Sarah Stonbely, the research director at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, has been named director of Medill’s State of Local News Project.
In that role Stonbely will oversee Medill’s nationally cited research on the growing spread of local news deserts and the emergence of new models to address the crisis. She will work closely with Medill Visiting Professor Penny Abernathy, the pioneer of this local news research, and Tim Franklin, the director of the Medill Local News Initiative.
Stonbely, who received her Ph.D. from New York University in 2015, has been designing, managing and executing local news-related research at the Center for Cooperative Media for more than seven years. Stonbely’s work there has included producing research reports on the effects of changing media ownership, media policy, and local news ecosystems. In addition to her work at the center, Stonbely has consulted for the Knight Foundation, held a fellowship at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, and worked as a research associate at Rutgers University.
“We are thrilled that someone with Sarah’s extensive research expertise in local news will be joining us to help lead this vital project, which is often cited often by policymakers, journalists, industry leaders, philanthropists and other scholars as the nation’s definitive barometer of the local news industry,” said Franklin, who serves as Medill’s Senior Associate Dean and the John M. Mutz Chair in Local News. “Sarah will build on Penny’s groundbreaking research and bring ideas for new ways to study the state of local news in America and explore innovative models for the future.”
Medill published its first State of Local News Report last year, building on work that Abernathy began in 2012 at the University of North Carolina. It found that on average two newspapers disappear every week in the U.S. and that more than one in five Americans live in either a news desert or a county at risk of becoming one. It also reported that 70 percent of newspaper jobs have been lost since 2005.
Medill expects to publish a newly expanded State of Local News Project report later this year.
“Sarah and I share a passion for local news, researching both its health and its vital importance to a strong democracy,” Abernathy said. “I’m delighted that she’s joining the Medill team.”
The State of Local News Project at Medill is supported by the Knight Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Lilly Endowment, Microsoft, Southern Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation, Myrta J. Pulliam Charitable Trust and Medill alum Mark Ferguson.
The State of Local News Project is one of the many local news-related projects underway at Medill as part of its Local News Initiative. The Local News Accelerator launched earlier this year with a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation to work directly with Chicago-area news organizations on projects to improve their sustainability. Medill also is the home of the Midwest Solutions Journalism Network, the Teach for Chicago Journalism Program that is expanding news media programs in local high schools, and the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index, a new tool providing audience metrics and benchmarks to more than 100 local news outlets nationally.
“I am honored and excited to join the team at Medill to carry forward the vital work of the State of Local News Project,” Stonbely said. “The importance of growing and strengthening local journalism has never been clearer, to communities or for democracy itself. I look forward to collaborating with everyone at Medill and beyond.”
Stonbely will begin at Medill on Sept. 11. She is a native Midwesterner, having grown up in Wisconsin and earned a bachelor’s degree from U.W.-Madison and a master’s from U.W.- Milwaukee.