The numbers don’t lie. The journalism industry is in deep, deep trouble.
From 2008-2020, nearly two-thirds of the newsroom jobs at U.S. newspapers vanished. Then the pandemic hit, and the floor really dropped out.
More than 90 local newsrooms have shut down completely during the pandemic. Other newsrooms were gutted with layoffs, and few if any went entirely unscathed.
And then, in an additional blow, public interest in the news cratered after Donald Trump left office, with ratings at cable TV news channels like CNN crashing by as much as 50 percent after Trump’s departure.
There’s no sugarcoating it. The core business model that the journalism industry relied on for the last 100 years is dying. But we can’t afford to let investigative journalism die out simply because it doesn’t attract advertisers. We need a new model — and that’s why The Intercept is an independent, nonprofit, reader-supported publication.
Thanks to stalwart support from a major funder and donations from readers, The Intercept has managed to avoid the kinds of bloodbath layoffs that so many of our respected colleagues have faced. But we’re not immune to the same economic trends affecting the entire industry: As web traffic has declined this year, new donations have begun to level off.
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The Intercept was founded to fill gaps in the existing media landscape. Investigative reporting. Adversarial journalism. Deep-dive probes to uncover the secrets that the wealthy and powerful prefer to keep hidden.
When news outlets are forced to make cuts, this kind of original reporting is often the first to be eliminated, because it’s expensive. But investigative reporting that truly holds the powerful to account is crucial to our democracy.
As a nonprofit, we accept no advertising on our website and rely on donations from readers and members to help support our journalism. And with revenue and donations down across the news industry, we’re making an urgent request to all our readers to step up and chip in whatever you can.
Will you make a donation to help support the hard-hitting investigative reporting of The Intercept?
