By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
Gotta Know Medford has made its long-awaited debut, bringing real journalism back to this medium-sized city a few miles northwest of Boston for the first time in several years. It looks great, and I can’t wait to dig in.
Congratulations to founders Nell Escobar Coakley, Chris Stevens and Wendall Waters!
Earlier:
I suspect we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the National Trust for Local News and especially its newspapers in Maine, anchored by the Portland Press Herald. The National Trust’s co-founder and CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, stepped down last week, and I’ve heard from serious people that substantial cuts may be coming.
While we’re waiting, though, I recommend this thoughtful analysis by Rick Edmonds, who writes about the business of news for the Poynter Institute. He speculates that one reason the National Trust may have run into trouble was that it morphed from a philanthropic venture that acquired newspapers into a nonprofit organization that saw its mission as actually running them.
In an interview last summer, Dr. Hansen Shapiro told Edmonds, “half-joking,” that “we are becoming like Gannett or McClatchy,” two chains notorious for cutting costs at their newspapers through top-down management. The difference was that the National Trust’s management was focused on improving its papers rather than squeezing out every last drop of revenue. But as Edmonds writes in a piece that was published on Thursday:
In practice, though, that meant not only ownership but decision-making had migrated up to a central office. The trust had become out of sync with the mantra that news organizations work best when they are owned and run by those closest to the local communities.
The National Trust’s first move was to acquire 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in the Denver suburbs back in 2021, which Ellen Clegg and I write about in our book, “What Works in Community News.” It later expanded into Maine and Georgia, and today owns about 60 papers.
Last summer, Hansen Shapiro told Edmonds that the National Trust was shifting from 25% investments and 75% execution to the reverse. In other words, what was originally intended as a project to save newspapers from chain ownership and then run them with a light touch morphed into something much more hands-on.
That has played out in an especially painful way in Maine, where Press Herald editor Steve Greenlee left to take a position at Boston University last year (in an email with Edmonds, he cryptically referred to leaving “at a time of great stress”), and Lisa DeSisto, the longtime publisher of the Press Herald and CEO of the Maine Trust for Local News (essentially a subsidiary of the National Trust), abruptly exited from her job in December.
My usual caveats: Hansen Shapiro is featured in our book and has been on our podcast; DeSisto is a professional friend of ours; and we were the guests at a fundraiser for the Maine Trust last October.
Update: Jody Jalbert has resigned as publisher of the Sun Journal of Lewiston, which is a Maine Trust paper. The story is paywalled, but according to Jalbert’s LinkedIn profile, she had been with the paper in various business-side positions since 1988. That’s a lot of experience to be walking out the door.
News organizations are loading up on stories about Donald Trump’s ridiculous and offensive proposal that the U.S. take over Gaza, relocate its Palestinian residents to Egypt and Jordan, and turn it into a beach resort. At the moment, for instance, The New York Times homepage leads with five stories about Trump and Gaza. The lead headline in The Boston Globe’s print edition is “Audacious Gaza idea has officials scrambling.” (Audacious?)
But we’re also hearing warnings not to get too caught up in Trump’s latest outrage of the day. The real news, we’re told, is that Elon Musk and his merry band of 19-year-olds are illegally taking a wrecking ball to the government, blowing a hole through privacy protections and potentially interfering with federal payment systems.
For instance, Patrick Reiss, who produces a daily newsletter for Vox called The Logoff, writes:
Beware the shiny object: So often, Trump says something wild that takes everyone’s focus and stirs up outrage — and then it gets walked back. It takes all of our attention, but we end up right where we started…. Trump right now is attempting to massively expand his power over the US government, and he’s using that expanded power to make policy moves with ramifications at home and all over the world. That’s the Trump story to keep tracking.
If you’re not familiar with The Logoff, it’s a short daily newsletter that focuses on one Trump story in the news. It’s designed to help you avoid doomscrolling through an endless stream of updates about Trump’s latest shockers. I learned about it from Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab, and I recommend it. You can sign up here.
All that said, I’m not so sure that Trump isn’t serious about Gaza, and shame on the news media for paying so little attention when he brought it up last fall. What? You don’t remember? I do. To his credit, John T. Bennett wrote a long news analysis for Roll Call last October after Trump. Here’s how it began:
A Middle East Monaco? That was what former President Donald Trump recently floated for post-war Gaza — but there are reasons why the concept has yet to gain traction.
Prompted by a conservative radio host earlier this month, the Republican presidential nominee and real estate mogul suggested the obliterated strip one day could rival the ritzy city-state that has become a playground for the world’s rich and famous along the French Riviera.
Trump made those remarks in an interview with right-wing talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt, in which he lied (according to PolitiFact) about having visited Gaza at one time. He told Hewitt: “You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place — the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate. It could be so beautiful. It could be the best thing in the Middle East, but it could be one of the best places in the world.”
Axios mentioned it but put the emphasis on Trump’s lie about having visited Gaza. The much-maligned Newsweek published a story about it. But there was very little mainstream pickup. After all, Roll Call isn’t exactly breakfast-table reading in most homes. The Times even reported on the Trump family’s plan to build a luxury hotel in Israel without making any reference to Trump’s Gaza musings.
Given that this has been rattling around Trump’s head for months, maybe we ought to take it as something more than a distraction from President Musk’s activities. And given that his son-in-law Jared Kushner had previously talked about moving the Palestinian residents out and building and that its waterfront property was “very valuable,” as Patrick Wintour of The Guardian reported in March 2024, maybe we ought to take it very seriously indeed.
Is it going to happen? To quote Patrick Reiss again, “almost certainly not.” As Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman report in the Times (gift link), Trump simply blurted out his idea in a joint appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without any preparation. “There was little beyond an idea inside the president’s head,” they wrote.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to do it. The media simultaneously give Trump too much and too little credit at moments like this. Too much: Oh, he’s a mastermind, blurting out crap to distract us from what’s really important. Too little: He’s an idiot, he doesn’t really mean it, don’t worry about it.
I hope this crazy story will fade away in a day or two. But I wouldn’t be so sure.
This past weekend I listened to a bracingly entertaining conversation that the public radio program “On the Media” conducted with tech journalist Ed Zitron. Co-host Brooke Gladstone had billed it as a chance for Zitron to make sense out of DeepSeek, the new Chinese artificial-intelligence software that purports to do what ChatGPT and its ilk can do for a fraction of the cost — and, presumably, while using a fraction of the electric power burned by American AI companies.
But it was so much more than that. Maybe you’re familiar with Zitron. I wasn’t. As I learned, he is a caustic skeptic of American AI in general. In fact, he doesn’t even regard the large language models (LLMs) that we’ve come to think of as AI as the real thing, saying they are nothing but an error-prone scam that is attracting fast sums of venture capital but will never make any money. Here’s a taste:
The real damage that DeepSeek’s done is they’ve proven that America doesn’t really want to innovate. America doesn’t compete. There is no AI arms race. There is no real killer app to any of this. ChatGPT has 200 million weekly users. People say that’s a sign of something. Yes, that’s what happens when literally every news outlet, all the time, for two years, has been saying that ChatGPT is the biggest thing without sitting down and saying, “What does this bloody thing do and why does it matter?” “Oh, great. It helps me cheat at my college papers.”
And this:
When you actually look at the products, like OpenAI’s operator, they suck. They’re crap. They don’t work. Even now the media is still like, “Well, theoretically this could work.” They can’t. Large language models are not built for distinct tasks. They don’t do things. They are language models. If you are going to make an agent work, you have to find rules for effectively the real world, which AI has proven itself. I mean real AI, not generative AI that isn’t even autonomous is quite difficult.
As you can tell, Zitron has a Brit’s gift for vitriol, which made the program all the more compelling. Now, I am absolutely no expert in AI, but I was intrigued by Zitron’s assertion that LLMs are not AI, and that real AI is already working well in things like autonomous cars. (Really?) But given that we just can’t keep AI — excuse me, LLMs — from infesting journalism, I regarded Gladstone’s interview with Zitron as a reason to be hopeful. Maybe the robots aren’t going to take over after all.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Matt DeRienzo, the new director of SciLine. The project was founded seven years ago to make it easier for reporters to get in touch with scientists on deadline and to dig into research. And facts. The program is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 150-year-old organization that publishes the widely respected journal Science.
Most recently, Matt has been serving as temporary executive editor of Lookout Santa Cruz, the digital daily that won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2024. He has a long track record in investigative and local news, serving as an innovative daily newspaper editor and publisher in Connecticut about 15 years ago. I interviewed Matt in 2011 for my book “The Wired City” when Matt was editor of the New Haven Register and the slogan “Digital First” meant something more than a warning that Alden Global Capital was coming to town.
Matt joins SciLine at an important time. The Trump administration has suspended communications by government agencies that oversee science. Yet many newsrooms aren’t equipped to cover this because they have cut back on science coverage, if they do any at all. SciLine helps reporters find expert sources and gives them the tools to interpret cutting-edge research. Matt has a staff of 14 and the organization seems poised for growth.
I’ve got a Quick Take that hits close to my home in Medford, Massachusetts. A brand-new digital-only for-profit news outlet called Gotta Know Medford is on the verge of going live. It’s the first time the city of nearly 60,000 has had a dedicated local news outlet in three years, after it was abandoned by Gannett.
Ellen’s Quick Take involves big changes in Maine. In Bangor, the Bangor Daily News, a family-owned paper, is cutting back on staff-written editorials and opening the pages up to new voices. Separately, at the National Trust for Local News, which acquired the Portland Press Herald and a number of other Maine papers in 2023, the co-founder and CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, is stepping down. We interviewed Dr. Hansen Shapiro for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and for an earlier episode of this podcast.
You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.
Some very good news for freedom of the press in Massachusetts: Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone has ruled that Boston magazine reporter Gretchen Voss will not be compelled to produce notes she took from an off-the-record interview with murder suspect Karen Read (earlier coverage).
The ruling was first reported by Lance Reynolds of the Boston Herald.
Cannone’s decision reverses an order she had issued in December that would have required Voss to turn over her notes. In so doing, the judge found that those notes “are of a different character than the unredacted recordings of the ‘on the record’ interviews produced pursuant to the Court’s previous order.” Cannone continues:
Voss has articulated a compelling argument that requiring disclosure of the notes poses a greater risk to the free flow of information than the other materials produced. Conversely, the Commonwealth [that is, the prosecution] has not demonstrated to the Court that its need for the handwritten notes, separate from the audio recordings, outweighs the danger posed to the public interest in the free flow of information.
What Cannone is referring to is her earlier decision to allow the prosecution access to recordings Voss had made in the course of interviewing Read. The judge’s new decision, handed down on Friday, pertains to handwritten notes that Voss had taken while conducting an off-the-record interview with Read in June 2023. In an affidavit, Voss said:
The entire meeting was off the record; I agreed in advance with Ms. Read and her lawyers that if there were any quotes I wanted to attribute to her during this meeting, I would need her and their express permission. As I did not actually use any of Ms. Read’s statements from that meeting in the article, such permission did not end up being necessary.
Moreover, Voss said, being forced to turn over her notes would open herself up to a campaign of villification that began after her article about the case was published in September 2023 and had only recently begun to abate:
[T]he notes, standing alone, will likely require further explanation on my part to make sense of them. I have already suffered an enormous emotional toll from publishing this story: I have been routinely harassed, both online and in person; have received text messages from strangers to my private cell phone containing photographs of my children and indirect threats against them; have had my photograph posted without my consent on Facebook, with hordes of strangers accusing me of unethical behavior and other defamatory accusations; have been approached, verbally assaulted and photographed without my consent in public, including in the courthouse, among many, many other acts and incidents against my person, my family, my character and my career. While the level of harassment has subsided somewhat over time, I have no doubt it will pick up again if my interview with Ms. Read becomes an issue for debate at trial.
A separate affidavit was submitted by BoMag editor Chris Vogel, who said that allowing Cannone’s earlier order to stand would impede investigative reporting because it would increase the costs and resources necessary to produce such work. “Magazines like ours will not be able to risk becoming enmeshed in situations such as this one, with the result that the flow of vigorous reporting will suffer,” Vogel said. “We will feel we have no choice but to select tamer, less controversial topics for our coverage.” Continue reading “Boston magazine ruling advances press freedom; plus, a tale of two obits, and the late Ted Rowse”
Donald Trump’s reprehensible comments about diversity, equity and inclusion being somehow responsible for Wednesday’s deadly crash between a jet and an Army helicopter included a swipe at people with disabilities; dwarfism was among the conditions he mentioned. Here’s part of his rant (gift link):
[T]he FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website….
The FAA website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, little runway.
As many of you know, we’re part of the dwarfism community. Our adult daughter, Becky, has achondroplasia, which is the most common form of dwarfism. With the proper training, she could, if she wanted, become an air-traffic controller — only maybe not now, I guess. Anyone who isn’t a six-foot-tall straight white man need not apply.
Little People of America, a national organization for people with dwarfism and their families, issued a strong statement about Trump’s evil remarks on Thursday. It’s not likely to get the pickup that it should, so I’m reproducing it here in full.
Little People of America, along with other disability advocacy organizations, are concerned and disgusted by the recent remarks that President Trump and Pete Hegseth made after a deadly mid-air collision yesterday evening — blaming DEI as the reason.
Trump’s statement that those with disabilities — singling out dwarfism amongst the list — are not qualified to perform jobs at the FAA is harmful and demonstrably false. Discriminatory statements like these continue to dismantle the already difficult task of educating the public about disability equity.
Insinuating that individuals with disabilities are less capable and not “the best and brightest” flies in the face of ADA and the protections afforded applicants for jobs they are qualified for.
Merit based employment is not contradictory to DEI opportunities for applicants. A diverse workforce brings a wide range of perspectives that ultimately strengthen institutions and contributes to the mission of public safety. The work of people with disabilities at agencies like the FAA is vital. The suggestion that their inclusion somehow undermines the FAA’s effectiveness is not only inaccurate but dismissive of their value as employees and applicants.
LPA remains, as always, committed to fostering an environment and a community of equality and opportunity for those in the disability community and wholly supports DEI initiatives. As an advocacy organization committed to promoting equality and opportunity for people with disabilities, we call on all public figures to engage in thoughtful, respectful discussions that uplift all individuals, rather than perpetuate division or discrimination. People with disabilities deserve respect, dignity, and equal opportunities.
We encourage our community and the public to continue advocating for the inclusion and recognition of all individuals, particularly those who are often marginalized, and to reject rhetoric that diminishes their worth.
And while we’re at it, we should never forget that Trump mocked a reporter with a disability at one of his 2015 rallies — a shockingly offensive action that should have ended his involvement in national politics. But here we are.
I’m posting this because tomorrow is the last day of January and I still have a bunch of gift links to The New York Times that I haven’t used. The clock resets at midnight on Friday. (Let me know if there are more that you’d like.) Both links below should work even if you’re not a Times subscriber.
David Streitfeld as an interesting interview with Bill Gates, the one-time bad boy of tech who now looks pretty good compared to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg et al. Gates has just published a memoir, “Source Code,” which is the subject of this Times review by Jennifer Szalai.
Unlike his tech brethren, Gates, who co-founded Microsoft, has remained left-of-center and devoted to his philanthropic endeavors. He is far from perfect, of course, and Streitfeld observes that his reputation took a hit when he divorced his much-admired then-wife, Melinda French Gates, and when it was revealed that he’d spent time with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein (Gates has never been tied to Epstein’s monstrous sex crimes).
But Gates seems to have a mature, bemused attitude about what other people think of him. He also doesn’t shy away from admitting when he’s been wrong. He says he’s paid $14 billion in taxes over the years and adds that it should have been $40 billion if we had a fairer system. We also learn that donated $50 million to a group supporting Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
When I listened to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs some years ago, I was struck by Gates thoughtful take. He was by far the most insightful of the many people whom Isaacson interviewed. Jobs is someone I admire, but I wonder if he would have found himself up on the platform with Donald Trump last week. Gates, to his credit, was not.
Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, who co-founded the National Trust for Local News four years ago, is stepping down as the organization’s CEO. Dr. Hansen Shapiro’s announcement arrived in my inbox just a short time ago, and I have not had an opportunity to digest it. I may have more to say in the days and weeks ahead.
Eric Russell covers the story for the Portland Press Herald, which is one of the papers owned by the Trust.
I interviewed Hansen Shapiro for the book that Ellen Clegg and I wrote, “What Works in Community News,” to discuss the National Trust’s role in acquiring a group of weekly and monthly newspapers in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, back in 2021. Ellen and I also interviewed her for our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” in 2022, and an excerpt is featured in our book.
I can also credit Hansen Shapiro with suggesting that we take a look at NJ Spotlight News, which represents the merger of a website that covers politics and public policy in New Jersey with NJ PBS, the state’s public television outlet. It turned out to be a terrific recommendation, and NJ Spotlight News anchors one of the chapters in our book.
More synchronicity: In 2023, the National Trust purchased the Portland Press Herald and a group of affiliated daily and weekly papers in Maine. Last fall, Ellen and I were the guests of the Maine Trust for a talk about our book that also served as a fundraiser for the Maine papers. In December, though, Lisa DeSisto — a professional friend of Ellen’s and mine — suddenly left as CEO and publisher of the Maine Trust. I suspect there may be more news to come on what’s going on in Maine.
Hansen Shapiro’s original idea for the National Trust was to acquire family-owned newspapers that were in danger of falling into the hands of a corporate chain or hedge fund. And she has succeeded, presiding over the purchase of papers in Colorado, Maine and Georgia. I wish her good luck as she ponders what’s next. Her full announcement follows:
A Founder’s Reflection: On Building and Becoming
When I stepped out of academia four years ago to co-found the National Trust for Local News, I was answering a call that felt bigger than myself. I believed then, as I believe now, in the profound importance of preserving and reimagining our nation’s local storytelling institutions. Like the Nature Conservancy’s work to protect our natural heritage, we set out to conserve and transform the vital institutions that help communities understand themselves and each other.
In these four years, we’ve built something extraordinary together. We’ve demonstrated that a new model of stewardship is possible — one that honors both preservation and innovation, tradition and transformation. We’ve shown that what unites us truly is stronger than what divides us, and that local journalism can be a powerful force for reweaving our civic fabric. The challenges ahead are real, but so too is the strength of what we’ve built together.
As I reflect on this journey, I recognize that the very principles that guided our work — trust in community wisdom, belief in the power of transformation, and faith in our shared stories — now guide me to make a transition. I have decided to step down as CEO and am working closely with the board to transition to new leadership.
This moment arrives not as an ending, but as evolution: the vision that called me to build now calls me to step back, trusting in the foundation we’ve laid and the wisdom of those who will carry it forward. What began as a mission to build has become a lesson in letting go, in trusting that what we’ve created together has its own wisdom and momentum.
I look to the horizon of local news and see the seeds we’ve planted taking root in ways we may not yet imagine. I envision our work flowering into a thousand expressions of community storytelling, each uniquely adapted to its place and people. I see newsrooms becoming not just repositories of information, but sacred spaces where community wisdom is gathered, preserved, and shared across generations. I believe the National Trust will continue to be a crucible where tradition and innovation meet, where storytelling finds new forms, and where the threads of community are constantly rewoven into ever-stronger fabric.
To our generous supporters who believed in this vision from its earliest days: Your faith in what was possible, your willingness to invest in new models, and your commitment to community storytelling have made everything possible. You understood that preserving local journalism requires both innovation and deep respect for tradition. May your courage in supporting new paths forward inspire others to join in this vital work.
To those who will carry this work forward: May you find joy in being stewards of these community treasures. May you have the courage to preserve what is precious and the wisdom to welcome necessary change. May you feel the support of all who have contributed to this mission, and may you trust in the profound importance of your work.
I step back with profound gratitude for how this journey has transformed me even as we’ve worked to transform the landscape of local news. The story of the National Trust continues, evolving as all good stories do. I look forward to watching and supporting its next chapter, knowing that the work of preserving and reimagining local journalism is more vital than ever.
I want to express a contrarian view regarding Jim Acosta’s departure from CNN. As you may know, Costa announced this morning that he’s leaving after CEO Mark Thompson told him he was being moved off his 10 a.m. program, which draws good ratings. Costa decided to leave after rejecting Thompson’s offer to be moved from midnight to 2 a.m.
This is widely being portrayed as another example of a media outlet doing Donald Trump’s bidding. Costa is not one of Trump’s favorites, to put it mildly; his White House press credentials were briefly revoked following a confrontation between him and Trump in 2018, and he has used his morning show to speak truth to power. That’s something we need more of.
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Acosta’s admirers have been erupting in outrage on social media. Political commentator Chris Cillizza did not offer a benign interpretation, writing, “Acosta’s removal … is rightly understood as a piece of a broader movement of the legacy media to accommodate Trump — or at least take a far-less adversarial tack in covering his second term.”
Media writer Oliver Darcy, who first broke the news that Acosta might be leaving, wrote that the “move … conspicuously coincided with Donald Trump’s return to power.”
“Just Jack,” who has nearly 435,000 followers on Bluesky, added, “Jim Acosta is leaving CNN. He will not capitulate to his oligarch bosses. He will not kiss the Trump ring.”
Now, I don’t have any insight into what went on behind the scenes at CNN, but I don’t think this is as bad as it sounds. As Darcy observes, Acosta’s midnight special would have run in prime time, from 9 to 11 p.m., on the West Coast, which is traditionally underserved by network television.
About 50 million Americans live in that time zone, which includes major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland and Seattle. Moreover, CNN was reportedly willing to pay for Acosta to move to Los Angeles.
I can also understand why Thompson might want to move away from an opinionated show in the morning and replace it with straight news. The 10 a.m.-to-noon slot will now be anchored by Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown.
Could this be an example of CNN caving in to Trump? Yes, it could. As I said, I have no insight into what’s going on behind the scenes. But more news and less opinion in the morning coupled with a capable host like Acosta anchoring during prime time on the West Coast does not strike me as unreasonable. In fact, it seems like it could have been a pretty smart move.
But Acosta said no, leave us to wonder what’s next. In his sign-off, he said he’ll be announcing something soon. MSNBC is a possibility, although its lineup seems to be getting pretty crowded. Maybe he’ll do something completely unexpected.
