We had a system that worked. Thousands of people — I was one of them! — were thrilled to work like hell for shit wages to provide everyone with news. We went to your local city council and school board meetings. We told you when your taxes were going up, when major employers in your community were expanding or laying off and what all those sirens you heard the night before were about. We also ran a selection of regional, state, national and international news. Nobody liked or trusted us, but in fact, newspaper journalists were generally quite ethical. We weren’t motivated by money because we weren’t paid any.
Nobody appreciated us and now we are all doing other work. The world is cracking from the lack of trustworthy news. I’d just offer my middle finger to the world, but I have kids and grandkids. So I don’t know where we go from here.