Local Papers Die While Gannett laughs in Hedge Fund Hell

America's small-town newspapers, those noble guardians of farm gossip and county fair scandals, are ghosting their own towns faster than you can say 'news desert.' Medill School's 2025 report shows half of the 136 paper closures in 14 months were tiny indie players — tiny chains with five or fewer papers — throwing in the towel as if bad Yelp reviews came to life. Investment firms, flush with ‘blood money’ from Gannett, Alden Global Capital, and MediaNews Group, barely blinked, closing only eight. Meanwhile, 213 counties now have no local news at all, pushing 50 million folks to rely on Facebook ads for breaking stories. And oh, digital-only news? Mostly urban, nonprofit save-the-world wannabes not cozy enough for flyover country. Tim Franklin, Medill’s local news czar, bemoans that even the most passionate publishers are ‘throwing up their hands’ as though newspapers are haunted by Madonna’s ’90s dance moves. RIP community ink.

Share the Story

(1 of 3)

Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Small-town newspapers are going extinct faster than your high school MySpace page, while hedge funds roll in dough owning half the surviving papers. Meanwhile, 50 million Americans live in news ghost towns reliant on TikTok trends for their daily updates.

272/280 charactersReady to post

Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

We've lost more indie newspapers in the last 14 months than the number of times developers abandoned their crypto projects. Guess hedge funds prefer cash over county fair pumpkin recipes.

204/280 charactersReady to post

Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Imagine a dystopia where your only news comes from hedge fund press releases and digital 'nonprofits' that don't even bother leaving the urban city limits. Welcome to the 2025 news desert.

205/280 charactersReady to post