Newspapers in the United States have traveled rough seas to the First Amendment freedoms we enjoy today. From the colonial Stamp Act through wartime censorship to today, when thousands of newspapers were slammed with the public health emergency known as COVID-19, people who work for newspapers have never had completely smooth sailing.
Now most of the businesses that advertise with us are shut down. The pipeline to make our payroll shut down with them. People are restlessly waiting in their locked-down homes for us to bring the news nonetheless.

Across the country, journalists and the thousands of people it takes to let them do their work — from publishers to ad salespeople to printers — are figuring out ways to keep the news coming.
A disheartening chord is sounding here and there across America’s mournful song about this tragic era: why should Americans still support newspapers?
Some…