; Whereas the number of print media sources published by and for American Indian readers has shrunk dramatically in recent years, from 700 media outlets in 1998 to only 200 in 2018; Whereas Tribally owned news outlets are often dependent on Tribal governments for funding, but most of those outlets lack the policy structure necessary to fully protect journalistic independence; Whereas a 2018 survey by the Native American Journalists Association found that 83 percent of respondents believed that Native press coverage of Tribal government affairs was sometimes, frequently, or always censored; Whereas there are more than 550 Latino news media outlets in the United States, and those news media outlets rely primarily on a declining advertising revenue base; Whereas the lack of local news impacts communities that speak languages other than English, which are often excluded from national media coverage; Whereas more than 100 local newsrooms have closed during the COVID–19 pandemic; 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; 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