The Post’s slogan is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." That isn't a metaphor: there is more darkness now.
28.02.2026 13:26
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The Post’s slogan is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." That isn't a metaphor: there is more darkness now.
Research shows that when communities switch from local to national news, it measurably increases partisan voting.
This is part of what's polarizing America. When newspapers close, we only see partisan labels. Split-ticket voting drops nearly 2%.
www.carnegie.org/our-work/art...
When a local paper closes, residents switch to national news—which is trending away from costly general reporting, while cheaper opinion-driven (and often partisan) content booms. reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-m...
Separate research on California mayoral races found that when newsrooms shrink, elections grow less competitive: fewer candidates run, margins widen, and more incumbents go unopposed.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
The death of newspapers harms democratic participation. Research on the closure of the Cincinnati Post found that voter turnout fell—and stayed down years later—after the paper shut its doors.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Newspaper closures even affect public health. Plants located near more newspaper headquarters tend to produce fewer toxic emissions. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
And—you guessed it—when newspapers close, emissions tend to go up. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
One large study found that when a major daily newspaper covering a federal judicial district disappears, corruption cases there—bribery, embezzlement, fraud—rise by more than 7%.
The researchers suggest officials feel emboldened when no one's looking.
www.cjr.org/analysis/loc...
It also drives up borrowing costs. When no one is watching the public ledger, investors treat cities as higher risk and demand higher yields. Municipal borrowing costs increase by 5 to 11 basis points—roughly $650,000 in added cost per bond issue. Taxpayers absorb this.
Studies show that when local news outlets stop scrutinizing government, efficiency drops. Public payrolls bloat. Waste increases.
The cost gets passed to you—roughly $85 in added taxes per person after a county loses one of its last few papers.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Between 2008 and 2020, U.S. newspaper newsroom employment fell 57%.
More than 200 counties are now "news deserts"—no local outlet at all. In another 1,500+ counties, only one remains. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post offering “financial runway." This month it gutted its newsroom—more than 300 layoffs.
Whatever you think of legacy news, the hard data shows us that newspaper closures hurt Americans. Here's how: 🧵
(11/11) In this new normal, costs are individually adjusted to a consumer’s maximum threshold and wages to a worker’s minimum floor.
The next time you see a price, know that it may not reflect what the item is worth—but what the algorithm believes *you* are worth.
(10/11) Dubal’s research showed that dynamic rates are coming for wages too, with Uber drivers with identical workloads and performance getting different pay based on the lowest amount the algorithm calculated they’d accept. www.columbialawreview.org/content/on-a...
(9/11) This trend has its defenders—Wharton’s Z. John Zhang calls it "efficiency," and says it will lower prices. But legal scholar Veena Dubal has called it “discrimination.”
(8/11) Now, we’re going back to the Bazaar. But this time you’re not up against a shopkeeper. You’re up against a massive digital infrastructure calculating your personal price tolerance.
(7/11)This individualized targeting marks a departure from a 150-year old retail standard. Since John Wanamaker popularized the price tag in 1861, fixed prices have functioned as a de facto social contract. It ensured a market standard: the same cost for every customer, regardless of background
(6/11) Uber tracks battery life. Former exec Keith Chen noted in 2016 that users with low battery are statistically more likely to accept surge pricing. Uber says it doesn’t use that data to set prices, but the correlation remains a point of regulatory scrutiny. www.npr.org/transcripts/...
(5/11) Walmart, Whole Foods, and Kohls are switching to electronic shelf labels that can display dynamic prices. Kroger deployed them with Microsoft AI—a setup a 2024 Senate inquiry warned could enable “surge pricing” via facial recognition. (Kroger claims it will only lower prices.)
4/11) In 2025, Delta tested “Fetcherr,” reportedly an AI designed to find the highest price before a consumer abandons a purchase. Delta has called that characterisation inaccurate, but on investor calls, execs hyped the tech as a “super analyst” that would end static prices.
(3/11) A December 2025 Consumer Reports investigation found that Instacart prices for identical items varied by as much as 23% between different users. Instacart characterizes these discrepancies as routine ‘A/B testing’. www.consumerreports.org/money/questi...
(2/11) You know dynamic pricing—think Uber rides, flights, or concert tickets that surge based on supply and demand. “Surveillance Pricing” takes this to the next level: using your data to set a “price for you” based on your predicted breaking point. This is, increasingly, everywhere.
(1/11) If you live in NY, you’ve probably started seeing a new warning: “THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA.” This mandatory disclosure went into effect late last year, and it’s the first attempt by a US state to grapple with a new generation of surveillance pricing.
For nearly a year, the administration has said that DOGE had no unauthorized access to your Social Security data. A new government filing admits that was false.
(17/17) Press freedom is a critical and fragile right enshrined in our constitution, and one that both parties threaten. Americans who want open access to information—whether nonpartisan or opinionated—should care about this shrinking space on both sides of the aisle.
(16/17) Reporting is why we have reforms that define our modern democracy—from the Pentagon Papers under Nixon exposing the lies of the Vietnam War, to the Snowden revelations under Obama ending bulk collection of phone records.
(15/17) The point isn't that appeals or grand juries are illegitimate—it’s that, in a newsgathering case beginning with minor offenses, this degree of escalation, with a splashy political announcement, is unusual. It demands scrutiny from anyone who cares about press freedom.
(14/17) That combined escalation—procedural and statutory—is evidence of an erosion of the principle of not criminalizing newsgathering that goes well beyond what we saw with Baker.
(13/17) Using §241 against reporters covering a protest is a radical expansion of the statute. It reframes newsgathering—being present to document a disruption—as a "conspiracy" to participate in it, converting passive observation into an active federal felony.
(12/17) They aren't just accused of trespassing, but of "Conspiracy to Deprive Rights" (18 U.S.C. § 241)—a Reconstruction-era statute historically used to prosecute the KKK for terrorizing voters.
(11/17) That's a a pivot to a venue that virtually guaranteed the outcome sought—the Bureau of Justice Statistics has historically found that federal grand juries indict in 99.9% of cases.
