For most of the twentieth century, the iconic American investigation looked like a solo act: one reporter, one source in a parking garage, one newspaper willing to absorb the legal risk. That image still has its place, but in 2026 it no longer describes how much of the country’s most consequential accountability reporting actually gets […]
On a warm morning earlier this summer, a group of reporters, photographers, and copy editors stood outside a newspaper building in the Midwest, handing coffee to passersby and explaining why they had walked off the job for the day. A decade ago, a scene like that would have been a rarity in American journalism. In […]
Pick up a phone anywhere in America in 2026 and the news feels free. Headlines scroll past on social feeds, push alerts buzz all day, and AI assistants can summarize the morning’s events in seconds. But none of that reporting is actually free to produce — and behind the scenes, the American news industry is […]
