Source: The Pamphleteer
by Davis Hunt
“It’s no secret that the rise of the internet in the early 2000s led to the decline of local news. As Google and Facebook sucked up ad revenue that once went to your local alt-weekly or print newspaper, the media landscape in local municipalities slowly eroded. Since then, the abandonment of legacy media institutions has only accelerated. In 2018, the Tennessean had 85,899 total subscribers (77,369 print and 8,530 digital). By 2022, that number had dwindled to just 31,863 (29,404 print and 2,459 digital). I don’t think I need to elaborate on the effect this trend has had on the quality of local coverage. Over the past five years nationally, newspaper staffs are down 59 percent and readership is down 77 percent.” (05/23/23)