At last week’s Republican National Convention, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” asked Donald Trump supporters when the nation was great and how we can get back to that greatness.
In the segment, many stated that it has always been that way.
Correspondent Roy Wood Jr. quickly points out the institution of slavery and the crack epidemic as not-so-great moments in the country’s nearly 300-year history.
Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng also point out segregation, women’s lack of rights, the Native American genocide and so much more to counter Trump supporters’ revisionist view of American history.
Democracy needs journalism it can trust.
This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.
For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.
Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.
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