National Trust for Local News

The impact of NPR cuts; plus, a National Trust update, Tufts journalists and libel fallout in Everett

You may have heard that less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal government. That figure is sometimes bandied about by those who wonder why the news organization doesn’t just cut the cord and end the debate over taxpayer-funded news. The problem is that it’s more complicated than that.

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In today’s New York Times morning newsletter, media reporter Benjamin Mullin explains the reality. Public radio stations in general are highly dependent on funding from the quasi-governmental Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and those member stations pay a lot for NPR programming.

In rural areas, in particular, public radio is a primary source of news when there is an emergency such as a tornado or flooding. And many of those stations would not survive a cutoff in government funding. Mullin writes:

NPR can weather the funding cut, … thanks in part to aggrieved listeners: Executives predict a sudden boom in donations if Congress defunds it, as listeners rush to defend their favorite programs. But they will likely give more in big-city markets.

Or as former CPB board member Howard Husock has put it: “NPR may receive little direct federal funding, but a good deal of its budget comprises federal funds that flow to it indirectly by federal law.”

Continue reading “The impact of NPR cuts; plus, a National Trust update, Tufts journalists and libel fallout in Everett”

How Northeastern’s Mike Beaudet is helping to define the digital future of local TV news

Mike Beaudet on a student reporting trip to Peru that he helped lead in 2024.

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Mike Beaudet, longtime investigative reporter for WCVB-TV (Channel 5) in Boston and a multimedia professor at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.

Mike has won many awards for his hard-hitting investigations and runs a project aimed at reinventing television news. On March 21-22, he’ll lead a conference at Northeastern called “Reinvent: A Video Innovation Summit.” Mike’s students are producing content for everything from Instagram and YouTube to TikTok. As he explains, local television news, still among the most trusted and popular forms of journalism, must transition from linear TV in order to reach younger audiences who’d prefer to watch video on their phones.

I’ve got a Quick Take about the National Trust for Local News. Co-founder Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro exited the nonprofit suddenly last month. That came amid reports that the Portland Press Herald and other papers that the Trust owns in the state of Maine might soon announce budget cuts.

(Cuts were announced at the Maine papers after this podcast was recorded. Although the newsrooms were spared, Aidan Ryan of The Boston Globe reports that 49 employees will lose their jobs and that print will be pared back significantly in favor of digital.)

Now comes more bad news. Colorado Community Media, a group of 24 weekly and monthly papers in the Denver suburbs, is closing two papers and is losing money, writes Corey Hutchins in his newsletter, Inside the News in Colorado. Those papers were the National Trust’s first acquisitions in 2021. The Trust’s mission is to buy papers that are in danger of falling into the clutches of corporate chain ownership. It’s a worthy goal, but the Trust has obviously hit some significant obstacles.

Ellen has a Quick Take noting that Harvard University is shutting down Harvard Public Health, the digital home to stellar longform journalism about public health. At a time when the very facts of science are challenged on social media every day, this is disheartening news.

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

Will The Washington Post become ‘a corporate libertarian mouthpiece’? Plus, media notes.

Former Washington Post (and Boston Globe) top editor Marty Baron, left, with his old Globe colleague Matt Carroll, now a journalism professor at Northeastern University. Photo (cc) 2024 by Dan Kennedy.

It’s been nearly a week since Jeff Bezos issued his edict that The Washington Post’s opinion section would henceforth be devoted exclusively to “personal liberties and free markets,” and it’s still not clear what that is going to mean in practice.

Many observers, including me, have assumed that Bezos was using coded language — that, in fact, what he meant was that the Post would go all-in on Trumpism. That would seem logical given his earlier order to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris and his overall sucking up to Donald Trump.

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So far, though, not much has happened other than the resignation of opinion editor David Shipley. Liberal opinion journalists like Eugene Robinson, Ruth Marcus and Perry Bacon Jr. are still there. Another liberal, Dana Milbank, responded to Bezos’ edict by tweaking the owner (gift link), writing:

If we as a newspaper, and we as a country, are to defend Bezos’s twin pillars, then we must redouble our fight against the single greatest threat to “personal liberties and free markets” in the United States today: President Donald Trump.

Given that Bezos’ agenda has yet to be clearly articulated, let me suggest another possibility: rather than Trumpism, he intends to embrace libertarianism, which was thought to be his guiding political philosophy before he bought the Post in 2013.

Continue reading “Will The Washington Post become ‘a corporate libertarian mouthpiece’? Plus, media notes.”

The AP goes local; plus, the National Trust runs into trouble in Colorado, and a call for de-Foxification

The Associated Press has been in the news a lot lately, both because of its feud with the White House over Donald Trump’s insistence that it refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and for some cuts it’s had to implement (see Gintautus Dumcius’ story in CommonWealth Beacon and Aidan Ryan’s in The Boston Globe).

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But here’s some good news: The AP announced on Thursday that it’s creating a Local Investigative Reporting Program to support efforts at the community level. According to an annoucement by executive editor Julie Pace, the initiative will be headed by veteran AP editor Ron Nixon, who “will work with state and local outlets to cultivate stories and support their investigative reporting needs.”

The program will encompass training, resources and access to AP services, and will build on the agency’s Local News Success Team “to localize national stories for member audiences and provide services and support to newsrooms across the U.S.”

Continue reading “The AP goes local; plus, the National Trust runs into trouble in Colorado, and a call for de-Foxification”

The Globe reports on Maine’s troubled papers; plus, the Gulf of What?, and some recovery in DC and LA

Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan has written an interesting examination of what’s gone wrong at the Portland Press Herald and other papers that are part of the Maine Trust for Local News.

On the one hand, the story feels provisional — we still don’t know why two top executives left suddenly, and severe cuts that observers had told me were coming are, well, still coming. The executives who left recently were Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, co-founder and CEO of the National Trust for Local News, which acquired the papers in 2023, and Lisa DeSisto, CEO of the Maine Trust — and, before that, publisher of the Press Herald. Other top people have departed as well.

On the other hand, Ryan has some details I hadn’t seen before. For one thing, the Trust reported that it lost $500,000 in 2024 as the decline of advertising outpaced gains in digital subscription revenue.

More shocking is that former owner Reade Brower apparently considered David Smith as a potential buyer before selling to the National Trust. Smith, the head of the right-wing television network Sinclair Broadcasting, is currently turning The Baltimore Sun into an embarrassment. Sinclair owns WGME-TV (Channel 13) in Portland, so who knows what sort of synergistic hell Smith had in mind.

Brower instead sold the papers to the National Trust for $15 million (a figure that’s being reported for the first time from documents that Ryan obtained) in the hope that a nonprofit organization would prove to be a better steward.

One data point I do want to address is Dr. Hansen Shapiro’s compensation, reported in the National Trust’s public 1099 filings and noted by both the Press Herald at the time that she stepped down and now by the Globe.

Hansen Shapiro did make a lot of money — nearly $371,000 in 2023 compared to just $117,000 in 2021. At the same time, though, 2021 was when the Trust pulled off its first deal, buying 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in the Denver suburbs. The Trust today owns 65 papers in Colorado, Georgia and Maine. Given the Trust’s pivot to a hands-on operating role, Hansen Shapiro’s job responsibilities changed as well.

I’m not writing this to defend her compensation or, for that matter, the Trust’s change of focus. But it’s important context to think about.

“Journalists employed by the Maine Trust said while they remain hopeful about the new ownership, they question aspects of its approach,” Ryan writes, who notes that no one among the rank and file would speak with him on the record “because they feared retaliation.”

Finally, my usual disclosures: Ellen Clegg and I interviewed Hansen Shapiro for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and featured her on our podcast; we are both professional friends with DeSisto; and we gave a book talk at a fundraiser for the Maine Trust last fall.

Google caves

I learned this last night from journalist Dan Gillmor’s Bluesky feed: Google has apparently become the first of the internet map publishers to give in to Donald Trump’s ridiculous demand that the Gulf of Mexico now be referred to as the Gulf of America.

“I typed Gulf of Mexico into Google Maps,” Gillmor wrote. “It edited my query without permission and showed me the Trump cult invention that isn’t and never will be the real thing.”

At least as of this writing, Apple Maps and Microsoft’s Bing Maps are sticking with the Gulf of Mexico. But who knows what we’ll find tomorrow?

After Trump announced that he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Denali mountain in Alaska (it is reverting back to Mount McKinley), The Associated Press issued guidance for its bureaus and any other news outlets who use its stylebook.

The AP will continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico, which is an international body of water whose name has 400 years of tradition behind it; but it will go along with Mount McKinley because it is entirely on U.S. territory. It was only in 2015 that President Barack Obama issued an order restoring the mountain’s original Indigenous name.

By the way, the U.S. Geological Survey is going with Gulf of America too — but that’s hardly surprising given that it’s a federal agency.

No thanks to their owners

Good work is the best answer to the damage that two billionaire owners have done to their storied newspapers.

Semafor reports that The Washington Post has seen an upsurge in web traffic since Trump’s chaotic return to office, notwithstanding owner Jeff Bezos’ untimely killing of a Kamala Harris endorsement just before the election. One especially hot story: a report on the White House’s illegal federal spending freeze.

Meanwhile, Sarah Scire reports for Nieman Lab that the Los Angeles Times experienced a rise in paid subscriptions during the recent wildfires even though the paper had temporarily dropped its paywall. Like Bezos, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong canceled a Harris endorsement, provoking outrage, resignations and cancellations.

A closer look at what happened at the National Trust for Local News — and what may be coming in Maine

Former home of the Portland Press Herald in Maine, now a luxury hotel — Former headquarters of the Portland Press Herald in Maine, now a luxury hotel. Photo (cc) 2023 by Dan Kennedy.

I suspect we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the National Trust for Local News and especially its newspapers in Maine, anchored by the Portland Press Herald. The National Trust’s co-founder and CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, stepped down last week, and I’ve heard from serious people that substantial cuts may be coming.

While we’re waiting, though, I recommend this thoughtful analysis by Rick Edmonds, who writes about the business of news for the Poynter Institute. He speculates that one reason the National Trust may have run into trouble was that it morphed from a philanthropic venture that acquired newspapers into a nonprofit organization that saw its mission as actually running them.

In an interview last summer, Dr. Hansen Shapiro told Edmonds, “half-joking,” that “we are becoming like Gannett or McClatchy,” two chains notorious for cutting costs at their newspapers through top-down management. The difference was that the National Trust’s management was focused on improving its papers rather than squeezing out every last drop of revenue. But as Edmonds writes in a piece that was published on Thursday:

In practice, though, that meant not only ownership but decision-making had migrated up to a central office. The trust had become out of sync with the mantra that news organizations work best when they are owned and run by those closest to the local communities.

The National Trust’s first move was to acquire 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in the Denver suburbs back in 2021, which Ellen Clegg and I write about in our book, “What Works in Community News.” It later expanded into Maine and Georgia, and today owns about 60 papers.

Last summer, Hansen Shapiro told Edmonds that the National Trust was shifting from 25% investments and 75% execution to the reverse. In other words, what was originally intended as a project to save newspapers from chain ownership and then run them with a light touch morphed into something much more hands-on.

That has played out in an especially painful way in Maine, where Press Herald editor Steve Greenlee left to take a position at Boston University last year (in an email with Edmonds, he cryptically referred to leaving “at a time of great stress”), and Lisa DeSisto, the longtime publisher of the Press Herald and CEO of the Maine Trust for Local News (essentially a subsidiary of the National Trust), abruptly exited from her job in December.

My usual caveats: Hansen Shapiro is featured in our book and has been on our podcast; DeSisto is a professional friend of ours; and we were the guests at a fundraiser for the Maine Trust last October.

Update: Jody Jalbert has resigned as publisher of the Sun Journal of Lewiston, which is a Maine Trust paper. The story is paywalled, but according to Jalbert’s LinkedIn profile, she had been with the paper in various business-side positions since 1988. That’s a lot of experience to be walking out the door.

The triumph of hope over experience: The latest on how AI is not solving the local news crisis

Illustration produced by AI using DALL-E

This past weekend I listened to a bracingly entertaining conversation that the public radio program “On the Media” conducted with tech journalist Ed Zitron. Co-host Brooke Gladstone had billed it as a chance for Zitron to make sense out of DeepSeek, the new Chinese artificial-intelligence software that purports to do what ChatGPT and its ilk can do for a fraction of the cost — and, presumably, while using a fraction of the electric power burned by American AI companies.

But it was so much more than that. Maybe you’re familiar with Zitron. I wasn’t. As I learned, he is a caustic skeptic of American AI in general. In fact, he doesn’t even regard the large language models (LLMs) that we’ve come to think of as AI as the real thing, saying they are nothing but an error-prone scam that is attracting fast sums of venture capital but will never make any money. Here’s a taste:

The real damage that DeepSeek’s done is they’ve proven that America doesn’t really want to innovate. America doesn’t compete. There is no AI arms race. There is no real killer app to any of this. ChatGPT has 200 million weekly users. People say that’s a sign of something. Yes, that’s what happens when literally every news outlet, all the time, for two years, has been saying that ChatGPT is the biggest thing without sitting down and saying, “What does this bloody thing do and why does it matter?” “Oh, great. It helps me cheat at my college papers.”

And this:

When you actually look at the products, like OpenAI’s operator, they suck. They’re crap. They don’t work. Even now the media is still like, “Well, theoretically this could work.” They can’t. Large language models are not built for distinct tasks. They don’t do things. They are language models. If you are going to make an agent work, you have to find rules for effectively the real world, which AI has proven itself. I mean real AI, not generative AI that isn’t even autonomous is quite difficult.

As you can tell, Zitron has a Brit’s gift for vitriol, which made the program all the more compelling. Now, I am absolutely no expert in AI, but I was intrigued by Zitron’s assertion that LLMs are not AI, and that real AI is already working well in things like autonomous cars. (Really?) But given that we just can’t keep AI — excuse me, LLMs — from infesting journalism, I regarded Gladstone’s interview with Zitron as a reason to be hopeful. Maybe the robots aren’t going to take over after all.

Continue reading “The triumph of hope over experience: The latest on how AI is not solving the local news crisis”

Matt DeRienzo tells us how SciLine is connecting scientists with journalists on deadline

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Matt DeRienzo, the new director of SciLine. The project was founded seven years ago to make it easier for reporters to get in touch with scientists on deadline and to dig into research. And facts. The program is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 150-year-old organization that publishes the widely respected journal Science.

Most recently, Matt has been serving as temporary executive editor of Lookout Santa Cruz, the digital daily that won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2024. He has a long track record in investigative and local news, serving as an innovative daily newspaper editor and publisher in Connecticut about 15 years ago. I interviewed Matt in 2011 for my book “The Wired City” when Matt was editor of the New Haven Register and the slogan “Digital First” meant something more than a warning that Alden Global Capital was coming to town.

Matt joins SciLine at an important time. The Trump administration has suspended communications by government agencies that oversee science. Yet many newsrooms aren’t equipped to cover this because they have cut back on science coverage, if they do any at all. SciLine helps reporters find expert sources and gives them the tools to interpret cutting-edge research. Matt has a staff of 14 and the organization seems poised for growth.

I’ve got a Quick Take that hits close to my home in Medford, Massachusetts. A brand-new digital-only for-profit news outlet called Gotta Know Medford is on the verge of going live. It’s the first time the city of nearly 60,000 has had a dedicated local news outlet in three years, after it was abandoned by Gannett.

Ellen’s Quick Take involves big changes in Maine. In Bangor, the Bangor Daily News, a family-owned paper, is cutting back on staff-written editorials and opening the pages up to new voices. Separately, at the National Trust for Local News, which acquired the Portland Press Herald and a number of other Maine papers in 2023, the co-founder and CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, is stepping down. We interviewed Dr. Hansen Shapiro for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and for an earlier episode of this podcast.

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

Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, co-founder of the National Trust for Local News, steps down as CEO

Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, who co-founded the National Trust for Local News four years ago, is stepping down as the organization’s CEO. Dr. Hansen Shapiro’s announcement arrived in my inbox just a short time ago, and I have not had an opportunity to digest it. I may have more to say in the days and weeks ahead.

Eric Russell covers the story for the Portland Press Herald, which is one of the papers owned by the Trust.

I interviewed Hansen Shapiro for the book that Ellen Clegg and I wrote, “What Works in Community News,” to discuss the National Trust’s role in acquiring a group of weekly and monthly newspapers in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, back in 2021. Ellen and I also interviewed her for our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” in 2022, and an excerpt is featured in our book.

I can also credit Hansen Shapiro with suggesting that we take a look at NJ Spotlight News, which represents the merger of a website that covers politics and public policy in New Jersey with NJ PBS, the state’s public television outlet. It turned out to be a terrific recommendation, and NJ Spotlight News anchors one of the chapters in our book.

More synchronicity: In 2023, the National Trust purchased the Portland Press Herald and a group of affiliated daily and weekly papers in Maine. Last fall, Ellen and I were the guests of the Maine Trust for a talk about our book that also served as a fundraiser for the Maine papers. In December, though, Lisa DeSisto — a professional friend of Ellen’s and mine — suddenly left as CEO and publisher of the Maine Trust. I suspect there may be more news to come on what’s going on in Maine.

Hansen Shapiro’s original idea for the National Trust was to acquire family-owned newspapers that were in danger of falling into the hands of a corporate chain or hedge fund. And she has succeeded, presiding over the purchase of papers in Colorado, Maine and Georgia. I wish her good luck as she ponders what’s next. Her full announcement follows:

A Founder’s Reflection: On Building and Becoming

When I stepped out of academia four years ago to co-found the National Trust for Local News, I was answering a call that felt bigger than myself. I believed then, as I believe now, in the profound importance of preserving and reimagining our nation’s local storytelling institutions. Like the Nature Conservancy’s work to protect our natural heritage, we set out to conserve and transform the vital institutions that help communities understand themselves and each other.

In these four years, we’ve built something extraordinary together. We’ve demonstrated that a new model of stewardship is possible — one that honors both preservation and innovation, tradition and transformation. We’ve shown that what unites us truly is stronger than what divides us, and that local journalism can be a powerful force for reweaving our civic fabric. The challenges ahead are real, but so too is the strength of what we’ve built together.

As I reflect on this journey, I recognize that the very principles that guided our work — trust in community wisdom, belief in the power of transformation, and faith in our shared stories — now guide me to make a transition. I have decided to step down as CEO and am working closely with the board to transition to new leadership.

This moment arrives not as an ending, but as evolution: the vision that called me to build now calls me to step back, trusting in the foundation we’ve laid and the wisdom of those who will carry it forward. What began as a mission to build has become a lesson in letting go, in trusting that what we’ve created together has its own wisdom and momentum.

I look to the horizon of local news and see the seeds we’ve planted taking root in ways we may not yet imagine. I envision our work flowering into a thousand expressions of community storytelling, each uniquely adapted to its place and people. I see newsrooms becoming not just repositories of information, but sacred spaces where community wisdom is gathered, preserved, and shared across generations. I believe the National Trust will continue to be a crucible where tradition and innovation meet, where storytelling finds new forms, and where the threads of community are constantly rewoven into ever-stronger fabric.

To our generous supporters who believed in this vision from its earliest days: Your faith in what was possible, your willingness to invest in new models, and your commitment to community storytelling have made everything possible. You understood that preserving local journalism requires both innovation and deep respect for tradition. May your courage in supporting new paths forward inspire others to join in this vital work.

To those who will carry this work forward: May you find joy in being stewards of these community treasures. May you have the courage to preserve what is precious and the wisdom to welcome necessary change. May you feel the support of all who have contributed to this mission, and may you trust in the profound importance of your work.

I step back with profound gratitude for how this journey has transformed me even as we’ve worked to transform the landscape of local news. The story of the National Trust continues, evolving as all good stories do. I look forward to watching and supporting its next chapter, knowing that the work of preserving and reimagining local journalism is more vital than ever.

Lisa DeSisto resigns as CEO of the Maine Trust for Local News, which owns the Portland Press Herald

Big news from Down East as Lisa DeSisto, the CEO and publisher of the Maine Trust for Local News, has announced that she’s resigning. The Maine Trust is a nonprofit that owns the state’s largest daily paper, the Portland Press Herald, as well as three other daily papers and a number of weeklies. The papers themselves are for-profit entities.

According to Press Herald reporter Hannah LaClaire, DeSisto will leave by the end of the year. She’ll be replaced by Stefanie Manning, a Maine Trust executive who will assume the title of managing director. DeSisto said in a statement:

I have cherished my time leading this organization and working alongside such dedicated and talented colleagues. Serving our readers and supporting this incredible team has been a privilege. Representing the Maine Trust for Local News in the community has been an honor I will carry with me.

DeSisto leaves amid a time of transition at the Maine Trust. Longtime executive editor Steve Greenlee took a position at Boston University earlier this year and was replaced by Carolyn Fox, who had previously been managing editor of the Tampa Bay Times.

DeSisto hosted Ellen Clegg and me for a talk about our book, “What Works in Community News,” back in October. Ellen and I both have previous connections with Lisa — she and I were colleagues in the 1990s at The Boston Phoenix, where she was an executive in the advertising department, and Ellen worked with her after she moved to a top business-side position at The Boston Globe.

Lisa has been in Portland for 12 years and has been through several ownership changes. I visited the Press Herald in late 2015 to talk with her and others about a failed attempt by Boston-area entrepreneur Aaron Kushner to buy the paper in 2012; Kushner, who later bought the Orange County Register in Southern California, was one of the wealthy newspaper owners I profiled in “The Return of the Moguls.”

After Kushner’s bid in Maine fell apart, the paper was acquired by a wealthy Maine businessman named Donald Sussman, who in turn sold it to Reade Brower, a printer, in 2015. Brower sold the Press Herald and other papers he had accumulated to the nonprofit National Trust for Local News in 2023. The Maine Trust is a subsidiary of the National Trust.

Through it all, Lisa has been a source of stability and continuity. There’s no question that she’ll be deeply missed.