that Pew points out are local broadcast stations, which have seen essentially flat revenues over the past year, and Fox News. While other news networks have seen a decline in the last two years, Fox has been trending upward. Fox News not only holds fast to conservative talking points (even when they are lies) but, unlike its rivals, the network devotes a significant portion of its time to attacking other news outlets, regularly building on Trump’s infamous “fake news” narrative. It’s reached the point where Republicans trust only a very small number of outlets, with Fox News coming in second only to the Weather Channel. But if Democrats trust far more news sources than Republicans, they’re not helping to sustain those outlets with subscriptions or viewership. News outlets are now caught in a trap where ad revenues are falling, a landscape littered with the bodies of former giants makes it difficult to lure investors, and higher interest rates make it more difficult to sustain companies while searching for an answer. This makes it seem as if the answer may be Musk. Or at least Musk, and Rupert Murdoch, and Jeff Bezos, and other deep-pocketed billionaires who can pick up a media property without worrying about making a profit. The recent sale of The Baltimore Sun to multimillionaire David Smith, executive chairman of conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, is a prime example of this worrisome trend. In an insulting first meeting with the staff of his new acquisition, Smith admitted he had only read the paper four times, despite having lived in Baltimore most of his life. He also seemed completely unaware of the paper’s local reporting, even though that reporting generated a recent Pulitzer Prize win. Smith has not committed to keeping any of the paper’s current staff and doesn’t care about their accomplishments. What he bought was just another megaphone to use (alongside the 200 television stations controlled by Sinclair) to spread a conservative, pro-Trump message. [Thankfully, Daily Kos doesn't have a billionaire backer or answer to a bunch of shareholders. Our largest source of income are grassroots donations from our readers and activists. Support Daily Kos with a donation today.]( [DONATE]( A single company owning that many stations would have been unimaginable a few decades ago, and so would the idea of owning newspapers and television stations in the same market. However, the Federal Communications Commission has been steadily easing restrictions, allowing the remaining media outlets to rest in fewer and fewer hands. Rules that were adopted in the 1960s and 1970s were meant to encourage competition in the news space and ensure that no one voice could dominate a local market. Those rules are gone. If you want a glimpse of the feudal society ahead, where billionaires replace barons and run their kingdoms as they see fit, news outlets provide a pretty good sneak peek. The online space was supposed to democratize news. But actual news—collected, analyzed, and written by human beings—requires resources. The precipitous drop in ad revenues has made those resources thin on the ground. How this crisis will be solved remains unclear and it’s far from certain that it will be solved. Daily Kos is not immune to this trend. Those same declining ad revenues that are causing staff cuts across the industry led, in part, to the first layoffs in Daily Kos’ 20-year history last year. [Daily Kos doesn't rely on some billionaire backer, corporate sponsor, exclusive subscriptions or limiting paywalls—we rely on the tens of thousands of readers and activists donating a few dollars at a time to help us make ends meet. That's why I am asking you to support progressive and independent news with a donation of $5 or more today.]( [DONATE]( Thank you, Mark Sumner, Daily Kos staff writer P.S. This post originally appeared on the Daily Kos site and was edited down for the purpose of emailing. You can read the entirety [here.]( If you wish to donate by mail instead, please send a check to Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Contributions to Daily Kos are not tax deductible. Sent via [ActionNetwork.org](. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Daily Kos, please [click here](.