Local News – Media Nation

Longtime Boston political analyst Jon Keller tells us about the art of moderating debates

*Jon Keller analyzes the recent gubernatorial debate that he moderated. Photo via YouTube.*

On the brand-new “What Works” podcast, I talk with Jon Keller, who has been explaining Massachusetts politics to Boston broadcast audiences for nearly half a century. Co-host Ellen Clegg couldn’t make it on air for this episode, but she handled the editing and will be back soon.

Jon returned to WBZ-TV just in time to cover a contentious governor’s election. He brought his trademark quick thinking and level-headed approach to the recent debate between Democratic incumbent Maura Healey and her Republican challenger, Mike Minogue. Jon was a colleague of mine at The Boston Phoenix, where he wrote a political column. His “Keller @ Large” show remains one of the longest-running political franchises in local television.

Boston magazine twice named him “Best TV Political Analyst,” and he’s won a boatload of New England Emmys. In the Jurassic era, Jon wrote an opinion column for Ellen at The Boston Globe, and today he writes a column for the MASSterlist political newsletter.

Jon has also been caught in the Paramount media swirl as well. WBZ-TV laid him off in October 2025 as part of Paramount’s cuts, but WBZ brought him back as a special contributor in March of this year.

I’ve got a Quick Take about turmoil at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. Executive editor Rob Curley, who’s leading an effort to take the paper nonprofit, was placed on administrative leave recently for unspecified inappropriate behavior. Now a deeply reported article by two nonprofit news outlets tells devastating story about what went wrong.

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

New on ‘Beat the Press’: Katie, we hardly knew you; plus, covering executions, and AI news sites

*Click here or on image to watch on Contrarian Boston (scroll down).*

On the all-new “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we analyze the microscopically brief tenure of White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, who lasted just 0.45 Scaramuccis before she was unceremoniously tossed overboard.

In other topics, we look at the debate over whether television should be allowed to cover executions following Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s on-again, off-again plan to livestream the death of the Fort Hood shooter by firing squad; and we check in on two very different AI projects — Mass Daily News, a right-wing propaganda site whose anonymous author recently revealed himself (sub. req.) in a Boston Globe story, and South Shore News, which covers local government in nearly 20 communities. Plus our panel’s Rants and Raves.

Emily was joined by Scott Van Voorhis, the publisher of Contrarian Boston as well as our host; Cosmo Macero, a partner at Seven Letter and a former columnist and editor at the Boston Herald; and me. Our producer extraordinaire is Tonia Magras of Hull Bay Productions.

Join Lara Salahi and me this Thursday for a talk about her new book, ‘News-Academic Partnerships’

*Lara Salahi. Photo via Endicott College.*

I hope you’ll join Lara Salahi and me this Thursday, Oct. 22, for a conversation about her new book, “News-Academic Partnerships: The Great Experiment Powering Local Journalism’s Comeback.” The 7 p.m. event will take place at Belmont Books, which is located in downtown Belmont at 79 Leonard St.

Salahi, an associate professor of broadcast and digital journalism at Endicott College, has been on our “What Works” podcast about the future of local news. In she was named the New England Journalism Educator of the Year by the New England Newspaper and Press Association and the Journalism Education Foundation of New England.

Here’s the announcement for Thursday’s event.

Drawing on a political economy framework, Salahi examines the power dynamics between media, academia, and the public. She shows how these partnerships emerged as a strategic response to the collapse of community news ecosystems.

Grounded in case studies, research, and her own practical experience, Salahi offers a nuanced analysis of how these collaborations work. She demonstrates how they supplement dwindling local news coverage, bridge gaps in civic information, andserve as vital training grounds for aspiring journalists. At the same time, she does not she away from its challenges. Salahi also exposes the economic, technological, and ethical tensions that can challenge the long-term sustainability of these efforts.

Ultimately, Salahi argues that news–academic partnerships are more than temporary fixes. They are transformative experiments with the potential to revitalize community-centered journalism, strengthen democracy, and empower the next generation of storytellers.

Clay Wirestone tells us how opinion journalists brought voice and authority to local news in Kansas

*Clay Wirestone ignores the cookies. Photo by Sherman Smith.*

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Clay Wirestone, the opinion editor of the Kansas Reflector, a digital nonprofit that’s part of the States Newsroom network. His first book was published Sept. 29. It’s called, aptly enough, “Opinionated: Kansas Journalists Who Proved Why Commentary Matters — Then and Now.” His second is scheduled for 2028.

Wirestone seems to be on a first-name basis with Kansas opinion journalists past and present, and he profiles a number of them. He knows the state well: he graduated from the University of Kansas and lives in Lawrence with his husband. He also edited news at The Topeka Capital-Journal and spent more than a decade at New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor, where he worked with my Northeastern colleague Meg Heckman, a past guest on this podcast.

I’ve got a Quick Take about yet another new book — “Deserted: Life Without Local News in Rural America,” by Nick Mathews. I reviewed it recently for The Arts Fuse. Mathews offers some interesting insights into what happens to community life when there’s a shortage of reliable news and information.

Ellen’s Quick Take is on an excellent Substack post by media observer Richard J. Tofel on the recent massacre at the McClatchy newspaper chain, which is being gutted by its private-equity owner. It’s like a slasher movie, and the slasher has come for newspapers that were great in their heyday.

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

How Rob Curley’s plan to take The Spokesman-Review nonprofit ended in a newsroom revolt

Rob Curley, Michael McCarter and David Dunn-Rankin discuss the future of newspaper opinion content at the 2025 America’s Newspapers Mega-Conference in Orlando. Moderated by Editor & Publisher’s Mike Blinder, the panel is featured in Episode 281 of “E&P Reports.”

By Wilson Criscione and Daisy Zavala Magaña

This report was produced in a collaboration between InvestigateWest and RANGE and republished by permission.

When The Spokesman-Review announced plans to transfer Spokane’s 143-year-old, family-owned newspaper to a nonprofit founded by Executive Editor Rob Curley, it took over the front page.

“The People’s Paper,” read the April 16, 2025, headline, saying ownership would transfer “to you, the community.”

Key to the plan was Curley, the folksy self-proclaimed “journalism nerd” who burst into Spokane a decade ago, declaring a love for Gonzaga University basketball rivaled only by his love for Disney. The transition to Comma Community Journalism Lab was cast in media industry publications not only as a way to save Spokane’s daily newspaper, but as part of a growing movement to resurrect dying papers by making them less dependent on ads and corporate ownership and more on philanthropy and community partnerships. As proof of concept, the paper had already added several so-called “community-funded” journalists to its staff.

Note: I’ve followed Rob Curley’s career for years and met him at the Orange County Register in 2015 while researching my book “The Return of the Moguls.” I shared excerpts about Curley from “Moguls” in August, after he was placed on administrative leave as executive editor of The Spokesman-Review. — DK

But in The Spokesman-Review newsroom this summer, that hopeful vision ran into persistent concerns about Curley’s leadership. More than a dozen current and former employees, along with contemporaneous records reviewed by InvestigateWest and RANGE, reveal how the newsroom had raised concerns about Curley’s management for years, culminating in his suspension from the paper on Aug. 7 and a vote of no confidence from the union, the Spokane Editorial Society. He is currently on leave as the paper conducts an internal investigation.

Continue reading “How Rob Curley’s plan to take The Spokesman-Review nonprofit ended in a newsroom revolt”

INN’s NewsMatch program switches from an annual fundraising drive to a year-round effort

From “NewsMatch at 10: A Decade of Impact.”

For nonprofit news organizations, the most important time of the year is November and December, when the NewsMatch program goes live. An initiative of the Institute for Nonprofit News, the program provides national funding as a percentage of money raised locally. It’s not a one-to-one match, but it provides crucial revenues to small (and large) projects as well as an incentive they can use in attracting donors.

Now INN is making a change. According to a new impact report, marking the 10th anniversary of the program, NewsMatch is moving to a year-round model. According to the report:

The next phase will focus on helping newsrooms build on that foundation with more advanced, flexible campaigns tailored to their goals and stage of growth. To support this evolution, NewsMatch is shifting from a single year-end campaign to a year-round model.

We talked to newsrooms about what they were looking for from this opportunity, and they emphasized the value of flexibility, experimentation, and shared learning. In 2027, we’re excited to pilot NewsMatch Catalyst Campaigns, supporting a select group of INN members as they test new fundraising strategies, deepen donor engagement, and build toward long-term sustainability.

According to the report, NewsMatch has raised more than $477 million for local news over the past 10 years, with INN itself growing from 27 investigative news organizations in 2009 to some 500 member outlets today. (INN was originally known as the Investigative News Network.)

Karen Rundlet, INN’s CEO and executive director, calls NewsMatch “the people-powered engine of the nonprofit news field, democratizing donations from a public that wants good, accurate information that helps them with daily decision making. People from all corners of the country donate to newsrooms via NewsMatch.”

Sophie Culpepper of Nieman Lab has a good overview of the impact report.

Talking about threats to shut the Toledo Blade, cuts at McClatchy and rural news deserts

The Blade building in Toledo, Ohio. Photo (cc) 2019 by David Wilson.

I had a chance to take part in a conversation Wednesday on “All Sides with Amy Juravich” on WOSU Radio in Ohio. Our topics included the Block family’s threat to shut down The Blade of Toledo if a buyer isn’t found, devastating cuts at the McClatchy newspaper chain, and the ongoing problem of rural news deserts.

Dee Drummond, a former Blade reporter now at the University of Toledo, and First Amendment lawyer Michael Berry were Juravich’s other guests, though we were not on at the same time.

If you’d like to give it a listen, you can click right here.

Margaret Sullivan tells us how national media failures connect with the local news crisis

Margaret Sullivan. Photo (cc) 2016 by Michaelbenabib.

The “What Works” podcast is back after our summer hiatus. My co-host, Ellen Clegg, was feeling under the weather, so I’m flying solo. But no worries — Ellen still handled editing and production, and she should be back for our next episode.

We’re pleased to have Margaret Sullivan as our guest. Sullivan has spent the last decade or so doing the toughest of jobs: telling the country’s most powerful newsrooms what they’re getting wrong. She was the fifth public editor at The New York Times, from 2012 to 2016. Somebody once called it the worst job in journalism, but she took it anyway. Then she went to The Washington Post as its media columnist, where she covered the 2016 and 2020 elections, the Trump years, and the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. She left the Post in 2022, which, in hindsight, looks like excellent timing.

Sullivan writes a weekly column on media, politics and culture for The Guardian US, and she publishes a fearless newsletter on Substack called American Crisis, where she calls out lapses in how the media are covering Donald Trump’s authoritarianism.

But she also has deep roots in local journalism. She was a summer intern at her hometown paper, The Buffalo News, and worked her way up to become its first woman editor-in-chief. So she knows firsthand what happens to a community when its newspaper is gutted. In 2020, she published a book about the local news crisis called “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy” and, we’re pleased to say, she blurbed our book, “What Works in Community News.”

I’ve got a Quick Take that Yogi Berra would have called déjà vu all over again. The Block family, which owns The Blade newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, says it will shut down the paper if they can’t find a buyer by the end of 2026. Now where have we heard that before? I also dive into the new impact report from the American Journalism Project, a philanthropic organization that turns out to be one of the biggest funders of nonprofit news in the country. AJP makes the case that nonprofit news as a business model has moved past the experimental stage.

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

In the midst of a national freakout over AI, here’s the latest on what it’s doing to journalism

It’s time for a check-in on how digital outlets that rely partly or entirely on artificial intelligence are hollowing out the already-beleaguered news business. What better time than now, while we’re in the midst of a national freakout over AI? (The latest: Karen Weise and Mike Isaac report in The New York Times on concerns within Microsoft and OpenAI that AI scraping amounts to “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.”)

Sign up for free email delivery of Media Nation — and become a supporter for just $6 a month.

I’ll begin with what strikes me as the most well-intentioned of the projects that have caught my eye recently: Nanopress, which produces morning newsletters for more than 70 communities and neighborhoods in the Boston area by scraping information from local government, civic groups and news organizations.

Continue reading “In the midst of a national freakout over AI, here’s the latest on what it’s doing to journalism”

In ‘Deserted,’ Nick Mathews explains how the local news crisis is devastating rural communities

*Old store in Nelson County, Va., a focus on Nick Mathews’ new book, “Deserted.” Photo (cc) 2010 by Ted Hodges.*

Local news is in crisis everywhere, but the challenge is more daunting in rural areas than it is in cities or affluent suburbs.

Consider the Storm Lake Times Pilot, which serves a farming community in Iowa. As co-founder Art Cullen explains in the 2021 documentary “Storm Lake,” the rise of agribusiness wiped out much of the local advertising that had once sustained the paper while the spreading tentacles of social media grabbed another large chunk. When Cullen appeared that same year on the podcast that Ellen Clegg and I host, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” he told us that both he and his brother, John Cullen, were living on Social Security rather than take a salary out of their precarious newspaper revenues.

The Storm Lake Times Pilot is emblematic of a national phenomenon. In 2025, the Local News Initiative at Northwestern’s Medill School found that 213 U.S. counties lacked a local news outlet, and that nearly 80% of those counties were in rural areas.

This depressing state of affairs is the focus of Nick Mathews’ new book, “Deserted: Life Without Local News in Rural America.”

Read the rest at The Arts Fuse.