Journalism layoffs are bad for democracy

Last week, USA Today, one of the largest media companies in the nation, laid off an unreported amount of staffers across its network of publications.

On Thursday, McClatchy, owner of The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and The Kansas City Star,  followed suit, laying off more than 90 staffers across at least 13 publications, according to Poynter. 

As of mid-July, there have been more than 2300 media layoffs in the US and UK, according to the Press Gazette. One of the things of being a long-time media person is that you see this same movie over and over, and it’s never fun to watch. I saw this in 2000 as the dot com bubble burst; I saw this in 2008 as the global economy collapsed; I saw this in 2020 as Covid swept the planet. It’s tiring. 

The never-ending stream of journalism layoffs have a direct relationship to the rise of authoritarianism and oligarchy. With fewer people to cover the halls of power, whether that’s at city hall or in offices, the powerful remain in power. This, you may be shocked to learn, is not a good thing. 

We know how vital a free and functioning press is to a democracy. It’s literally enshrined as our First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

We see the erosion of trust of the institution, while at the same time we have an authoritarian in the White House, a Supreme Court majority that lives by the “rules for thee, but not for me” philosophy, and Congress that is so neutered that its protagonist disappears (Where is Mitch, by the way?) and no one bats an eye. (Yet he still manages to get healthcare coverage on our dime. Funny, that.) Maybe if we had more journalists able to ask that basic location question of the senior Senator from Kentucky…

The effects of a decimated press also play out in our industry’s most notable and important publications. With fewer publications covering events, our leading outlets can distort reality. While Agenda Setting is a decades-old idea, now that there are fewer local angles on national events, bigger organizations can, at best, tell us what to think about; at worst, put their thumbs on the scales.

Take for example the following quote from Donald Trump at a September 10 event (bold for emphasis):

“Please raise your right hand: I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can’t even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it any way – I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like hell like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters… We are going to vote on November 3rd, or before that…”

This is how the New York Times interpreted that quote:

“At one point Mr. Trump asked attendees to raise their right hands and pledge to him that they would vote with their family and friends. Dutifully, they did.”

Notice how it does not provide the context; that he is telling his followers to “cheat like hell”. This is not a one-off editorial moment. It’s a system decision, across a vast majority of publications, to act as a translator for the president. We should ask why. Or, at the very least, ask why they don’t paraphrase Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. From February of this year:

Questioned about whether the United States should send troops to defend Taiwan if China invaded the island, she stalled for roughly 20 seconds before offering a substantive response.

“I think that, uh, this is such a, a — you know, I think that — this is a, um — this is of course, a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, before saying that the country should try to avoid reaching that point with China in the first place.

It was a striking moment from a self-assured legislator who is normally nimble at answering impromptu questions from reporters on Capitol Hill, and conservative critics seized on the stumble online.

This is a leading reason why trust in journalism is low; readers can see how the different parties are treated through the press. ::taps the ‘media is not liberal’ sign::

In October 2025, Pew Research (pew pew pew) released its annual trust in journalism survey. This graf speaks volumes (bolded emphasis, again, mine):

“Overall, 56% of U.S. adults now say they have a lot of or some trust in the information they get from national news organizations – down 11 percentage points since March 2025 and 20 points since we first asked this question in 2016. The share of Americans who have at least some trust in information from local news organizations remains higher (70%), although it has also dropped – from 80% in March and 82% in 2016.”

It is a cruel irony that more Americans trust local news orgs than national news orgs at the very moment the billionaire class and private equity vultures gut local newsrooms. For all the hand-wringing about how AI is destroying everything, the underlying problem is, as my friend Karl Bode, likes to say, the brunchlord class. From a May 2026 piece (you should subscribe!): 

This style of journalism, called “both sides” reporting or the “view from nowhere,” is a trademark of our declining corporate press. It buries the truth in favor of a faux-objectivity in order to avoid offending advertisers, readers (ad viewers), sources, or media ownership (almost always conservative white men).

The result is pseudo-journalistic artifice designed to look like useful reporting. Its function is to sell ads (which it doesn’t even do very well), coddle power, normalize corrupt corporatism, and provide a fake sense of understanding to MBAs who don’t want to think too deeply about the ethics of their personal pursuit of wealth.

If the people with the wealth control the message and the medium at both the national level (discourse!) and local level (what the heck is going on in my town), and can (and do) lay off reporters and editors, we can see bigger chasms created between the haves and the have-nots; the Bode Brunchlords and the hoi polloi.

As media consolidates and trust levels plummet and communities suffer from news deserts, what fills the gap? More thoughts coming on that soon, but the down and dirty answer: creators and niche media. 

Thank you for reading!