Joe Kriesberg and Laura Colarusso tell us about the present and future of CommonWealth Beacon

On the latest “What Works” podcast, I talk with Joe Kriesberg, the publisher of CommonWealth Beacon, and Laura Colarusso, the editor. Ellen Clegg is off the air this week but edited this episode behind the scenes.

CommonWealth Beacon is a digital nonprofit that’s part of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, better known as MassINC, and Joe is the CEO. CommonWealth Beacon covers politics and public policy at the state level and has increasingly been branching out into local coverage as well. And it happens to be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Joe has been with MassINC since 2023 and has overseen the expansion of CommonWealth Beacon’s staff and mission. Before that, he was president and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, where he was a leading advocate for affordable housing. He brings decades of nonprofit management experience and an extensive background of working with news organizations. He has raised millions of dollars for mission-driven organizations.

Laura is an award-winning editor and reporter who combines digital media expertise with a commitment to old-school reporting. Before coming to CommonWealth Beacon, she was the editor of Nieman Reports, a magazine and website published by Harvard’s Nieman Foundation that covers issues related to journalism. She has also worked as the digital managing editor at GBH News and the digital opinion editor at The Boston Globe, and is a frequent contributor to the Washington Monthly.

Some disclosures: I’m a member of CommonWealth Beacon’s editorial advisory board and write occasional opinion pieces for the publication. I also worked with Laura at both GBH News and Nieman Reports.

I’ve got a Quick Take on the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, published recently by the international organization Reporters Without Borders. It shows that the United States has fallen to 64th, coming in just behind Botswana and just ahead of Panama.

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

Also, an important announcement: Our annual What Works webinar will take place on Thursday, May 21. It’s a free, all-day event aimed at enhancing skills in audience development, ethical and effective uses for AI, and how to plan a successful event. You can register here.

A summary of our conversation

We used Otter, an AI-powered tool, to produce a transcript of our conversation, then fed it into Claude and asked it to write a 600-word summary, which was then read by us for accuracy. The results are below. Do you find this useful? Please tell us what you think by using the Contact form linked from the top of our website.

CommonWealth Beacon, the Massachusetts-focused nonprofit news outlet, began its life in 1996 as CommonWealth magazine, a glossy quarterly covering quality-of-life issues across the state. In a wide-ranging conversation with “What Works” co-host Dan Kennedy, publisher Joe Kriesberg and editor Laura Colarusso described how the organization has evolved — dropping print in 2018, rebranding as CommonWealth Beacon in November 2023, and expanding its staff and mission — and what they hope to accomplish in the years ahead.

Kriesberg, who joined the organization as publisher before the new brand launched, explained that the transition away from print was driven by financial pressures and changing reader habits, but that leadership recognized the shift also demanded a rethinking of editorial identity. After a three-year planning process that included studying outlets like The Texas Tribune and the Connecticut Mirror, CommonWealth Beacon committed to digital-first journalism with deeper, more enterprise-oriented reporting — moving away from the daily news cycle while still maintaining a consistent, authoritative presence in readers’ inboxes.

The hiring of Colarusso as editor was part of that strategic recalibration. Kriesberg said they sought someone who had experience in both print magazine work and daily digital journalism, and who could remain adaptive in an industry that, as he put it, “changed three or four times” even in his short tenure in the field. Colarusso came to the role with a background at GBH News and the Nieman Foundation, among other institutions, and brought a clear editorial vision: connect what happens on Beacon Hill to the lived experiences of people across the commonwealth. The story she highlighted as exemplary was a piece by Gateway Cities reporter Hallie Claflin about life in Leominster two years after its maternity unit closed — ground-level reporting that illustrated how state policy decisions ripple through communities.

Both Kriesberg and Colarusso emphasized CommonWealth Beacon’s role in holding state government accountable. Massachusetts, Kriesberg noted, has been ranked as having the least transparent legislature in the country by the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a de facto one-party state, it faces limited electoral accountability. CommonWealth Beacon’s audience includes legislators, senior government officials, and policymakers who rely on it daily — making the publication’s role in educating those decision-makers about the impact of their choices especially consequential.

On the question of local news deserts, Colarusso described efforts to share content freely with smaller hyperlocal outlets and to build collaborative reporting partnerships. A current joint investigative project with The Concord Bridge was cited as an example of what’s possible — and of how resource-intensive such work can be. Both acknowledged that the communities most in need are often the least affluent and the least served.

CommonWealth Beacon’s partnership with States Newsroom, which began in 2022, provides meaningful grant support in exchange for content-sharing rights, contributing to a diversified revenue model that also includes individual donors, foundation grants, advertising, and event sponsorship.

On distribution, Colarusso stressed the importance of non-algorithmic channels — especially newsletters — in an era of declining web traffic. The outlet’s flagship daily newsletter, The Download, has a fiercely loyal readership. A newly hired digital producer will help develop additional newsletters targeting broader audiences. Events have also emerged as a key engagement tool, fostering the in-person connections that readers and community members crave.

Looking toward the organization’s 40th anniversary, Kriesberg called for sustainable growth, strong organizational culture, editorial independence, and inclusive coverage of the whole state. Colarusso added one word to that vision: ambition — the goal of becoming a publication that people across Massachusetts know they can turn to for the information they need to be informed citizens.