> Folks who want more traditional journalism will pay for it.

If that is a tiny minority of people then there won't be a critical mass available to pay real journalists. No journalist can afford to work on long form investigative stories on minimum wage.

Even relatively straightforward legwork on a completely local story requires some driving around doing interviews. A whistleblower isn't going to just do a Zoom call with a journalist. A journalist can't get a first-hand account of an event from watching a webcam.

Good journalism isn't cheap. It doesn't have to be lavishly expensive but it's definitely not cheap. If only the New York Times can pay to hire journalists there won't be any meaningful journalism because they simply cannot scale to cover the world let alone the country.

Ok.

If Americans don't value traditional journalism enough to pay what it may cost, it will go away.

Social media doesn’t provide news. It provides regurgitation of actual news by journalists (who need to eat) and a lot of hot takes and commentary on the actual news by journalists. Take away the journalism and you’re left with Reddit hot air.

Americans don't care.

Journalism and news compete with entertainment.

Everyone needs to eat. Lots of jobs have gone away and lots have been created. Just because industries shrink doesn't mean they should be bailed out or supported.

Eh, in that case most 'news' doesn't provide news but opinions and commentary.

Conversely a lot of 'news' in its raw form is posted to social media.

What you're talking about is long form journalism which is expensive and not popular with the 30 second soundbite population we've grown.