The Star Tribune’s headquarters. Photo (cc) 2019 by Tony Webster.
The Minnesota Star Tribune, which is already getting a lot of attention for its outstanding coverage of ICE’s violent and indiscriminate rampage through Minneapolis and St. Paul, has unveiled some ideas that ought to be considered by every large regional newspaper in the country.
Granted, newspapers owned by corporations and hedge funds aren’t likely to emulate these common-sense ideas, even though they might boost revenue in the long run. But there are still some independent dailies such as The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as a few high-quality chains such as Hearst and Advance, that could learn from the Star Tribune.
► An end to the paywall for live blogs covering breaking news, which will ensure that “its public service journalism is accessible to all.” The Strib’s free live-blog coverage of the ICE occupation has been essential. Moreover, Minnesota residents whose first exposure to the paper’s journalism was through the live blog might be enticed into buying a subscription.
► Unlimited gift links so that subscribers can share articles with friends. The press release doesn’t specify whether those links will be shareable on social media as well, but that is the standard practice at most papers that offer gift links. This is another forward-looking move that will give non-readers a chance to sample the Strib’s coverage and decide whether they want to become paying customers. The Globe, to cite one contrary example, lets you email a gift link to friends, but it’s kludgy and it doesn’t work on social. The Strib’s approach sounds like it will be cleaner and more intuitive.
► A family-plan digital subscription with up to four unique log-ins, offered at a slightly higher price than an individual subscription. The New York Times does this, but I’m not aware of other papers that do it.
► A nonprofit fund that can accept tax-deductible donations to support the Star Tribune’s journalism. (The Local News Fund was started in 2024, but it was re-announced Friday.) Some might object to this; the Strib, like the Globe, is a for-profit owned by a billionaire. But those billionaires have invested a considerable amount of resources into their papers, which are marginally profitable at best. If you accept the proposition that even a billionaire owner shouldn’t be expected to run their paper at a loss, then this is a good way to support high-quality regional news coverage.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Mike Beaudet and Lisa Thalhamer. Mike is a colleague at Northeastern, where he is a journalism professor. He is also an investigative reporter at WCVB-TV, Boston’s ABC affiliate. He’s worked in local television news for more than 30 years. Before joining WCVB-TV he was an investigative reporter and anchor at WFXT-TV in Boston.
Beaudet, the head of Northeastern’s Reinventing Local TV News project, focuses on the future of local television news and finding new ways to grow the audience and engage younger viewers where they’re consuming content. Think social and vertical.
Lisa is a journalist and researcher. She’s currently editor-in-chief of The Scope, a hyperlocal publication based at Northeastern focused on issues of social justice, as well as an adjunct professor. Her research is geared toward improving the mental well-being of journalists, particularly those in local TV news, where she worked for more than 15 years as a producer.
Mike Beaudet and Lisa Thalhamer. Photo (cc) 2026 by Dan Kennedy.
While earning her master’s degree at Northeastern, Thalhamer was Reinvent’s Video Innovation Scholar, helping newsrooms evolve their video storytelling skills to fit the world of social media.
In keeping with the all-Northeastern theme of this podcast, we’re also joined by Greg Maynard, a student of mine last semester who has written a compelling story about what cord-cutting means for local cable access outlets. Greg is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Boston Policy Institute.
Ellen has a Quick Take on the end of an era in Minneapolis. In December, the daily newspaper, The Minnesota Star Tribune, stopped printing copies at its giant brick plant in downtown Minneapolis. The Strib is printing at a Gannett plant in Des Moines, Iowa. That means earlier deadlines and 125 jobs lost.
I’ve got a wild story for my Quick Take. Last summer there was some sad news coming out of Claremont, New Hampshire: the Eagle Times, a star-crossed paper that had had its ups and downs going back to the 1940s, was closing its doors after its wealthy owner, Jay Lucas, failed to meet payroll. At the time, New Hampshire Public Radio ran a story on the shutdown that was harsher than you would have expected. But it turns out that there was a reason.
Protesters in Raleigh, N.C. Photo (cc) 2026 by Laura Leslie / NC Newsline
All news is local. Following the deadly U.S. raid to pluck President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, out of Venezuela, local news organizations reported on the reaction in their communities. This morning I’m taking a look at how three of the outlets that Ellen Clegg and I profile in our book, “What Works in Community News,” are handling the news.
Jose Lara, a Venezuelan expat living in West Haven, Connecticut, told Breen he was hopeful that Maduro’s arrest would lead to better days for his home country. “I’m feeling excited,” Lara said at a gathering outside New Haven City Hall. Breen writes:
Like Lara, many who showed up on Saturday night were optimistic that this time is different.
“Excitement, first and foremost,” Laura Almeyda said when asked how she is feeling today. Also, “confusion. Uncertainty. But hope. We’re faithful and joyful. This is a huge step towards change, hopefully a positive one.”
Breen observes, though, that others, such as U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., are warning that Trump’s action was “a fundamental violation of the Constitution” that could lead to “endless conflict.” And he links to another indy digital outlet in Connecticut, CT News Junkie, where Karla Ciaglo reports on the (mostly) negative reaction from Democratic officials and left-leaning activist groups.
As with the New Haven Independent, The Daily Memphian — supplemented with coverage by The Associated Press — focuses on the Venezuelan diaspora community in Memphis, Tennessee. Here’s part of the Memphian story:
“We have been dreaming of these days for so long. We have been hopeful of a day when we see [these leaders] out of the country and really democracy back in our country,” said Daniel Bastardo Blanco, who works in communications in Memphis. “We remain incredibly hopeful that freedom is about to restart in our country.”
But Venezuelan natives living in Memphis also said that their euphoria was also mixed with fear for friends and relatives still living in the South American country, where some citizens were killed in the strikes, as well as tremendous uncertainty about what happens next.
“It was a little bit of a shock,” said Pedro Velasquez, whose family runs nonprofit medical clinics in both Memphis and Venezuela. “As I read about how it was executed, and that there weren’t as many civilian casualties, that it was more localized and over in 20-30 minutes, it sort of made me breathe a little easier.”
Jackson leads with Andrew Josefchak of the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition and a left-wing supporter of the Maduro government, who joined with more than 200 others to protest Trump’s action on Satuday. “The peace movement in this country, in Minneapolis at least, wasn’t going to let that [military action] go by without organizing an emergency demonstration against it to show that people in the U.S. don’t want this,” Josefchak was quoted as saying. “They don’t want war.”
The Strib also quotes Democratic opponents of Trump’s action like U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican supporters like U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer. And we hear from a Venezuelan expat who supports the raid despite concerns about her mother’s safety:
Soleil Ramirez watched footage of explosions across Caracas moments after the strike began, worrying for her mother, who lives near a military base.
Ramirez, chef and owner of the Crasqui restaurant in St. Paul, said her mother is fine — and the military operation was reason to celebrate.
“Let us celebrate this victory because we haven’t been celebrating anything in the last 26 years,” she said.
A note on the photo:NC Newsline, which covers North Carolina, is part of States Newsroom, a network of 50 nonprofit news outlets covering politics and public policy. Its journalism is available for republication under a Creative Commons license. Ellen and I recently hosted publisher and CEO Chris Fitzsimon on our “What Works” podcast.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Tracy Baim, a Chicago-based journalist who directed the recently published LGBTQ+ Media Mapping Project, which tracks LGBTQ news outlets across the country.
The LGBTQ+ Media Mapping Project was created in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, the Local Media Foundation, News Is Out and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. The project surfaced 107 LGBTQ media outlets in total, 80 of which responded to the survey.
According to the accompanying report: “While they may have few similarities, there are several common denominators: Most are in need of additional resources to better cover their communities, and most are facing strong headwinds as advertising and sponsors reverse course, pulling back from diverse marketing efforts.”
Baim interviewing Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in his City Hall office in 1987. Photo by William Burks / Windy City Times. Used with permission.
Baim is also the executive director of Press Forward Chicago, the local arm of a national philanthropic effort to address the community news crisis.
I’ve got a Quick Take about the state of Kansas, where authorities have banned print newspapers in prisons, a ban that affects some 9,000 inmates in 20 correctional facilities. Weirdly enough, officials have not banned digital newspapers, although, as media commentator Bo Sacks observes, “Most Kansas inmates have limited or no meaningful internet access.”
Ellen’s Quick Take is on a column in The Minnesota Star Tribune written by Steve Grove, the CEO and publisher. He writes about the “stabilizing power of quality journalism” and announces a new team in the newsroom devoted to investigative reporting. But he also announces the outsourcing of the Strib’s print product, which means job losses.
My What Works partner Ellen Clegg has written a must-read piece on how local newsrooms in Minnesota are responding to the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a member and former speaker of the Minnesota House.
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot while another public official, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, suffered serious but non-fatal gunshot wounds. The gunman, identified as Vance Boelter, remains at large as of 5:10 p.m.
While a larger news outlet like The Minnesota Star Tribune has the reporting capacity to cover a big breaking-news story like this, Ellen writes that smaller outlets, often launched with a handful of journalists, now find themselves scrambling to keep up.
She puts it this way: “An all-hands national news story like this poses a core question for hyperlocal newsrooms, which typically launch with smaller staffs and a tightly focused mission of covering neighborhood people, politics and policies.”
Tom Breen in downtown New Haven. Photos (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.
For our 100th “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Tom Breen, the editor of the New Haven Independent. Tom joined the staff of the Independent in 2018 and then became managing editor. Last November, he stepped up to succeed founding editor Paul Bass, who launched the Independent in 2005 and is still very much involved.
Paul is executive director of the Online Journalism Project, the nonprofit organization he set up to oversee the Independent, the Valley Independent Sentinel in New Haven’s northwest suburbs and WNHH, a low-power community radio station. He continues to report the news for the Independent and hosts a show on WNHH, and he started another nonprofit, Midbrow, which publishes arts reviews in New Haven and several other cities across the country.
We spoke with Tom about his own vision for the Independent and why he thinks it has been successful enough to still be going strong after 20 years. He also reminisces about a harrowing encounter he once had with a pitbull while he was out knocking on doors for a story on mortgage foreclosures. I interviewed Tom for our book, “What Works in Community News.”
New Haven Independent reporter Maya McFadden interviews Victor Joshua, director of a youth basketball program called RespeCT Hoops.
Listeners will also hear from Alexa Coultoff, a Northeastern student who wrote an in-depth report on the local news ecosystem in Fall River, Massachusetts, a blue-collar community south of Boston that flipped to Donald Trump in the last election after many decades of being a solidly Democratic city. We recently published Alexa’s story, so please give it a read.
Ellen has a Quick Take on two big moves on the local news front. The National Trust for Local News has named a new CEO to replace Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, who resigned earlier this year. The new leader is Tom Wiley, who is now president and publisher of The Buffalo News. And in the heartland, The Minnesota Star Tribune has named a new editor to replace Suki Dardarian, who is retiring. The nod goes to Kathleen Hennessey, the deputy politics editor of the New York Times and a former Associated Press reporter.
My Quick Take examines a recent court decision ruling that Google has engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the way it controls the technology for digital advertising. This was the result of a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department and a number of states, but it’s also the subject of lawsuits brought by the news business, which argues that Google has destroyed the value of online ads. It’s potentially good news. It’s also complicated, and its effect may be way off in the future.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Erica Heilman, who produces a podcast called “Rumble Strip.” Heilman’s shows air monthly on Vermont Public and other NPR stations as well as the BBC. “Rumble Strip” can also be found on all the usual podcast platforms.
Her episodes range in length from a few minutes to, well, as long as they need to be! As Chelsea Edgar wrote in a profile for Seven Days of Burlington, Vermont, “She wants to make meandering, kaleidoscopic stories about the stuff of ordinary Vermont life.”
In 2020, Heilman produced a memorable pandemic miniseries, “Our Show.” It featured listener-submitted recordings of life in lockdown, and it was The Atlantic’s No. 1 podcast of the year. In November 2021 she produced “Finn and the Bell,” the textured story of a Walden teenager who died by suicide. It won a Peabody, the highest award in broadcasting.
Ellen has an update on Suki Dardarian, the retiring editor and senior vice president of The Minnesota Star Tribune. She has been named the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year by the National Press Club.
I’ve got a Quick Take about tools for local news organizations dealing with various forms of harassment. The Institute for Nonprofit News, a leading organization for hyperlocal journalism, has put together some resources.
Photo (cc) 2010 by red, white, and black eyes forever
Ordinarily when I write about libel suits, it’s to call your attention to some bad actor whose ridiculous claims threaten to damage freedom of the press. Today, though, I want to tell you about a case involving CNN that has me wondering what on earth executives at the news channel could be thinking.
Media reporter David Folkenflik of NPR explains the case in some detail. In November 2021, CNN’s Alex Marquardt reported that Zachary Young, who runs an outfit called Nemex Enterprises, was taking advantage of desperate Afghans by charging them “exorbitant fees” to extract them from Afghanistan after the U.S. pulled out and the government fell into the hands of the Taliban.
CNN said there was no evidence that Young had been successful in evacuating anyone. Young claims otherwise. Folkenflik writes:
Young has sued CNN for defamation. In his complaint, his attorneys say CNN gave him just hours to respond to its questions before it first aired that story on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” They say Young had, in fact, successfully evacuated dozens of people from Afghanistan.
In rebutting those allegations in court, CNN has since cast doubt on Young’s claim of the successful evacuations. Behind the scenes, however, some editors expressed qualms about the reporting, court filings show.
You should read Folkenflik’s full story. What you’ll learn is that:
CNN may or may not have gotten it right, but it is basing its defense, in part, on what it describes as Young’s refusal “to cooperate with CNN’s reporting efforts,” as if he was under any legal obligation to do so. Also, keep in mind that Young argues he was given “just hours to respond.”
Tom Lumley, CNN’s senior national security editor, privately called the story “a mess.” Megan Trimble, a top editor, agreed that “it’s messy.”
There was some sentiment within CNN that it was all right to go ahead with a fleeting television version of the story that wouldn’t attract much notice but that posting a written article was risky.
Marquardt, in an internal message, had written, “We gonna nail this Zachary Young mf*****,” and at least two other CNN journalists had disparaged Young besides, with one saying Young had “a punchable face.”
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:
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.
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.
