What ethical minefields do the leaders of nonprofit news organizations need to watch for? What guidelines should board members and donors be aware of? Where are the bright lines — and where are the gray areas?
Three experts weighed in on those issues last Thursday evening at our What Works webinar on “The Ethics of Nonprofit News: What Board Members and Donors Need to Know.” What Works is part of Northeastern University’s School of Journalism and is affiliated with the Center for Transformative Media.
More than 50 people logged on to the event, which I moderated. Questions from the audience were fielded by Ellen Clegg, a faculty associate and the co-founder of Brookline.News. Ellen and I are the co-leaders of What Works, a project about the future of local news.
From left, Josh Stearns, Kara Meyberg Guzman and Joe Kriesberg
If you are a local nonprofit news publisher, editor, reporter, board member or donor, please mark this on your calendar: On Thursday, April 3, our What Works project will sponsor a free webinar titled “The Ethics of Nonprofit News: What Board Members and Donors Need to Know.” Issues will include conflicts of interest and understanding the boundaries between the news and fundraising sides of a community journalism organization.
• Josh Stearns, managing director of programs at the Democracy Fund, a longtime activist on issues related to media reform and equitable journalism. Stearns was most recently senior director of the Public Square Program at the Democracy Fund, where he led its journalism and technology grantmaking. He was previously director of journalism sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and, before that, press freedom director at Free Press. He currently serves on the board of Honolulu Civil Beat and the Democratizing Philanthropy Project and was a co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and First Draft News.
• Kara Meyberg Guzman, CEO and founder of Santa Cruz Local, a nonprofit news organization in California focused on communities not otherwise served by local media. Her passion is producing fair, accurate, reliable news that’s free and accessible to all residents, including those who will never be able to pay for it. She is also a board member of the Tiny News Collective, whose mission is to make journalism entrepreneurship more accessible, equitable and inclusive.
• Joe Kriesberg, CEO of the Massachusetts Institution for a New Commonwealth, or MassINC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to making Massachusetts a place of inclusive economic opportunity and civic vitality. In that capacity Kriesberg serves as publisher of CommonWealth Beacon, MassINC’s digital publication covering state politics and public policy. Kriesberg has decades of experience in nonprofit management and in working with news organizations.
I’ll be moderating the panel. I’m a professor in Northeastern’s School of Journalism and the co-author, with Ellen Clegg, of the book “What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate” (Beacon Press, 2024). Ellen and I also host a podcast and website on the future of local news, part of the School of Journalism, at whatworks.news.
There’s some exciting news to report out of CommonWealth Beacon today. Laura Colarusso, currently the editor of Nieman Reports, will be the new editor of CWB, succeeding Bruce Mohl, who’s retiring.
I got to know Laura when she was digital managing editor of GBH News, for whom I wrote a weekly column for a number of years. I also had a chance to write for her at Nieman Reports. She will be terrific, as she combines leadership skills with vision and a strong ethical compass.
Originally a public-policy quarterly called CommonWealth Magazine, CommonWealth Beacon has morphed into a digital-only publication with a significant daily presence.
Bruce, who came to CWB from The Boston Globe, leaves behind an admirable legacy, transforming the publication to a leading source political and public-policy news about Massachusetts. The nonprofit is published by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, or MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank that concentrates on quality-of-life issues.
(Disclosure: I’m a member of CommonWealth Beacon’s editorial advisory board.)
What follows is MassINC CEO Joe Kriesberg’s announcement:
Dear reader,
Following a nationwide search, I am excited to share with you that we have hired Laura Colarusso to succeed Bruce Mohl as the next editor of CommonWealth Beacon.
Taking the helm in November, Laura has the experience, network, and leadership skills to build on Bruce’s sixteen-year legacy. Our team is excited to welcome Laura and to continue building CommonWealth Beacon as the dynamic, civic news outlet that readers like you rely upon.
Laura comes to CommonWealth Beacon from Nieman Reports, an online and quarterly print publication with a mission of promoting and elevating journalistic standards. She has reported on a wide variety of topics including climate change, education and health care, and covered the Pentagon in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
She has held leadership positions at GBH News in Boston, where she was the digital managing editor before joining Nieman Reports in 2021, where she served as editor. Laura won a regional 2020 Edward R. Murrow Award for the story “The Original Old Boys Club” while she was at GBH.
As Laura has shared:
CommonWealth Beacon has a long history of creating outstanding journalism that helps the people of Massachusetts understand their government and the changes taking place in the world around them. I couldn’t be more excited to join this organization at such a critical time for our democracy, and I’m looking forward to leading CommonWealth Beacon as we work to connect with broader and more diverse audiences, and deliver even more high quality news and information to our readers.
Nearly one year ago, we launched CommonWealth Beacon with an expanded newsroom, a more readable and accessible digital platform and an updated strategy for audience and community engagement.
We are thrilled to have Laura lead our team in this next phase of CommonWealth Beacon’s journey and to better serve you, our diverse audience of readers, and the people of Massachusetts.
Sincerely,
Joe Kriesberg
CEO of MassINC, Publisher of CommonWealth Beacon
Bruce Mohl. Photo (cc) 2011 by the Rappaport Center.
CommonWealth Beacon editor Bruce Mohl has announced that he’ll be retiring later in 2024 after 15 years on the job. As Bruce notes, the publication was a four-times-a-year print publication known as CommonWealth magazine when he started and is now a growing digital operation covering state politics and public policy. He writes: “To all of you, I wanted to say thanks. Thanks for reading. Thanks for returning phone calls. Thanks for the news tips. And most of all thanks for getting involved.”
CEO Joe Kriesberg adds:
Under his leadership, CommonWealth magazine and now CommonWealth Beacon have been essential reading for all of us who are interested in and care about public affairs and civic life in Massachusetts. Bruce is widely recognized as one of the best reporters in the Commonwealth, regularly breaking stories and providing in-depth coverage of complicated issues like energy and transportation. His leadership has ensured CommonWealth’s editorial independence and maintained a standard of fair, open-minded and non-partisan coverage that is a hallmark of CommonWealth Beacon.
Best wishes to Bruce, who was a longtime editor and reporter at The Boston Globe before coming to CommonWealth, which is published by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), a nonpartisan think tank. Disclosures: I’ve had a long, off-and-on association with the publication myself. For a few years in the late aughts, I wrote regular media features for the print magazine. And now I’m a member of the editorial advisory board.
