Madam Chair, as most of you know, when the pandemic started in 2020, I was a member of the news media. I don't know about newspaper subscriptions, but I can tell you that for broadcasters, viewership skyrocketed. I was covering the pandemic every day. People appreciated it. Many more people were tuning in to get this information. It was critical. We were in an emergency. What did people do to get the information they could trust and rely on? They turned to their traditional local news media to help them understand what was going on. It became so clear how important it is and why having strong news media is a pillar of our democracy.
It's very concerning. The news media was already in a precipitous decline in terms of financial stress. To see that we've lost 450 more news outlets during the pandemic is very concerning.
Could you tell the committee about the types of support the government had for journalism and journalists to get us through the pandemic?