Baltimore Banner food reporter Matti Gellman covers a press conference at a Bowery Farming vertical farm in Nottingham, Maryland, on March 6, 2024. With her notebook wedged under her arm and a Banner-branded baseball cap on her head, Gellman is launching her career as the long decimation of the news industry in the US reaches what some have called an "extinction-level event." A study by Northwestern University last year identified 204 counties out of some 3,000 in the US as "news deserts," having "no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications." (Photo by Bastien INZAURRALDE / AFP) (Photo by BASTIEN INZAURRALDE/AFP via Getty Images)