What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate. With Ellen Clegg. To be published by Beacon Press in January 2024. A groundbreaking study of the journalism startups that are solving the local news crisis one community at a time, What Works in Community News will be a must-read for activists, entrepreneurs, and journalists who want to start local news outlets in their communities.
The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century. ForeEdge, 2018. A look at how two billionaire owners were reviving the fortunes of The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, respectively. Critically praised by The New York Review of Books, Journalism, the Newspaper Research Journal, and Editor & Publisher.
The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life for the Post-Newspaper Age. University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. Traces the story of the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit community news site, and places it within the context of the economic and technological challenges facing journalism. Critically praised by the Columbia Journalism Review, The Boston Globe, and CommonWealth Magazine.
Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter’s Eyes. Rodale, 2003. Partly memoir, mostly an extended work of narrative journalism that explores cultural, historical, scientific, and philosophical topics related to dwarfism. Critically praised by The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Providence Journal, and the subject of interviews by NPR, Child magazine, and Salon.