Author: TheGuardian

Maintaining public media infrastructure should be non-negotiable for a democratic society, and requires bold action. The McClatchy newspaper chain’s recent filing for bankruptcy is one more data point showing that American journalism is dying. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the newspaper industry has lost more than 50% of its employees since 2001. While several big national papers like the New York Times are healthy, more typical are the closures, bankruptcies, and extreme downsizing that increasingly leave cities, towns and rural communities without local news. This carnage has attracted opportunistic pathologies, from hedge funds buying up distressed...

White nationalist hate groups in the United States have increased 55% throughout the Trump era, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and a “surging” racist movement continues to be driven by “a deep fear of demographic change.” Nationally, there were 155 such groups counted last year, and they were present in most states. These groups were counted separately from Ku Klux Klan groups, racist skinheads, Christian Identity groups, and neo-Confederate groups, all of which also express some version of white supremacist beliefs. Since the turn of the millennium, the report says, “American racists...