NewsGuild President Tells Lawmakers Local News is Facing an Extinction-Level Threat

NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss told a House subcommittee on Friday that local news is facing "an extinction-level" threat that jeopardizes American democracy.

"In the last 16 years, 2,100 newsrooms across the country have shut down," Schleuss said. "And there are half as many newspaper journalists working today as there were a decade ago."

NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss remotely testified in front of a House subcommittee on Friday that local news is facing "an extinction-level" threat.

The financial crunch has left publications vulnerable to takeover by predatory financial actors who don't care about investing in local news. They only care about cash extraction, and they accomplish that by strip-mining local news outlets and cutting staff. What's left are ghost newspapers, or no news coverage at all.

"These hedge funds, like Alden Global Capital, are cutting people off from knowing what's happening in their communities and eroding our democracy," said Schleuss.

Schleuss called for lawmakers to ensure that any organization receiving additional revenue must be required to bargain in good faith and remain neutral when their workers want to organize a union.

Watch his full testimony here.