Jody Brannon, director of Open Markets’ Center for Journalism and Liberty, articulates some optimistic expectations fonr journalism in 2022: more institutions will build on efforts to protect democracy.

The year ahead will find the embattled news industry more willing to welcome government support, while journalists and scholars from all corners redouble their efforts to strengthen our democracy.

Publishers will be more comfortable with regulations and policies taking shape to provide aid to communities hard hit by pandemic fallout and damaged media economies, while more jobs and programs will focus on threats to democracy caused by an enfeebled and often-distrusted press.

More bipartisan legislators will back elements that support local news now folded into the Build Back Better package. Newly empowered anti-monopolists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department signal tougher enforcement facing the duopoly and vulture capitalists, as Report for America’s Steve Waldman explained in November.

More voting Americans have come to recognize the damage done to our democracy with fewer professionals employed as fact-based journalists, as evidenced by the Swedish-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance report that the United States for the first time is a democracy in decline.

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