The fight for the future of America's local newspapers

Today some of [Hartford Courant’s] young reporters fear for its future. Gathered downtown on a drizzly October afternoon, they have a new mission: finding a civic-minded rich person to buy their publication.

Their hope is to rescue the Courant from what they see as the clutches of investors out solely for profit rather than to uphold democratic ideals and expose social ills. Emily Brindley, an energetic 25-year-old who leads the paper’s coronavirus coverage, summarises her view of its existence under its current owner, a New York hedge fund: “At best, we’re numbers on a spreadsheet,” she says. “At worst, we’re not even on a spreadsheet.”