Small newspapers across the country are going out of business, so there is no one left to cover local news except, perhaps if there is one, a local television channel. Big national papers have been bought by oligarchs who, as this article lays out, are gutting staff, and restructuring the nature and kind of coverage the paper will do. Meanwhile the weaponization of misinformation, from tweets to fake AI-generated written or fake images is taking over how most Americans get information. Look at the Taylor Swift fake porn images or the phony Biden telephone message. We are already a country with low literacy so, I think, America is just a few steps from losing its democracy, and alarmingly close to civil violence between the federal and state governments.