Letter from the editor on fundraising 

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786.

One of the fundamental strengths of American democracy is a free press, enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution. And yet this essential watchdog has been under attack. Since COVID, newsrooms have lost more than 30,000 staff; since the advent of the internet, newsrooms have lost hundreds of thousands of staff.

We are in a new era of journalism. Gone are the mad men days of record profits and advertising bonanzas. With the advent of digital advertising, social media aggregate and now generate artificial intelligence models purloining our work, newsrooms have been shrinking for decades.

The Albuquerque Journal is not immune to this trend. We are lucky to live in a state where 70% of newspapers are family owned. But like other papers, our business model is changing. You have already seen more products from us: podcasts and native newsletters. You will soon see more from us such as more live video events and coverage. But, fundamentally, our business model must also change. Which is why I’m writing to you.

In recent years, we have had to decrease our number of investigative reporters to one. And one is not enough to examine unprecedented spending by our state and local governments, with the greater potential for waste, fraud and abuse. To that end, this month, we have launched a Civic Impact Journalism Fund in partnership with the Local Media Association. Every dollar for the rest of the year will be matched and the money will go towards funding more investigative reporters.

The Journal in the past has investigated child and senior exploitation, police corruption and environmental abuse. With your help we can continue to be a strong watchdog. As Jefferson said, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Jay Newton-Small is the executive editor and vice president of the Albuquerque Journal.