The plight of local media is dire. In the wake of COVID-19, our members have seen revenues halved, struggling to compete with the cutthroat nature of programmatic advertising. Businesses and government departments have shifted their ads elsewhere, leaving us financially strained. While people still rely on our information, the meager rates negotiated by tech giants like Meta and Google make it impossible to sustain operations or pay our employees. We demand fairness—a fair rate for ads on our sites that reflects our business costs. We urge the government to bring their ads back and appeal to the public and local businesses to understand the consequences of diverting ad spending offshore. Every dollar lost impoverishes us, our communities, and the very buyers they seek to reach. We simply ask for fair compensation for our labor. That’s all.