About once a year I drive down to Taunton in order to appear on “SouthCoast Matters,” a public affairs program hosted by Paul Letendre, to talk about a variety of media issues.
This year Paul was joined by Lean Camara, the CEO at The New Bedford Light, a vibrant nonprofit news outlet. Part one of our conversation aired on Sept. 5 and part two on Sept. 7. Paul is a terrific host, and I always enjoy appearing on his program.
I’m back from vacation, and this morning I have a round-up of some items about the state of local news. Unfortunately, my top story is not good. The Tampa Bay Times, a news organization that does it the right way, is nevertheless facing a 20% cut to its payroll.
The paper, which has won 14 Pulitzer Prizes over the years, will offer buyouts to its 270 full-time employees, a number that includes 100 journalists. Top executives will take 10% pay cuts through the end of 2024, with chair and CEO Conan Gallaty taking 20%.
The Times has long since given up on daily print; it currently publishes print editions on Wednesdays and Sundays, and is digital-only the rest of the week.
What’s distressing is that the Times has an admirable business model. It’s a for-profit paper owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, a highly regarded journalism-education organization. The original idea, though, was that some of the Times’ profits would be used to subsidize Poynter. Those profits have long since dried up, forcing Poynter to raise money on its own. That model is the opposite of a newer hybrid, The Philadelphia Inquirer, a for-profit owned by the nonprofit Lenfest Institute, which was specifically set up to support the Inquirer and other news organizations.
The Times writes that “print advertising and circulation have declined steadily and digital revenue growth hasn’t made up for the shortfall.”
With other major Florida newspapers in the hands of bottom line-obsessed entities such as McClatchy (the Miami Herald) and Alden Global Capital (the Orlando Sentinel), it’s vital that the Tampa Bay Times survives and thrives.
The Maine event
I had not realized that Reade Brower was still in the newspaper business until I received a press release earlier this week announcing an innovative venture on the coast of Maine.
Brower sold The Portland Press Herald and its affiliated newspapers last summer to the National Trust for Local News — then turned around and helped assemble a company called Islandport Media. Now he and another veteran publisher, Kathleen Fleury Capetta, are combining four newspapers into the weekly Midcoast Villager, which will debut in September.
The four papers are the Camden Herald, The Free Press, The Republican Journal and The Courier-Gazette. Islandport’s holdings also include The Ellsworth American, a respected weekly newspaper that will not be part of the merger.
When I hear news like this, I worry that it’s a cost-cutting move and that the new entity will concentrate more on regional news than hyperlocal coverage. The press release, though, says that the company has been hiring, and will supplement the paper with targeted community newsletters. Brower and Fleury Capetta have something else in mind as well:
The publication will further invest in the community by opening the Villager Café in downtown Camden in 2025. The cafe will offer breakfast, lunch and coffee, but will also serve as a community center that hosts events related to local journalism, brings people together to talk about complex issues, and showcases local talent with concerts, readings, discussions and more. People are hungry for social connections; the cafe and the publication will bring people together and provide a greater sense of belonging for community residents.
This is a phenomenally great idea, reminiscent of the burgers-beers-and-news formula unveiled several years ago by The Big Bend Sentinel in Texas. Civic engagement and news consumption are intimately tied together, so giving residents a reason to gather and talk about local issues will surely help the newspaper as well.
“We really believe that we just have to save local news, and this is an effort to do that,” Fleury Capetta told Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan.
Let there be Light
There’s some very good news at The New Bedford Light, a high-profile nonprofit that covers the South Coast of Massachusetts: Karen Bordeleau, a former executive editor of The Providence Journal, has been named editor. She’ll work alongside the current editor, Andy Tomolonis, until he retires next year, according to an announcement by CEO Lean Camara.
Bordeleau is a fellow graduate of Northeastern University’s journalism program. Not to reveal her age (or mine), but back in the 1970s we both worked as co-op students at Rhode Island’s Woonsocket Call, which, sadly, was merged into The Times of Pawtucket last October.
Congratulations to Karen — and to the Light, which has acquired a first-rate editor to succeed Tomolonis and, before him, founding editor Barbara Roessner.
I’ll be taking part in a webinar on “Saving Local News” on Wednesday, Feb. 14, from 3 to 4 p.m., sponsored by the Boston University Alumni Association. (That’s not why I got invited, but I actually did earn my master’s in American history from BU way back in 1983.)
The governance structure of The Worcester Guardian, a fledgling nonprofit begun by the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, is starting to become clearer. A message by consultant Dave Nordman, the former executive editor of the city’s daily, the Telegram & Gazette, says that the Guardian will have an independent board of directors in addition to a community advisory board. The Chamber has committed $50,000 to the launch, but Nordman says the intention is for the Guardian to be a fully independent news organization.
The aim, Nordman told me by email, is “total separation.” He said that Chamber president and CEO Tim Murray will probably have one of nine seats on the board but will not serve as the chair. “The board’s main responsibility,” Nordman said, “will be to rally the community.” The announcement of an editor, he added, is imminent.
The original announcement raised questions about how closely the Chamber would be tied to the Guardian. Nordman’s assurances makes it more likely that the Guardian will be accepted by the Institute for Nonprofit News, or INN, which would be a crucial step for credibility and fundraising. The Guardian’s inaugural governing documents also tracked too closely with the INN’s policies as well as the mission statement of The New Bedford Light, a large nonprofit, as reported by Bill Shaner of the newsletter Worcester Sucks and I Love It. Nordman, though, is a pro, and his involvement suggests that the Guardian will get off to a strong start. (Nordman is also a colleague of mine at Northeastern.) Nordman writes in his message at the Guardian’s website:
I believe free, nonprofit, independent news could provide a dynamic new platform to tell the Central Massachusetts story and report on important issues impacting Worcester and the region.
I believe mistakes will be made and lessons will be learned along the way.
I believe nonprofit, for-profit and independent journalism can co-exist. I believe blogs and social media also provide a forum for healthy discourse.
And I believe Murray when he says he will allow the Guardian to tell the story of Worcester independent of the chamber.
The community will be watching.
The Worcester area is not exactly a news desert, although local residents have lamented deep cuts at the Telegram & Gazette under Gannett’s ownership. MassLive, part of The Republican of Springfield, publishes a fair amount of Worcester news. GBH News has a Worcester bureau. The 016.com aggregates news from the Worcester area as well. Still, a Worcester-based nonprofit, grounded in community values, would be a welcome addition to Central Massachusetts.
In the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Walter Robinson, a longtime investigative journalist and editor of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team. Robby, as he is known, was instrumental in uncovering the clergy sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in Boston and beyond. The series won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. The team’s work was captured onscreen in the movie “Spotlight,” where Robby was played by the actor Michael Keaton.
Robby is a former colleague — he was a Distinguished Professor of Journalism here at Northeastern. He was also a 1974 graduate of Northeastern’s journalism program and participated in co-op.
Robinson covered and edited local news at the Globe. But he ranged wide. He reported from 48 states and 33 countries. He covered the White House during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He was also the Globe’s Middle East bureau chief and covered the first Persian Gulf War.
In recent years, Robby has been focused on the local news crisis in a big way. He has been deeply involved in the New Bedford Light, an impressive nonprofit digital news outlet. He lives in Plymouth, so it’s perhaps no surprise that he is a key adviser to the board of directors at the new Plymouth Independent.
I’ve got a Quick Take on developments in the junkyard known as Twitter. Ellen reports on a new podcast out of Memphis called “Civil Wrongs.” It’s produced by a Report for America corps member that examines a racist massacre in the aftermath of the Civil War.
The New Bedford Light is hiring an editor-in-chief. Congratulations to founding editor Barbara Roessner for getting this important project off the ground and moving in a good direction.
There are few local news start-ups that have received the kind of attention bestowed upon The New Bedford Light, which has been the subject of stories by The New York Times, “On the Media,”The Boston Globe and other outlets. With high-profile founders like publisher Stephen Taylor, of the Taylor family that used to own the Globe, and board member Walter Robinson of “Spotlight” fame, the Light is being watched closely across the country.
The nonprofit digital project also has a high-profile editor — Barbara Roessner, the retired editor of top Connecticut outlets such as the Hartford Courant and the state’s Hearst papers. Recently I had a chance to speak with Roessner as guest cohost the local cable television show “SouthCoast Matters” with Paul Letendre.
We interviewed Roessner for an hour. Her insights into the future of community journalism and what she hopes to accomplish at the Light were pretty interesting, and I hope you’ll agree.
The New Bedford Light, a nonprofit news project launched recently, could lay claim to being the most highly touted community journalism organization in quite some time. Today, The New York Times weighs in. Previously, The Boston Globe and CommonWealth Magazine ran profiles.
As the Times’ Katharine Q. Seelye notes, the Light’s model is to run one significant story a day in the hopes of filling the gap created by the implosion of The Standard-Times, a venerable New Bedford daily that has been ripped apart under the ownership of the Gannett chain.
“We cannot go down the route of the daily newspaper that tries to do all things for all people,” the editor, Barbara Roessner, told Seelye. “The challenge for us is to stay disciplined to do the deeper work and not be caught up in the daily news cycle.”
I’m not so sure about that. As I’ve written previously, what the city might need more than anything is daily accountability journalism. It can be done effectively with a small staff, as the New Haven Independent, to name one example, has been demonstrating for nearly 16 years.
Still, the Light is attractive and has published some significant stories since its debut. Leading the site right now is a story by Will Sennott on the city’s looming eviction crisis. Other recent stories include a look at the effects of rising real-estate prices and racial and ethnic patterns of where COVID-19 hit the New Bedford area the hardest.
The leadership of the Light is unusually high-powered. Roessner is a former managing editor of the Hartford Courant and former executive editor of the Hearst Connecticut Media Group. The publisher is Stephen Taylor, a former top executive of The Boston Globe as well as a member of the family that used to own the Globe. Walter Robinson of “Spotlight” fame is a board member.
It looks like the Light should go a long way toward changing New Bedford’s status as an undercovered community.
Best wishes to New Bedford Light, a nonprofit startup that is aiming to provide in-depth journalism in a city whose legacy newspaper, The Standard-Times, has been gutted by Gannett. Bruce Mohl of CommonWealth magazine reports. (MassINC chair Greg Torres, which publishes CommonWealth, is involved.)
The Light hasn’t launched yet, but it’s had a Facebook page for several months. I hope the project succeeds, but I’m a little bit skeptical of the model. Mohl writes:
Barbara Roessner, the founding editor, lives in Westport and is a former managing editor of the Hartford Courant. Her initial plan calls for producing one major in-depth piece of journalism each week; the focus will be on providing context and insight, she said, not breaking news or high school sports.
I wonder if it might make more sense to make the Light essential to everyone right from the start by providing basic accountability journalism — city council, school committee, police, development and the like. Mohl does describe the once-a-week pace as the “initial” plan; maybe that will evolve into more comprehensive coverage as the project develops. My advice would be to cover the everyday details of city life and leave the suburbs to The Standard-Times. The logo, though, references “Greater New Bedford,” which suggests they’re looking beyond the city.
I was also interested to see that the group behind the Light approached Gannett about selling The Standard-Times and was turned down. Maybe the chain’s executives will come to regret their decision. More likely they’ve calculated that there are a few more dollars they can squeeze out.