; Whereas the Pew Research Center reports that nearly 1 in 10 statehouse reporters are student journalists; Whereas more than 360 local newsrooms have closed from the onset of the COVID–19 pandemic in early 2020 to the present day; Whereas the COVID–19 pandemic took a substantial economic toll on the local news industry, contributing to budget cuts, staff layoffs, and scores of newsroom closures, from which the industry has yet to fully recover, as epitomized by mass layoffs and closures at several local news outlets in the 50 States and the District of Columbia in 2023 and early 2024; Whereas PEN America proposed a major reimagining of the local news space in its 2019 call-to-action report, Losing the News: The Decimation of Local Journalism and the Search for Solutions , and called on society and the Federal Government to urgently address the alarming demise of local journalism; and Whereas, half a century ago, Congress perceived that the commercial television industry would not independently provide the educational and public interest broadcasting that was appropriate and necessary for the country, and, informed by an independent report prepared by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has since ensured that radio and television include public interest educational and reporting programs using annually appropriated funds: Now, therefore, be it