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Guest Commentary written by
Steven Waldman
Steven Waldman is the president of Rebuild Local News, a coalition that advances public policies to strengthen community journalism. He is also co-founder of Report for America.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is probably one of the more generous newspaper owners in the country – and he just announced devastating layoffs at the Los Angeles Times.
It’s a bewildering juxtaposition, and it should give pause to those of us who spend our time blaming bumbling billionaires, rapacious hedge funds and larcenous tech companies for the collapse of local news.
The truth is, the crisis arose mostly because of tectonic shifts in American economic life that go way beyond one set of villains or bad decisions. It is time we accepted this basic fact: the collapse is so severe, the causes so complex and the consequences so catastrophic, that we also need First-Amendment-friendly taxpayer support and other public policies to rebuild local news.