McClatchy laid me off. The need for local journalism didn’t go with me.

I was hired to fill a gap in local news coverage. Seven years later, that gap is widening again.

When I was hired in 2019 to cover public health in Eastern Kentucky at the Lexington Herald-Leader, my job was to fill a gap in news coverage. For four of my last seven years at one of Kentucky’s oldest and only remaining statewide newspapers, outside organizations have helped pay my salary.

In spite of that financial support, McClatchy laid me off Sept. 10, along with 12 of my colleagues. Nationwide, the company cut more than 30% of its journalism workforce.