We don't need the government to save journalism

2024 continues to be one of the worst years in recent memory for the legacy media. After a spring of job losses and cutbacks throughout the industry, including at venerable brands such as NBC, CBS, the Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine, the media business continues to experience a free fall as publishers turn toward the latter half of the year.

The new CEO of the Washington Post, Will Lewis, recently told staffers that the newspaper lost $77 million in 2023 and has shed half its audience since 2020. In other words, as Lewis put it to Washington Post journalists: “People are not reading your stuff.”