American journalism has experienced a spectacular collapse in the last 25 years — daily newspaper circulation has declined from over 60 million subscribers to just over 20 million. And the trend is accelerating: According to the Pew Research Organization, the average monthly number of unique visitors to the websites of the country’s top 50 newspapers plummeted 20 percent in one year from 2021 to 2022.

At the same time, the remaining readership expresses a historically low level of faith that the news they are getting is accurate. Just 32 percent of Americans say they have a “great deal or a fair amount of trust” in the media, according to polling from Gallup.

If there is a bright spot here, polling has long shown that American consumers trust local media more than the national press. “In 2021, Americans were 17 points more likely to say they trust reporting by local news organizations ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ than to trust reporting by national news organizations,” notes a survey done by Gallup and the Knight Foundation. But the rapid consolidation of the news industry has adversely affected the level of trust in the news Americans are consuming. 

Local news organizations, however, have been hit especially hard by the decline in readers. Many have folded, cut staff, been purchased by private equity firms, or absorbed by national news organizations, which has diminished their editorial independence. 

In recent years, hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment poured into local media in what appears to be a salutary injection

In a Fox News interview Wednesday evening, Bret Baier asked Vice President Kamala Harris a question that has long been on the minds of the American people and, of course, her answer was evasive.  

It was the question about President Joe Biden’s mental status and Harris’ role in concealing his cognitive decline, prompted by Harris’ comment that former President Donald Trump is “unstable.”

“You say now [Trump is] unstable, he’s not well, you say he’s mentally not stable,” Baier said, before noting that Harris “told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game” and “ran around circles on his staff.”

“When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental faculties appeared diminished?” Baier asked.

Harris paused for three beats, mouth hanging open, eyebrows furrowed. She was not expecting that question. After all, Biden announced his departure from the race on July 21, some 87 days before this interview. Perhaps she thought folks had forgotten about the mental decline thing.

She responded in a defensive tone.

“Joe Biden, I have watched in — from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. And he has the judgment and the experiment — experience to do exactly what he has done, in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people,” Harris said.

Baier tried for a follow up question, “There were no concerns raised…”

“Bret!” Harris interrupted, speaking louder and over him. She tried to overpower him with her voice and body language, her hand extended flat, palm down as

What happened Wednesday night to Kamala Harris on Fox News may have been the equivalent to what happened to President Joe Biden at that infamous debate in June — irreparably exposed her as unacceptable to voters.

In what was widely seen as a Hail Mary move by Kamala’s campaign, the vice president agreed to an extended interview on Fox News, one of the exceedingly few national TV interviews she’s done since she was anointed the Democrat Party’s post-Biden nominee. Remarkably, she offered nothing new in terms of her weak, often confusing answers to obvious questions, but she did finally face probing lines of inquiry and necessary follow-up when time after time she attempted to change the subject from her performance in the White House to attacks on Donald Trump.

The entire interview was tense, an obvious effort by Brett Baier to wring direct answers out of Kamala on questions that for months she has responded to with professions of her “middle-class family,” and her delight in the “ambitions,” “dreams” and “aspirations” of Americans. She was visibly upset and exasperated by the countless interruptions and redirections, but only because until then she had faced none.

The most plain and self-evident questions a person would have for Kamala are why she’s campaigning as though she’s not currently in the White House; how her administration would be recognizably different from the one in which she serves right now; and when did she decide to take the exact opposite position on several major policy