> Are you under the impression that government corruption and injustice are things of the past?
Oh, come now.
> Except that we live in a world of deepfakes, astroturfing, and a dozen other reasons not to trust what is posted on the internet by any random person.
And professional journalists are going to be immune to these things? A lot of the time, journalists actually repost what they see on Twitter and YouTube. I suppose that in an ideal world journalists would wise up in the face of deep fakes and trust their various sources a lot less, but caution != profit.
> And building on my comment above, Random Joe isn't going to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating illegal arms sales, contract fraud, or hundreds of other things that big journalism companies do routinely.
I don't agree that you need Big Journalism for that job to be done. Individuals in the press who are outside Big Journalism, as you put it, can do the same job independently and for a fraction of the cost.
> Member-supported radio doesn't cover 1/1000th of what local newspapers do.
Sure, local newspapers have an edge over public radio, but you can also use that same argument against Big Journalism, which despite its resources can't do the same job that local newspapers do.
> I think you may not understand the value of professional journalism, past and present, perhaps because you haven't been exposed to it, or its consequences.
That's not a fair assessment at all.