ABSTRACT
It is impossible to think about the role of local journalism out of its context. In the United States of America, as in many other Western societies, this context is of increasing precarity. This chapter analyses observations made at key industrial and academic events, which are complemented by interviews with local players and articles, reports and studies produced by prominent actors in the field of news. Despite the significant changes brought by the digital, the core ideas that organise the business of providing local journalistic content in the regional press remain virtually unchanged from the analogic age. By the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the technological disruption brought by the internet had already syphoned advertising revenue from local newspapers to a reduced number of big technological players. Print advertising is collapsing and collective actors, increasingly aware of the inability of newspapers to compete with SMP for digital advertising, take issue with the sustainability of advertising as a revenue stream.
