Media Nation

A collaboration in NJ foretold the GOP’s gains; plus, Linda McMahon, and more on public radio

Stefanie Murray. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.

A collaborative effort among local ethnic news outlets in New Jersey picked up signs of a shift to Republicans in advance of the Nov. 5 election at a time when it seemed unlikely that Black and Latino voters would abandon their traditionally strong support for Democrats.

The collaboration was overseen by the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Some of the stories were published in NJ Spotlight News, a statewide nonprofit that combines in-depth digital reporting and a daily newscast on public television. Ellen Clegg and I reported on both the center and Spotlight in our book, “What Works in Community News.”

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The effort was highlighted recently by LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers in its newsletter. Stefanie Murray, who directs the center, told Chris Krewson, LION’s executive director, that “a few of the stories came out to be focused on how a Trump presidency was quite appealing to different ethnic groups in the state.”

For instance, a story co-bylined by reporters for Spotlight and Atlantic City Focus, a Black news organization, reported on Black Republicans “who said the Democratic Party has focused too much on social programs and government intervention without empowering individuals to achieve success on their own.”

Another Spotlight collaboration, with New Jersey Hispano, found that some Latinos were voting for Donald Trump because of the brutally high cost of housing, with one Peruvian immigrant, Gloria Candioti, saying she had not been able to buy after renting the same place for 20 years.

“I have thought about buying a property, but I have not been able to yet,” she said. “There is a lot of demand now, interest rates have gone up, house prices have been higher.”

Murray said Spotlight’s executive director, John Mooney, was concerned that reporting showing a shift toward Trump and other Republicans would not be borne out on Election Day. In fact, “they were spot on,” she observed, as Trump lost to Kamala Harris in New Jersey by just five points after trailing by double digits in 2016 and 2020.

Of course, forecasting the outcome of presidential elections is not the role of local news. What happened in New Jersey matters because what ethnic media and Spotlight found stemmed directly from dogged reporting on the concerns of Black and Latino voters. It turned out that was worth more than a bushel full of poll results.

An early Linda McMahon sighting

Paul Bass, right, and Linda McMahon in New Haven in 2010. Photo (cc) 2010 by Dan Kennedy.

Way back in September 2010, I attended the fifth-anniversary party for the New Haven Independent, one of the original digital nonprofits. I wrote about the Independent in my 2013 book, “The Wired City,” and revisited it in “What Works in Community News.”

“It’s a powerful idea, which is that out-of-town corporations that could care less about us no longer own our news,” Independent founder Paul Bass told the crowd that night. “They no longer control our news. We the people control the news.”

The party was held in the offices of La Voz Hispana de Connecticut, the Spanish-language newspaper that is the Independent’s partner and landlord. Standing off to one side was Connecticut’s Republican Senate candidate in 2010 — Linda McMahon, the wife of professional wrestling mogul Vince McMahon and now Trump’s choice as secretary of education.

McMahon said very little. I was using a really crappy camera that night, but I did get one picture of her behind Bass that is sort of OK.

McMahon was handily defeated that November and then lost again two years later. Now, despite no obvious credentials, she will be joining the Cabinet, assuming she’s confirmed by the Senate.

More thoughts on public radio

Last week I flagged an article in Nieman Reports on the economic crisis facing public radio. In a response both to me and to Gabe Bullard, who wrote the Nieman story, Andrew Ramsammy argues that our prescription for reviving public radio — a renewed focus on local journalism — is not enough.

Ramsammy, the interim president of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, writes on LinkedIn:

The reality is this: it’s not about what’s delivering the news—it’s about who’s delivering it, and whether the audience connects with them. Public radio’s future depends on abandoning outdated models of institutional authority, embracing the personality-driven dynamics of today’s media landscape, and empowering the next generation of creators — not just as contributors, but as co-owners and collaborators in a shared vision of success. The days of legacy gatekeepers are over. It’s time to rethink everything.

Ramsammy’s essay is well worth reading in full.

The grim reaper comes for public radio. One possible solution? Doubling down on local journalism.

1946 photo by the Department of the Interior

Something has gone wrong with public radio. After years of standing as the shining exception to an otherwise shrinking news landscape, multiple stations over the past year have implemented budget cuts and lowered their ambitions.

Locally, both WBUR and GBH News have laid off employees (most of GBH’s cuts were in its local TV programs). Elsewhere, operations such as WAMU in Washington, WNYC in New York and Colorado Public Radio have all been hit by a rapidly changing economic environment.

Pulling it all together is Gabe Bullard, a veteran of public media who has written an in-depth story for Nieman Reports arguing that the problem with public radio is that, well, it’s on the radio. The internet destroyed the distribution channels for newspapers. Radio seemed immune. But now, COVID-induced changes in commuting patterns plus the rise of podcasts mean that dramatically fewer people are listening to “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” while they’re in the cars. Bullard writes:

When COVID restrictions lifted, many listeners continued commuting, but they did it less — two days a week instead of five, for example. Others had grown used to new routines built around podcasts, and many were driving cars that defaulted to Bluetooth connections instead of FM radio. By 2023, the number of people listening to radio had dropped 21 percent from 2018. In 2024, Edison Research found that listeners spent more time with their phones than with the radio, and more time with on-demand audio (podcasts, audiobooks, playlists, YouTube) than linear (streaming or broadcast radio).

I am atypical, but when you put enough atypical cases together they can add up to a trend. I used to be a heavy public radio listener, spending long hours driving back and forth to Boston. After we moved closer to the city in 2015, I started taking public transportation and spent my commutes reading news on my phone rather than listening to the radio. We no longer even have a radio at home, although I do listen to GBH and WBUR (as well as podcasts and books) on my phone — but not nearly as much as I did when I was stuck in my car.

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The upshot, Bullard writes, is that local stations and NPR have eliminated more than 400 jobs in the past two years, and sometimes they’ve gotten rid of digital ventures that seemed like the key to the future — such as WAMU’s decision to close down the DCist local website.

Fortunately, WAMU’s decision was something of an anomaly. Colorado Public Radio continues to operate Denverite, WHYY in Philadelphia still operates the mobile-first local website Billy Penn and Chicago Public Media’s acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times has kept that city’s second daily newspaper alive. Which is a good thing, because, as Bullard argues, the key for public radio may be in offering more local journalism: “What stations can offer that’s different from podcasts is reporting from a listener’s own community.”

Not too many years ago, the economic outlook for public radio was so bright relative to newspapers that station operators were urged to look at their stations as though they were the No. 2 paper in their city — or, in some cases, the dominant news outlet. In 2023, Thomas Patterson, the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, wrote an essay titled “Can Local Public Radio Help Fill the News Gap Created by the Decline of Local Newspapers?” His answer: Yes, although new funding sources would need to be identified. (I wrote a response to Patterson for our What Works site.)

Now public radio is fighting for its economic life, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House may make the situation even worse. So what is the way forward? Truly local coverage is a non-starter because of the need to appeal to a wide audience. But doubling down on regional news (which is really what Bullard and Patterson are talking about) is a possible way out of its dilemma.

With journalism at major metropolitan newspapers disappearing behind paywalls, public radio’s advantage is that it’s freely available to everyone. Of course, it’s also heavily dependent on donations from foundations and ordinary listeners, and you should support your local station if you’re able. But as Bullard argues, the days of flipping the switch to national programming from NPR and watching the money roll in are over.

Independent news outlets track the latest ‘atmospheric river’ in Mendocino County

In drier times: Ukiah, Calif., the Mendocino County seat. Photo (cc) 2020 by Dan Kennedy.

When Kate Maxwell and Adrian Fernandez Baumann launched The Mendocino Voice in 2016, they were hoping to bring some in-depth journalism to a county that was undercovered due to deep cuts at newspapers owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Indeed, both Maxwell and Baumann had left jobs at Alden papers before launching the Voice.

And yes, they were able to do some enterprising reporting. But they also found that they had to devote a considerable amount of attention to Northern California’s increasingly weird weather. When I visited in March 2020, they were keeping an eye on a wildfire that Baumann told me had sprung up five months before what was typically wildfire season because of the unusually dry conditions.

Well, now the Voice and other news outlets in Mendo County are keeping tabs on an atmospheric river that has dumped heavy rain on the region and that threatens to create yet another weather-related crisis. (Ellen Clegg and I wrote about the Voice in our book, “What Works in Community News.” Maxwell and Baumann have moved on, and this past June the nominally for-profit site was acquired by the nonprofit Bay City News Foundation.)

The Voice this morning is dominated by stories about flooding. The lead article reports that sand for sandbags is available for residents and businesses seeking to protect their property from rising waters. “Residents and businesses must bring their own bags and shovels, unless noted otherwise,” reporter Sarah Stierch writes.

Below that is a brief story about power being restored along the coast, and that’s followed by a lengthier update headlined “Storm expected to bring ‘life-threatening’ floods to Mendocino County.” All those stories, by the way, were written by Stierch, which shows how hard folks at hyperlocal news projects have to work.

The Voice is not the only independent news organization in Mendo County. MendoFever, started in 2020 by a local resident named Matt LaFever, leads with a story published on Wednesday headlined “First atmospheric river of the season set to soak Mendocino County.” The article offers some nuts-and-bolts guidance on how residents should prepare. Public radio station KZYX offers an in-depth story by Emily Cox and updates on road conditions and power outages.

Finally, Alden’s Ukiah Daily Journal leads with — yes — the ongoing count in the presidential election. The most recent story listed under “Latest Headlines” is a five-day-old article about an art exhibit. Scroll down, though, and you’ll find a story published Wednesday morning reporting that the National Weather Service was predicting floods emanating from the atmospheric river. It is behind a paywall.

Whenever there is a breaking story of national interest, it’s smart to check out what local news organizations are reporting. Like much of the country, Mendocino County has been all but abandoned by corporate journalism. Fortunately, independent outlets are doing a good job of keeping residents informed with “useful news,” as the Voice puts it.

Despite bipartisan support, a proposed federal shield law may fall by the wayside

Sen. John Cornyn. Photo (cc) 2012 by Gage Skidmore.

Time is running out for the PRESS Act, which would protect journalists from being forced to identify their anonymous sources or turn over confidential documents. The measure is crucial to preventing the government from hauling journalists into court in order to identify whistleblowers who leak information.

Incredibly enough, the bill was passed unanimously by the House last January. But it has since stalled in the Senate, and you can be sure that it will die once that chamber flips from Democratic to Republican control and the press-hating Donald Trump returns to the White House.

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Earlier this week, Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, called for passage of the PRESS Act in an interview on the “PBS NewsHour.” She told co-anchor Geoff Bennett:

It’s really urgent that we pass this federal shield law.

So, some states have these federal protections, which essentially means that journalists’ information, journalists’ sources can’t be subpoenaed. Information from whistle-blowers can’t be subpoenaed. It’s really important that we have that federal shield law to protect journalists at the federal level.

We know that Trump is interested in going after whistleblowers, people who leak. And it’s absolutely essential that they are protected and that journalists’ sources are protected and that journalists are allowed to do their job.

As Ginsberg notes, 49 states have some form of shield protection for journalists either in the form of a law or a ruling in the state courts. The only exceptions are Wyoming and the federal government, although the shield protection in Massachusetts is so weak that a Boston magazine reporter may be forced to turn over audio of off-the-record interviews she conducted with murder suspect Karen Read. (The PRESS Act would not affect that, which shows why we need a state shield law as well.)

On Oct. 8, 107 news media and press freedom organizations sent letters to the Senate urging passage and to the House urging that it pass the bill again should it return to that body. Among the local signatories: Boston Globe Media, the Massachusetts Press Association and the New England Newspaper and Press Association. The letter says in part:

The PRESS Act is timely and critical. Absent a federal law, journalists’ protections in federal courts against the compelled disclosure by federal officials of confidential source information or sensitive newsgathering materials vary considerably by jurisdiction. And, in recent years, under administrations of both parties, the Justice Department and other federal agencies have sought sensitive records from or of journalists on multiple occasions. While the Department of Justice adopted new internal guidance in 2021 sharply limiting that practice at DOJ, the policy remains subject to change at the department’s discretion and other federal agencies are not bound by it.

According to the Society of Professional Journalists, the main obstacle at this point is Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. SPJ is urging supporters to write letters to Cornyn via his website, warning, “Time is running out. It is crucial that this bipartisan federal shield bill advances this week.”

Crucially, the PRESS Act would protect not just professional journalists but anyone engaged in acts of journalism. It’s also important to note that the act would not provide blanket protection — there are a few narrow exceptions involving terrorism, emergencies or instances in which the journalists themselves are suspected of committing a crime.

Here is more background on the PRESS Act.

In selecting Gaetz, Trump shoves open the Overton Window for his other terrible nominees

Matt Gaetz. Photo (cc) 2022 by Gage Skidmore.

In today’s New York Times, we learn what Donald Trump is really up to with his nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general: he’s trying to shove open the Overton Window, choosing someone so far outside the norms that other terrible appointments he’s made (and will make) can slide through the Senate.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report (gift link):

He [Trump] is making calls on Mr. Gaetz’s behalf, and he remains confident that even if Mr. Gaetz does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington.

In other words, Senate Republicans will have a chance to assert their prerogatives by rejecting Gaetz, who, among other things, has been accused of taking part in drug-fueled orgies and having sex with a 17-year-old girl — a minor in the state of Florida.

Meanwhile, Trump’s unqualified choices for secretary of defense, accused rapist Pete Hegseth, and for secretary of health and human services, all-around loon Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will win confirmation, according to Trump’s theory of the case, because Republicans will content themselves with rejecting his most egregious appointment rather than all of them.

The Overton Window is generally a term used to describe crazy policy ideas that are put forth in order to make other, slightly less crazy ideas appear to be more plausible. But it works for people as well. The only way Hegseth and Kennedy look good is by standing in contrast to Gaetz. And so it goes.

In Atlanta, a corporate owner bets on growth; plus, lying about lying, and a social-media meltdown

Martin Luther King Jr. House in Atlanta. Photo (cc) 2019 by Warren LeMay.

The list of major metropolitan daily newspapers that are doing reasonably well is short and dominated by independent owners. There are The Boston Globe, The Minnesota Star Tribune and The Seattle Times, all under family ownership. Next up: The Philadelphia Inquirer, a for-profit paper owned by a nonprofit foundation. (The Tampa Bay Times has a similar arrangement but is struggling.) And there’s The Salt Lake Tribune, which has gone fully nonprofit.

What generally doesn’t come to mind are chain-owned newspapers. One exception, though, is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which is in the midst of a buildup overseen by its corporate owner, Cox Enterprises. David Folkenflik of NPR reports that Cox is spending $150 million over the next several years in the hopes that publisher and president Andrew Morse can figure it out.

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Cox isn’t Gannett or Alden Global Capital. At one time it owned a fairly significant newspaper empire, these days it’s down to the AJC, as the Atlanta paper is known, and a handful of papers in Ohio anchored by the Dayton Daily News. Nevertheless, the privately held conglomerate has major holdings in cable television and broadband services, claiming more than $13 billion in revenues in its communications division. In other words, it would seem to be the sort of bottom line-oriented company whose leadership holds few romantic views about the struggling newspaper business.

But Morse, a former top executive at CNN, is pushing ahead. According to Folkenflik, Morse hopes to build the AJC’s paid print and digital circulation from about 100,000 to 500,000 by doubling down on political coverage and reaching out to the city’s Black community, among other initiatives. A downtown newsroom is opening this week after years of being stranded in the suburbs. The AJC is expanding its staff, too.

“Instead of reading story after story about the futility of this, why don’t we grasp onto notions of, ‘How do we build for the future?'” Morse told Folkenflik, adding: “Our mission is to be the most essential and engaging source of news for the people of Atlanta, Georgia, in the South.”

As Folkenflik observes, Georgia is home to several papers owned by the cost-cutting Gannett and McClatchy chains. If Cox can show that there’s another way to do business, maybe the executives at those chains will realize that there’s more money to be made by offering quality than through endless rounds of downsizing. But probably not.

Pants on fire

Bill Adair, the founder of PolitiFact, is on something of an apology tour as he promotes his book, “Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy.”

The problem is that neither PolitiFact nor other prominent fact-checking projects, including FactCheck.org or The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, have been especially willing over the years to admit that Republicans lie more than Democrats. Donald Trump’s gusher of lies has changed that equation to some degree, although anyone who reads those sites knows that Trump is often treated as a particularly noxious exception to their otherwise both-sides-lie orientation.

Adair spoke with public radio’s “On the Media” over the weekend, telling co-host Brooke Gladstone that, well, he lied about lying. Here’s part of what he said:

In 2012, I was on C-SPAN, national television, live, taking calls. And Brian from Michigan calls in. And Brian says, Mr. Adair, I read in The Nation that when you add up the fact checks, that Republicans lie more and they lie worse. And I answer Brian and I lie. You know, I can honestly say I don’t keep score.

Well, we did keep score. We kept score by person. We didn’t reveal the party total. But I knew that Brian was right. And instead, I gave him this dodge that I always gave people when they asked this. I said, asking me that question is sort of like asking an umpire who’s out at home more, you know, the Yankees or the Red Sox.

I don’t know. I look at every play independently. And I think it’s important that we do that. I want to find Brian so that I can apologize to him because Brian was right then and Brian is even more right now. But I was trying to show that I was impartial.

Adair is now teaching at Duke University and is no longer involved in PolitiFact. But I find it interesting that he’s making this admission just a few months after the fact-checkers strained so hard at the two national political conventions to be “impartial” that they nearly gave themselves a hernia.

PolitiFact is perhaps best known for its “Pants on Fire!” rating for especially egregious lies. Well, Adair may not be able to sit down again for quite some time. He owes an apology not just to Brian but to all of us.

Career on fire

Add Laura Helmuth to the long list of journalists who’ve blown up their career for the sake of a momentary cheap thrill on social media. Helmuth, the editor — make that the former editor — of Scientific American, resigned last week after posting a series of F-bomb-laden posts on Bluesky in which she expressed her outrage at Donald Trump’s election.

Among her posts, according to Maya Yang at The Guardian: “I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists.” She later deleted the offending posts and offered up the proverbial boilerplate that they “do not reflect my beliefs.” Apparently it wasn’t enough.

Now, you might think this wasn’t a big deal, but Scientific American is a pretty buttoned-down institution as well as an important part of the scientific establishment, which has been targeted by Trump and the people around him.

As I tell my students, your social-media posts should stay within the bounds of what you’re allowed to do in your day job. Helmuth clearly went well beyond that.

Bluesky is having its moment; plus, Soon-Shiong reverses himself, and a local-news event in Ipswich

From the moment that Elon Musk bought Twitter in late 2022 and took a wrecking ball to it, millions of appalled users have sought alternatives. Mastodon, a decentralized nonprofit, got some early buzz, though it failed to gain mass traction. Threads, part of the Meta universe, has enjoyed some success, attracting 275 million users; but many of those users are also disenchanted with an algorithm that plays down news and politics.

Now Bluesky is having its moment. The most Twitter-like of the new platforms, Bluesky has experienced a surge of a million new users since the election, attracting the attention of The New York Times, The Associated Press, Slate and others. Its current user base of about 15 million makes it far smaller than Threads, but its customizable feeds, lists and starter packs, as well as its lack of an algorithm, have led many of us to conclude that it’s a better tool for sharing and discussing journalism.

As media writer Oliver Darcy puts it: “But while the masses might be joining Threads, power users in media and politics seem to now be preferring Bluesky. That is where the conversation is now forming. Even on Threads, one of the biggest topics of discussion this week is Bluesky.”

Bluesky got off to a slow start because for quite a long while you could only join by invitation. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s involvement was a poison pill for some, though he has since moved on. Today Bluesky is owned by a public benefit corporation — a for-profit company that nevertheless must adhere to some nonprofit-like principles such as “extending benefits to stakeholders like communities and employees,” as Kiplinger puts it.

In other words, Bluesky, unlike Threads and Twitter, is not under the control of an erratic billionaire.

Twitter/X still has nearly 500 million users worldwide, but it has been overrun by trolls, bots and various right-wing extremists, including Musk himself. The Guardian created a stir Wednesday when it announced that it was mostly leaving Twitter, calling it a “toxic media platform.” But many news outlets continue to make heavy use of Twitter.

Six to 10 years ago, when Twitter was at its most useful, it was a gathering place for liberals, conservatives and moderates. Unfortunately, neither Threads nor Bluesky has been able to replicate that vibe, as their user bases are overwhelmingly liberal and progressive. And thus our national discourse continues to become more polarized.

Soon-Shiong comes clean

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the other billionaire newspaper owner who killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris just days before the election, is now saying that his daughter was right all along when she cited Harris’ pro-Israel position in the war in Gaza as the reason that his Los Angeles Times did not weigh in on the presidential race.

“Somebody had asked me, ‘was that the reason?’ I said, ‘well, that wasn’t the only reason.’ Clearly, that was one of the reasons, and there are many other reasons, but I think that should be exposed really transparently about all the reasons,” he told CNN reporters Liam Reilly and Hadas Gold.

Soon-Shiong had previously denied a claim in The New York Times by his daughter, Nika, that the family had decided not to endorse because of Gaza. Instead, he said that he wanted his paper to move away from endorsements, and that he killed the Harris endorsement because the editorial board had ignored his directive to put together a nonpartisan guide to Harris’ and Donald Trump’s stands on the issues.

Now it appears that Soon-Shiong was being less than candid — or, as former LA Times journalist Matt Pearce writes, “Well, Patrick Soon-Shiong lied.” Pearce adds:

If you own large newspaper and have strong opinions about Israel’s war in Gaza, and those opinions about Gaza directly affect how you influence the newspaper’s engagement with politics and the public during an election, then you should probably print your opinion about Gaza in the newspaper you own instead of publicly dumping on your employees and claiming you’d asked them to do some other nonsense that you hadn’t actually asked them to do, and then lying to reporters about your opinions on Gaza not having influenced your political decisionmaking while publicly scolding your daughter for telling the New York Times hey my dad did this because of Gaza, which you followed by writing an internal email to your chief operating officer and executive editor to more or less elaborate at length that hey I did this because of Gaza (feelings which themselves have already gotten watered down in the only-sort-of-coming-clean interview with CNN).

The other billionaire non-endorser, of course, is Jeff Bezos, who canceled a Harris endorsement in The Washington Post at the last minute and claimed he had decided the Post should stop endorsing candidates.

There is a third billionaire non-endorser as well: Glen Taylor of The Minnesota Star Tribune, whose opinion editor announced back in August that the paper would no longer endorse. As my co-author and podcast partner Ellen Clegg wrote for What Works, that was enough to prompt outrage among former Strib opinion journalists, a group of whom published their own Harris endorsement independently.

Please come to Ipswich

If you’re on the North Shore, I’ll be moderating a panel of local-news leaders today at 6 p.m. at the True North Ale Company in Ipswich. The event is free, although donations are requested. Please register here.

The panel is being held to mark the fifth anniversary of Ipswich Local News, whose publisher, John Muldoon, will be a panelist. He’ll be joined by Kris Olson of The Marblehead Current, Erika Brown of The Manchester Cricket and Jack Lawrence of the soon-to-be-launched Hamilton-Wenham News.

The ProJo will shut its printing plant; plus, Google News exec quits, and healthier news habits

Illustration c. 1902 via the Internet Archive Book Images

The Providence Journal is shutting down its printing plant next March because its previous owner bet on a technology that is no longer supported. As a friend who’s now retired from the Journal put it on Facebook, “I didn’t realize we had the Betamax of printing presses.”

The closure could have serious consequences. The Journal, which is owned by the Gannett chain, is where a number of other Gannett papers are printed, including the regional edition of USA Today, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, the Cape Cod Times and others. The plant also earns money by printing non-Gannett papers such as the Daily News of New York, the Boston Herald and the Hartford Courant, all owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

According to Journal reporter Jack Perry, the closure will result in the loss of 136 jobs. He reports that some of the printing will move to Gannett’s facility in Auburn, Massachusetts, which, he writes, should result in no significant effect on delivery — but that some will move to a plant that the company owns in New Jersey. Perry explains what happened:

In 1987, The Providence Journal opened its $60 million production plant and began printing with a technology, flexography, that was new to newspapers, although the packaging industry had used it for about six decades. In relying on water-based, rather than oil-based ink, flexography was considered better for the environment, and cleaner for readers in that it wouldn’t leave ink smudges on their fingers.

Despite those and other perceived advantages, flexography didn’t catch on in the newspaper industry and replace offset printing as some expected. The English company that makes the printing plates for Providence’s flexo presses decided to stop making the plates because it wasn’t cost effective, since the Providence facility is its only remaining customer, according to Mike Niland, senior director of manufacturing, Gannett Publishing Services New England. It is the only company that makes the plates, he said.

A news industry source told me Tuesday via email that the printing quality should actually improve after the papers move from flexo to offset, though that would seem like small consolation given the early deadlines that will no doubt be imposed in order to truck papers north from New Jersey.

This is not the first time that Gannett has closed a New England printing plant. In January 2023, the company announced that it would shut down its facility in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. That closure affected two New Hampshire papers, the Portsmouth Herald and Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover, as well as the Burlington Free Press of Vermont, located not far from the Canadian border. The printing at that time was parceled out between Gannett’s plants in Providence and Auburn, Massachusetts. Now only Auburn remains.

Digital giant quits Google

One of the giants of digital news has quit Google. Shailesh Prakash, a vice president and general manager of Google News, has quit after just two years, reports Alexandra Bruell (gift link) in The Wall Street Journal, writing: “The high-profile departure comes amid a continuing rift between Google and news outlets over how the search engine drives traffic and uses their content.”

Prakash came to Google from The Washington Post, and I interviewed him for my 2018 book, “The Return of the Moguls.” Like then-executive editor Marty Baron, Prakash was a holdover from the Graham family regime, though Jeff Bezos had the good sense to hold on to both of them when he bought the paper in 2013.

Though the Journal story provides little insight into why Prakash decided to leave Google, it does describe the increasingly challenging environment in which he found himself:

At Google, he brought an understanding of publishers’ frustrations as they have grappled with traffic declines and seek compensation for the Alphabet unit’s [i.e., Google’s] use of their content. While he oversaw product and engineering for the News group, he also communicated with leaders at news publishers regarding changes related to search and generative AI.

Solving those news blues

The election of Donald Trump to a second term in the White House has led a lot of us to wonder how we might change our news-consumption habits. I’m thinking about less news of the day, more deep dives into topics that may not be directly related to national politics.

Nieman Lab editor Laura Hazard Owen has some good ideas as well: print newspapers, which are better than digital at packing their journalism into a finite space; cutting back on social media, including getting rid of Twitter; recommitting to RSS; and not reading news after hours.

“I’m still a working journalist and a huge part of my job is to read and follow the news,” she writes. “I’ll still do both those things because I love them. But sometimes it’s healthy to do something you love a little less, and differently.”

Texas Tribune CEO Sonal Shah tells us what’s next for the pioneering news project

Texas Tribune CEO Sonal Shah at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin last September

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Sonal Shah, the CEO of The Texas Tribune, a pioneering nonprofit newsroom. Shah, a Houston native and first-generation immigrant, took over as chief executive in January 2023 after co-founder Evan Smith decided to move on.

Shah is part of a major transition at the Tribune and brings broad experience in government, the private sector and philanthropy. She is a trained economist who worked on the Obama presidential transition team, worked in philanthropy for Google, and was national policy director for Pete Buttigieg’s run for president.

I’ve got a Quick Take about Advance Local, a local news chain in New Jersey that is ending its print editions — including the storied Star-Ledger of Newark — and going fully digital.

Ellen’s Quick Take is on The Minnesota Star Tribune’s editorial non-endorsement in the presidential race and an alternative endorsement of Kamala Harris written on a blog by former Strib staffers.

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

The Globe’s Rhode Island edition will partner with WPRI-TV in Providence

Providence, R.I. Photo (cc) 2015 by Mitch Altman.

The Boston Globe’s Rhode Island edition has announced a partnership with WPRI-TV (Channel 12) in Providence. Globe columnist Dan McGowan, a longtime Rhode Island journalist, will appear on the morning newscast to talk about stories that the Globe is working on, while other Globe reporters will show up on the 4 p.m. program. Lifestyle and entertainment stories from the Globe will be featured on “The Rhode Show.”

It will be interesting to see how other Rhode Island media respond. Providence news consumers are also served by The Providence Journal, The Public’s Radio, WJAR-TV (Channel 10) and several smaller outlets.

The full press release (via Editor & Publisher) follows:

12 News, the trusted source for local news in Southern New England, is proud to announce a new partnership with The Boston Globe Rhode Island. This collaboration brings together two powerhouse news organizations to provide Rhode Islanders with unparalleled, in-depth reporting on the issues that matter most to them.

In this unique partnership, viewers can expect award-winning columnist Dan McGowan to join the 12 News This Morning team to discuss stories impacting the Ocean State. McGowan, author of the popular daily newsletter Rhode Map will offer his unique insight into all things Rhode Island — including politics, education, the economy and more. On 12 News at 4, other members of The Boston Globe Rhode Island team will join 12 News live on air regularly to discuss some of the biggest news events in the state. In addition, lifestyle and entertainment stories from The Boston Globe Rhode Island team will be featured on The Rhode Show — Rhode Island’s long running lifestyle show.

“By collaborating with The Boston Globe Rhode Island, we’re elevating our commitment to delivering the highest quality journalism to local viewers and readers,” says Patrick Wholey, vice president and general manager of WPRI 12, FOX Providence, myRITV and the CW Providence. “Together, we will provide the most robust coverage of topics that matter to the people of southern New England.”

“Our media partnership with WPRI 12 serves as a real example of our mission at The Boston Globe to connect and convene local communities by extending the reach of our journalism in new ways,” said Nancy Barnes, editor of The Boston Globe. “Since its launch in 2019, The Boston Globe Rhode Island has established its significant role in the state’s media landscape, sharing award-winning stories that make a difference and implementing innovative products to engage new audiences.”

“The Boston Globe Rhode Island is thrilled to partner with WPRI 12 to bring readers and viewers in Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts more in-depth coverage of the news that impacts their day-to-day lives,” said Lylah M. Alphonse, editor of The Boston Globe Rhode Island. “This initiative underscores the Globe’s deep investment in local and regional news, and the importance of accessible, dedicated, on-the-ground journalism in Rhode Island.”