There used to be journalists in every town or city working for local newspapers back when ad revenue stayed local. Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field.

> In 1990 we had one daily news(paper) journalist for every 4,490 Americans. Now (or 2019 to be exact), we have one such reporter per 14,250.

https://www.reportforamerica.org/2021/06/28/the-journalist-p...

> Don’t confuse the success of a handful of top journals with the health of the field.

You appear to be confusing the health of a certain class of employment with the health of the product people in that class used to produce.

That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper. Even national politics is only covered when it's click-bait worthy. Economy? Just a little bit. Foreign politics? Perhaps in a neighboring country when there's an election or something; otherwise, forget it. But its science, art and human interest sections are still comparable. Those don't feed democracy, though.

> That's false. I have a 20-odd year old newspaper in a drawer, and it contains so much more news about the world than today's paper.

Do you think that journalism can't exist outside of a newspaper?