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Medill’s New Index Puts Spotlight on Rescuing At-Risk Subscribers
Northwestern University’s new Medill Subscriber Engagement Index highlights the need to identify at-risk digital subscribers and find effective ways to reach out to them, from ...
research |
Medill Launches Groundbreaking Subscriber Engagement Tool 44 Local News Outlets Across U.S. Participating, With Many More Expected in Coming Months
Northwestern University has launched the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index, a tool that allows local news organizations to see what content encourages subscribers to stick around ...
Q&A |
40-50 New Hires ‘Expected’ after WBEZ Merger With Chicago Sun-Times Will the Deal Be a National Model? Public Radio Station’s Execs Weigh In
Chicago Public Media, parent of one of the most prominent public radio stations in the country, WBEZ, has signed a letter of intent to acquire ...
trends |
Is 24/7 Digital and Sunday-Only Print the Future for Local News?
Some small weekly news outlets are getting more web-savvy, posting online when the news happens and in effect transforming themselves into daily digital publications. Some metro ...
trends |
Small Publishers Have Longer Runway to Digital, but They Still Need to Take Off
While some major local news outlets are well along on a dramatic pivot from print to digital, many smaller newsrooms remain bullish on print, and ...
trends |
2 News Outlets + 1 Reporter = Shared Mission National Networks Helping Local Outlets With Funding and Editing for Individual Journalists
The collaboration trend in local news is leading to a number of arrangements in which multiple news organizations work together on both the funding and ...
trends |
News Unchained: More Outlets Going Back to Local Ownership
As chain consolidation brings new uncertainty to an already fluid news landscape, another trend is emerging in which local investors buy news outlets from large ...
trends |
Nonprofit Investigative Outlets Serve News Needs in Midwest Last in a Series on Medill Students’ Innovation Tour
As many legacy news organizations downsize, it increasingly falls on nonprofits to do the deep dives that have long been a central function of American ...
trends |
How Journalism Students Are Filling Gaps in Local News Second in a Series on Medill Students’ Innovation Tour
As the local news crisis grows, staffs are thinning out and gaps in coverage are widening. But reinforcements are coming -- journalism students doing the ...
trends |
How Creative Thinkers Are Reinventing Local News in the Midwest First in a Series on Medill Students’ Innovation Tour
An Ohio news outlet that’s owned by the readers it serves. A start-up newsletter for Iowa’s Black residents. A student-reported website bringing information to a ...
trends |
Local News Outlets Upgrading Apps and Battling App-rehension
Local news organizations are working hard to improve their news apps and get readers to download them, touting them as a superior customer experience that ...
trends |
Journalism at Your Service: How Newsrooms Help Readers With Everyday Lives
Looking for a Covid-19 vaccine? Need your sidewalk shoveled? Who you gonna call? Your local news outlet. Many newsrooms are adopting a broader role in ...
update |
No, the Pandemic Didn’t Wreck News Outlets’ Hopes for Events Texas Tribune Increased Its Profit Margin on Events When It Went Virtual. And a Houston Outlet Got $60,000 in Sponsorships.
Just when local news outlets were ramping up audience events as a way to increase revenue and engagement, the pandemic hit. So their events programs ...
Q&A |
LSU’s Darr: Fight Polarization by Hiring More Local Opinion Editors
Joshua Darr, an Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication, has written a book with Matthew P. Hitt of Colorado State ...
Q&A |
Dave Gehring: Local News Sites Can Become ‘Portals’ for Wider Web Sharing
Dave Gehring is a former Google employee who co-founded Relay Media and then sold it to Google in 2017. Now he’s Co-founder and CEO of ...
trends |
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as a N.C. Weekly Seeks Sustainability Kentucky Professor Buck Ryan Describes His ‘Participatory Case Study’ With the Chatham News + Record
With community newspapers dropping like bad guys in a spaghetti Western, there’s a glimmer of hope in a weekly being transformed deep in the heart ...
trends |
‘The Floor Is Collapsing’ on Local News, but Congress May Be Poised to Help
As the local news crisis deepens, growing awareness and shifting political dynamics in Washington are raising hopes that targeted legislation can pass to help make ...
trends |
How Newsrooms Are Building Better Paywalls News Outlets Apologize Less and Innovate More, With a ‘Freemium’ Model and Dynamic Paywalls
Gannett’s Amalie Nash is tired of journalists apologizing when they charge money for their product. After all, other businesses don’t do that. “It’s not like ...
research |
Nearly Half of Digital Subscribers Are ‘Zombies,’ Medill Analysis Finds
Nearly half of local news outlets’ digital subscribers are “zombie” readers who visit the website less than once a month, according to a data analysis ...
Q&A |
Gannett’s Gupta: ‘You Need a Culture That Thrives in Chaos’ Strategy Chief for Nation’s Biggest Newspaper Chain Puts Laser Focus on Subscriptions
Mayur Gupta, a former executive with Spotify and Freshly, joined the Gannett USA Today Network in September as Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer. He holds ...