There used to be journalists in every town or city working for local newspapers back when ad revenue stayed local. Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field.
In 1990 we had one daily news(paper) journalist for every 4,490 Americans. Now (or 2019 to be exact), we have one such reporter per 14,250.
That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Even national politics is only covered when it's click-bait worthy. Economy? Just a little bit. Foreign politics? Perhaps in a neighboring country when there's an election or something; otherwise, forget it. But its science, art and human interest sections are still comparable. Those don't feed democracy, though.
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At every level of quality, there is more journalism than there was before.
There used to be journalists in every town or city working for local newspapers back when ad revenue stayed local. Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field.
https://www.reportforamerica.org/2021/06/28/the-journalist-p...
You appear to be confusing the health of a certain class of employment with the health of the product people in that class used to produce.
That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Even national politics is only covered when it's click-bait worthy. Economy? Just a little bit. Foreign politics? Perhaps in a neighboring country when there's an election or something; otherwise, forget it. But its science, art and human interest sections are still comparable. Those don't feed democracy, though.
Do you think that journalism can't exist outside of a newspaper?