ABSTRACT
Thousands of legacy journalists, including many older experienced reporters, lost their jobs as a direct result of the financial crisis and its impact on advertising revenues. Prominent newspapers filed for bankruptcy protection, closed or dropped their print versions in favor of online sites with fewer staff and without the cost burden of printing presses and delivery systems. The roof collapsed on the US economy in the middle of 2008 with gross domestic product declining rapidly and 600,000 Americans losing their jobs each month. The reasons for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression were complex but started with falls in the value of structured securities built on unrealistically high real estate collateral, leading to a liquidity crisis and bankruptcies for a number of key financial institutions. Quantifying the number of investigative reporters in the United States in any given period is complicated by definitional issues.
