Opinion: These are very challenging times for the nation’s newspapers

Every week, two newspapers in this country go out of business, according to a report issued in June by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Twenty-five hundred newspapers have closed since 2005 and many more are expected to stop operating by 2025, the report concluded. Since 2004, the number of newspaper newsroom employees in this country has fallen from 71,640 to 30,820, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier this year. These declines have caused a rise in “news deserts,” which are rural and urban communities with limited access to credible news and information that can influence how their residents live their lives.