Legislatures in several states across the country are considering public policy solutions, or have already taken action, to address the decline in the number of local news outlets.

In New Jersey, lawmakers in 2018 approved a public grantmaking consortium that has since provided $10 million in grant funding to 65 organizations to support community-based news and information sources across the state.

But when the most recent state budget proposal was released, funding for the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium was cut to zero, although — thanks to successful lobbying efforts — the budget that became law included $2.5 million for the consortium.

Since the consortium was founded, proposals to create similar public grantmaking bodies for local news and civic information have been introd

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