“I used to be in that camp myself. Who wants public officials or government bureaucrats interfering in news, I always felt. No, thanks. But having watched the grim consequences of local news’s worsening decline over the past two decades, I think the Local Journalism Sustainability Act has real value.” WaPo’s excellent Margaret Sullivan: Congress may be about to help local news. It can’t happen soon enough. (Gift article for ND readers.) This is an absolutely critical issue and we need to figure out some way to get it right. Local news creates community, and can act as a trusted source of information on life and death topics (floods, hurricanes, pandemics). And the vacuum created when they crater is often filled by nefarious national brands spreading overt lies about those very same life and death topics.