Tough Times for News Friends! # 📰💔

Hey there, sweetie! Imagine our news friends are like candy stores, but lately, some of them are having a bit of a tough time. You know how we love our candy, right? Well, big news candy stores like Condé Nast, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, and others had to let some of their workers go. It's like if candy stores had to close some of their doors.

Even our favorite magazine, Popular Science, had to stop printing its fun pages. And magazines like BusinessWeek and The Nation are taking it slow, becoming monthly instead of weekly, like when we enjoy special treats once in a while.

This year, it's been like a game of musical chairs at the candy store. The news friends have lost nearly 2,700 jobs, and that's the most since 2020, a year that was a bit tricky because of a bug called Covid-19. But this time, it's not a bug; it's just hard for the news friends.

You see, people aren't visiting the candy store as much, which makes it tough for them to share all the exciting candy news. And the ads that help them stay open, like when we see fun commercials, are not coming in as much. It's like if our favorite candy store had fewer customers and fewer colorful signs.

Now, here's the tricky part. When the candy stores are having a hard time, it means we might not get to hear all the cool stories they usually tell us. It's a bit like if our bedtime stories disappeared. And that's not good, especially when we want to know what's happening in our big world.

Our friend Margaret Sullivan, who knows a lot about these things, says losing these news jobs is not just sad but can also do some "damage to society." She worries that some places might not get enough news, like when a desert doesn't have enough water. And when we don't have enough news, it can be tricky to know what's true and what's not.

So, let's hope our news friends find a way to bounce back, just like we do when we accidentally drop our candies. Because a world with less news is like a world with fewer flavors of candy—less exciting and not as sweet! 🍭✨