The place of “citizen donors” used to be taken up by “investors.” For a couple of hundred years, newspapers were owned by individuals and families who made a decent living from them. These people and families had a vested interest in serving the communities THEY lived in with real, accurate, information. I’m not saying they were always balanced, but they at least attempted to be. Then there came a time when they were bought up wholesale by large corporations, such as Gannett, McClatchy, etc., the managers of which began to see themselves as “players” on the national political scene. At the same time, they allowed their reporters to write editorials in the place there were supposed to be news stories. These corporations drove them into the ground. To this day, there are profitable, hometown newspapers being operated.
Excellent points - I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. The historical time line seems pretty accurate.
People and reporters who are local have a vested interest in the health and welfare of that locality, unless they’ve been financially comproprised by some outside influence.
That same reasoning can be extrapolated to multi-national corporations in general as well. The obvious question being, do they care about particular local populations health and welfare? They virtually have no country and imho, it appears a lot of them have kissed the US goodbye, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.