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For most of the twentieth century, local newspapers were profitable businesses. Their income came largely from advertising, especially classified advertisements for jobs, homes and cars, and this money paid for reporters who attended council meetings, court hearings and school board debates. Over the past twenty-five years, that model has collapsed. Classified advertising moved to specialist websites, and much of the remaining advertising spending shifted to search engines and social media platforms, which can target readers more precisely and more cheaply. Many newspapers have cut staff, reduced the number of days they print or closed altogether, leaving some areas with no regular local reporting at all. The consequences reach beyond the newspaper industry. When nobody is paid to watch local institutions, decisions about spending, planning and schools receive far less public attention. Some studies have linked the loss of local papers to lower participation in local elections and to higher borrowing costs for local governments, possibly because lenders see less outside scrutiny of how public money is managed. National news organisations rarely fill the gap, since a dispute over a single town's budget is unlikely to interest a national audience. Several responses are being tried. Some newsrooms have become non-profit organisations funded by donations and charitable foundations, others rely on readers paying for digital subscriptions, and a few governments have experimented with public support. None has yet produced a model that works everywhere, but there is growing agreement that local journalism provides a public good that the market alone may not pay for.