What Works – Page 4 – Media Nation

The Star Tribune, now under new leadership, will bolster its coverage of Minnesota

Amid the evisceration of large regional newspapers at the hands of corporate and hedge-fund owners stand a few notable exceptions. The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and several others are among the major metros with committed local ownership that have managed to survive and even thrive. So, too, with the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, which under billionaire owner Glen Taylor has undergone a renaissance, transforming itself into a profitable business and a Pulitzer factory.

Now the Strib is growing. As Ellen Clegg writes at What Works, new CEO and publisher Steve Grove is expanding the paper’s reach into the more rural parts of the state, where the lack of reliable news and information is especially acute. Ellen writes:

The expansion plans are nothing if not ambitious. The newsroom has posted jobs for reporters in north central and southwest Minnesota and is expanding existing teams in communities outside the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Back in the downtown Minneapolis office, the Strib is launching a “Today Desk” to track breaking news online and beefing up that reporting team. Grove is also in the market for a greater Minnesota columnist to roam the state’s rural communities and report on trends — the kind of coverage that has been harder for small nonprofit media startups to sustain.

The Star Tribune is one of the projects that Ellen and I write about in our book “What Works in Community News,” which was published today by Beacon Press.

Leave a comment | Read comments

Alden buys four papers in Pennsylvania. You’ll have no trouble believing what happened next.

The historic Scranton Times building. Photo (cc) 2022 by Jeffrey Hayes.

Last summer came horrifying news from Scranton, Pennsylvania: the notorious hedge fund Alden Global Capital was buying the Scranton Times-Tribune and three sister papers from the Lynett family, the local publishers going back to 1895. The sale was taking place even though those members of the family who actually ran the papers opposed it. They were outvoted by other members of the family who simply wanted to cash out and get on with their lives. Ellen Clegg and I talked about it at the time on the “What Works” podcast.

What happened next was predictable and depressing. Washington Post media columnist Erik Wemple traveled to the Scranton area recently and filed a long, sad report about what he found (free link). The lowlights:

The news staff, already down to 40, a steep decline from 90 in the late 1990s, was immediately cut by another 10, with employees offered voluntary buyouts if they would just go away.
Newsrooms in Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and Pottsfield were put up for sale. The Scranton Times’ headquarters was abandoned in late November, with journalists being told that most of them would be expected to work at home.
Some customer service calls were outsourced to the Philippines.

Almost immediately, Wemple writes, editorials about local and state issues were replaced with generic national content, which is exactly the opposite approach that researchers Joshua Darr, Matthew Hitt and Johanna Dunaway found is helpful in reducing political polarization. As Darr told Ellen in 2021:

It’s important for people to be able to express their opinions on national politics, and there are myriad ways to do that. But I don’t think there’s necessarily a good reason for local newspapers to devote some of their precious op-ed page space to things that aren’t local. I think they should be maximizing their comparative advantage in the marketplace by giving people things that they can’t get anywhere else.

There’s no question that the Pennsylvania papers were facing real challenges. As Wemple reports, paid circulation and advertising were both in a tailspin, and the Lynett family understandably was tired of subsidizing losses. But it didn’t have to end like this. Perhaps the best solution would have been for a local nonprofit institution to purchase the papers, as is the case at another Pennsylvania paper — The Philadelphia Inquirer, a for-profit entity owned by the nonprofit Lenfest Institute.

Steven Waldman, the president of Rebuild Local News, has proposed tax incentives and other measures to prevent newspapers from falling into the hands of cost-slashing chains. Unfortunately, such steps would not have come in time to save the Lynett papers.

Sadly, based on Wemple’s story, it doesn’t sound like much of an effort was made to find a buyer that would have operated the papers for the benefit of the public rather than for Alden’s wealthy investors. I just hope that some of the journalists who have lost their jobs will fight back by starting their own venture, as is happening in community after community across the country.

Leave a comment | Read comments

What’s next for Andy and Dee Hall, the retiring co-founders of Wisconsin Watch

Dee and Andy Hall. Photo by Narayan Mahon for Wisconsin Watch is used with permission.

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Andy and Dee Hall, co-founders of Wisconsin Watch. Wisconsin Watch was launched in 2009 as the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. It’s nonprofit and nonpartisan, and it has grown a lot over the last 14 years. Andy is retiring on Dec. 31 of this year and is helping the new CEO, George Stanley, with the transition.

Dee Hall, co-founder and former managing editor of Wisconsin Watch, is also moving on, and is now editor-in-chief of Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom with a clear mission: Floodlight investigates “the powerful interests stalling climate action.” Floodlight partners with local and national journalists to co-publish collaborative investigations.

The podcast will resume after the holidays, and we fill in listeners in on events surrounding the launch of our book, “What Works in Community News,” which is coming out on Jan. 9. We’ll be talking about the book that night at 7 p.m. at Brookline Booksmith in Coolidge Corner in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Ellen has a Quick Take on Signal Ohio, a well-funded nonprofit news startup in Ohio that’s now expanding into Akron. We’ve worked with a Northeastern graduate student, Dakotah Kennedy (no relation to me), on this podcast who’s now a service journalism reporter for Signal Cleveland.

You can listen to our conversation here and subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

Leave a comment | Read comments

The Winsted Citizen, launched amid a dispute with Ralph Nader, will close its doors

Update: The Citizen has been acquired by American Business Media and will continue to publish. See our latest here.

Connecticut’s Winsted Citizen, launched last February with funding by the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, is shutting down. The Citizen got off to a rocky start over a dispute with Nader over how much money he had actually pledged. But the editor and publisher of the paper, Andy Thibault, told Ellen Clegg and me on the “What Works” podcast last June that he and Nader had reached an understanding and were working cooperatively.

Andrew Larson reports in the Hartford Business Journal that the Citizen was able to produce nine monthly editions before shutting down. Even though Thibault said the deficits were shrinking over time thanks to reader support, the ongoing losses became unsustainable.

In a statement that Thibault sent to Ellen and me, he said, “We beat the Grim Reaper every month for most of the year. Our best month financially resulted in our lowest deficit. Now, our quest regrettably has become the impossible dream. It sure was great — despite numerous stumbles, obstacles and heartaches — while it lasted.”

Best wishes to Thibault and his staff on whatever comes next.

Leave a comment | Read comments

Priyanjana Bengani talks about ‘pink slime’ and her research on disinformation

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen and I talk with Priyanjana Bengani, a fellow in computational journalism at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Her work focuses on using computational techniques to research issues in digital media.

Her most recent project, published in the Columbia Journalism Review, focused on uncovering networks of “pink slime” local news outlets. There have been several iterations of pink slime sites over the years, such as the North Boston News. Bengani has studied partisan political sites disguised as genuine community news organizations. (There’s no such place as “North Boston,” by the way.) They get their name from the pinkish beef paste that is added to hamburger meat.

In Quick Takes, I revisit Press Forward, the $500 million philanthropic effort aimed at revitalizing local news. When Press Forward was announced a few months ago, many observers were worried that a national, top-down effort might clash with local needs and local concerns. Fortunately, Press Forward is now getting involved in the grassroots in an attempt to leverage its funding and help a wide range of local and regional news projects.

Ellen delves into a piece in Racket, an alternative news site in Minneapolis. (The What Works podcast with editor and co-owner Em Cassel can be found here.) Racket takes a steely-eyed look at Steve Grove, the new CEO and publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Just before taking the journalism job, Grove settled a lawsuit alleging he withheld public records from the press when he was a state government official.

You can listen to our conversation here and subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

Leave a comment | Read comments

The Colorado Sun donates its share of 24 suburban papers and urges they go nonprofit

One of the more innovative efforts at saving newspapers from chain ownership is winding down, although the papers themselves remain protected. The Colorado Sun announced Wednesday that it would transfer its ownership shares of Colorado Community Media (CCM), a chain of 24 weekly and monthly papers in the Denver suburbs, to the nonprofit National Trust for Local News, which led the effort to buy the papers two years ago. The Sun had been given a stake in CCM in return for helping to run the papers.

The reason given for pulling out was that the Sun is in the process of converting from a for-profit public benefit corporation to a nonprofit, which I wrote about recently for Nieman Lab. A story in the Sun that appeared Wednesday urged nonprofit status for CCM as well: “Just as we believe that nonprofit is the right fit for The Sun, we believe it’s a good fit for these weeklies, too. That will be a decision for the Trust and the board of directors of the Colorado News Conservancy, the parent company of CCM.” No money is changing hands. (The Conservancy is the entity established by the National Trust and the Sun to run the CCM papers).

Sun editor and co-founder Larry Ryckman said on X/Twitter: “We’ve been proud co-owners of Colorado Community Media for 2 years & wish it well in this new chapter. They’re doing great work & deserve your support.” Linda Shapley, publisher of CCM, was quoted in the Sun as saying: “I’m grateful for The Sun’s support at a time that was most critical for our future At Colorado Community Media, we’re excited to be part of the evolving Colorado news ecosystem, and we’re dedicated to serving our communities with timely, factual news and information.”

The Sun and CCM are the subject of a chapter in “What Works in Community News,” a book about the future of local journalism by Ellen Clegg and me that will be published in January. In September 2021 I spent nearly a week in Denver reporting on Colorado’s media ecosystem. Obviously that ecosystem is still in flux, but the period covered by our book ends in late 2022.

I believe what was taking place in Colorado back then is a story still worth telling: the founding of the Sun by 10 journalists who’d quit The Denver Post following deep cuts by its hedge-fund owner, Alden Global Capital; the Sun’s early hopes of raising money through blockchain technology; its unique governance structure; and its participation in the acquisition of CCM.

Ellen and I look at our book not as a standalone entity but, rather, as the hub of an ongoing story that also comprises updates to our website, a podcast (Shapley, National Trust executive director Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, and former Denver Post editor Greg Moore have all been guests, and we hope to have Ryckman on once the book has been released), and an evolving social media presence (we’re currently on X/Twitter and Mastodon, but that may change).

So of course we want you to read our book. But we also hope you’ll turn to our other platforms to keep up on the latest.

Leave a comment | Read comments

Using AI to tell a story about AI

Today at What Works, we have a story by one of our Northeastern graduate students, Ian Dartley, about Inside Arlington, a local news project powered by artificial intelligence. It’s no substitute for the human touch, and in fact the town already has a very good nonprofit news organization, YourArlington. But it’s an interesting experiment, and Ian does a great job of explaining it.

We also decided to have a little fun. The headline and the bullet points used to summarize Ian’s story were written by ChatGPT. So was the social media post we used to promote the story. Here’s how it looks on Threads:

How about ChatGPT finding that dog emoji? Good boy! I thought it was interesting that ChatGPT wrote fairly dull headlines and bullet points but suddenly developed a sense of fun when it came time to write a social media post.

Leave a comment | Read comments

Meg Heckman on the legacy of Nackey Loeb and how she helped shape the N.H. primary

On the latest What Works podcast, Ellen and I talk with Meg Heckman, a colleague of ours at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism. Meg is an associate professor and author who’s had a long career as a journalist. She spent more than a decade as a reporter and, later, the digital editor at the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, where she developed a fascination with presidential politics, a passion for local news and an appreciation for cars with four-wheel drive.

Her book, “Political Godmother: Nackey Scripps Loeb and the Newspaper That Shook the Republican Party,” documents the lasting impact of New Hampshire publisher and conservative activist Nackey Loeb. Loeb and her husband, the right-wing provocateur William Loeb, helped shape the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary for many decades at their newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader. As you’ll hear, Heckman draws a straight line from Nackey Loeb’s support of Republican Patrick Buchanan in 1992 to the rise of Donald Trump a generation later.

In Quick Takes, Ellen calls attention to a piece in ProPublica by journalist Dan Golden about his history working for the local daily in Springfield, Massachusetts. Turns out the good-old-days in newspapering weren’t all good. Golden cautions against recreating them. ProPublica, a nonprofit, allows other outlets to republish its work, so you’ll find Golden’s essay on the What Works website.

I take a look back at an example of how diligent local news reporting can have an enormous impact nearly 45 years after the fact. Recently the EPA proposed a ban on trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent that’s been linked to leukemia, birth defects and other health problems. The road to that ban began in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1979, with a super-smart young reporter I had the honor of working with. I wrote about it for The Boston Phoenix back in 1998.

You can listen to our conversation here and subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

Leave a comment | Read comments

Sahan Journal’s founder to step down; plus, news from Mendo County and New Jersey

With the January 2024 publication date of our book, “What Works in Community News,” drawing ever closer, we want to keep you up to date on new developments at the projects that we track.

The big news today is that Mukhtar Ibrahim, the founder of Sahan Journal, is stepping down as chief executive officer. Ibrahim launched the nonprofit (relaunched, actually; it’s complicated) five years ago to cover Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. He writes:

I am proud of the remarkable success story that our dedicated staff has built. We have grown from a four-person newsroom to an amazing and talented team of 20, covering a wide range of essential topics and producing innovative multimedia content. We have built an equitable, transparent, and responsive work culture that supports the professional development and well-being of every staff member.

Kate Maxwell, the publisher and co-founder of The Mendocino Voice in Northern California, has written a useful guide for the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri aimed at newsrooms looking to put together a kit to be used when covering emergencies. It’s a need that the Voice is experienced with, given that it covers an area frequently hit by wildfires. Maxwell begins:

For newsrooms preparing to cover emergencies, there are a range of material and operational considerations to examine such as necessary equipment, staff support and schedules, and how to stay safe in the middle of a disaster. Planning the practical ways you will communicate with each other and community members, and how to get crucial information out to the people who need it, is an essential part of preparing your newsroom and your community for an emergency.

Finally, Joe Amditis of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey, tells us about a collaborative effort to put together ahead of next week’s legislative elections. The guide, NJ Decides 2023, was put together by the center; NJ Spotlight News, one of the media organizations that we profile in our book; and the NJ Civic Information Consortium, a publicly funded effort to bolster local news in New Jersey.

A number of other news outlets assisted with reporting, and the guide is available not only in English but also in Chinese, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu and Korean. According to Amditis:

The collaborative then split the races up, with journalists from each news organization claiming the candidates they would commit to chase down.

Collaborative members sent hundreds of emails, social media messages, text messages and phone calls trying to convince candidates to fill out the form. Many did so immediately; others needed to be reminded multiple times.

Leave a comment | Read comments

Six projects featured in our book and podcast are honored by LION Publishers

LION Publishers has named 36 winners of its 2023 Local Journalism Awards — and four of them have either been featured in “What Works in Community News,” the forthcoming book by Ellen Clegg and me, have been guests on the “What Works” podcast, or both. Two other projects we’ve highlighted were finalists. For that matter, LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers’ executive director, Chris Krewson, has been a guest on our podcast as well. Below I have omitted circulation categories, but you can find them if you click through to the full list.

• Santa Cruz Local, in California, was honored as LION Business of the Year, the organization’s “marquee award.” The Local was also the co-winner of the Operational Resilience Award and a finalist for a Community Engagement Award. We interviewed CEO and co-founder Kara Meyberg Guzman for both our book and our podcast.

• The Food Section’s editor and founder, Hanna Raskin, was the winner of the Community Member of the Year Award for her work in helping other members and for sharing her knowledge. The Food Section, which is devoted to Southern food and cooking, was also a finalist for a Business of the Year Award and an Outstanding Coverage Award. Raskin has been a guest on our podcast.

• VTDigger, a large nonprofit that covers both statewide and local news in Vermont, was a co-winner of the Public Service Award for its reporting on legislators’ ethics disclosures. Founding editor Anne Galloway has been a guest on our podcast.

• Burlington Buzz, a hyperlocal site that covers Burlington, Massachusetts, won a Community Engagement Award. Founder Nicci Kadilak has been a guest on our podcast.

In addition, The Colorado Sun and The Mendocino Voice, both of which are covered extensively in “What Works in Community News,” earned finalist nominations, the Sun for Collaboration of the Year and the Voice for an Accountability Award. We plan to have folks from both projects on our podcast sometime next year after the book is published.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

Leave a comment | Read comments