On the third day of the bloody standoff with al-Shabab militants that has killed 62 people, the Kenyan government announced that its military had freed nearly all the hostages at the mall and had killed at least two militants.
Al-Shabab, a militant group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack.
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.
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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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