The AP goes local; plus, the National Trust runs into trouble in Colorado, and a call for de-Foxification

The Associated Press has been in the news a lot lately, both because of its feud with the White House over Donald Trump’s insistence that it refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and for some cuts it’s had to implement (see Gintautus Dumcius’ story in CommonWealth Beacon and Aidan Ryan’s in The Boston Globe).

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But here’s some good news: The AP announced on Thursday that it’s creating a Local Investigative Reporting Program to support efforts at the community level. According to an annoucement by executive editor Julie Pace, the initiative will be headed by veteran AP editor Ron Nixon, who “will work with state and local outlets to cultivate stories and support their investigative reporting needs.”

The program will encompass training, resources and access to AP services, and will build on the agency’s Local News Success Team “to localize national stories for member audiences and provide services and support to newsrooms across the U.S.”

And by the way: As promised, the AP has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming that cutting off access to its journalists over the “Gulf of America” dispute is a violation of the First Amendment. Brian Stelter of CNN reports that the lawsuit says in part:

The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government. The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom.

I would note that The Boston Globe’s live feed of Trump updates consists almost entirely of stories from the AP. It’s good to see that Trump’s assault on its First Amendment right to commit journalism isn’t stopping it from covering the news.

Trouble in Colorado

The nonprofit National Trust for Local News is closing newspapers and cutting budgets in the suburbs of Denver not long after its management of the Portland Press Herald and 15 other daily and weekly papers in Maine came under scrutiny and where significant cuts are reportedly looming.

Colorado was where the National Trust began, as the organization acquired 24 weekly and monthly newspapers owned by Colorado Community Media in 2021. As Ellen Clegg and I reported in “What Works in Community News,” the purchase — intended to keep the papers out of the clutches of chain ownership — was financed with a $1.5 million loan from a philanthropic investor. Larry Ryckman, the editor and co-founder of The Colorado Sun, which was brought in to help manage the papers, told us that the papers were profitable and said, “Our job is not to break it.” (That relationship has since been unwound, and Ryckman is now the Sun’s publisher.)

Well, things have changed. Corey Hutchins, who writes the newsletter Inside the News in Colorado, reports that CCM is closing two papers and is losing money, with reporters chafing at the low pay while “multiple employees” at the National Trust receive salaries in excess of $100,000. It’s gotten so bad, he writes, that CCM’s editorial director, Linda Shapley, asks new reporters to give her two years, after which she’ll help them find a job somewhere else.

“It’s a really crappy way to staff a newsroom,” Shapley is quoted as saying. “Unfortunately, that’s the only way I can staff a newsroom right now.”

The National Trust owns a group of 18 papers in Georgia as well.

The National Trust’s co-founder and executive director, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, recently left her position abruptly, not long after the equally abrupt departure of Lisa DeSisto as CEO of the Maine Trust for Local News, the organization that comprises the Portland Press Herald and its affiliated papers.

‘Facts over fear’ at Fox?

Mike Blinder, publisher of the trade magazine Editor & Publisher, has written an open letter to Fox Corp. chair Lachlan Murdoch asking him to add Fox News’ voice to that of The Wall Street Journal, a Murdoch paper whose ultraconservative editorial page has nevertheless been calling out Donald Trump for his disastrous stands on issues like tariffs and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

Blinder writes that “the Journal alone cannot shift the narrative. It will take a change in approach at Fox News to ensure that necessary checks and balances remain in place, allowing principled conservatives to act based on conviction rather than fear.” He could have also mentioned the New York Post, the Murdoch family’s Trump-friendly tabloid that nevertheless ran a front-page photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday with the headline: “President Trump: This Is a Dictator.” Blinder adds:

This is not just about preserving Republican ideals — it is about ensuring that our national discourse is driven by truth, not fear. The American right is not a monolith. There is an enormous audience in the center-right — business leaders, national security conservatives, and Reagan Republicans — seeking a media voice that reflects their values. A Fox News that prioritizes facts over fear, leadership over loyalty tests, and intellectual rigor over blind allegiance stands to regain more audience than it loses.

I wouldn’t count on it. As two recent long articles, by Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg in The New York Times Magazine (gift link) and by McKay Coppins in The Atlantic (gift link), make clear, the fractious, litigious Murdoch family is going to continue running Fox News as a toxic right-wing conspiracy-minded outlet as long as Rupert Murdoch is alive.

When old Rupe inevitably departs this vale of tears, Lachlan’s brother, James, and his two sisters, Prudence and Elisabeth, may be able to wrest control of Fox News from Lachlan and run it as a more normal conservative channel. Or not. But in any case, it’s not going to happen as long as the 93-year-old patriarch is still alive.