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discussion | Jul 23, 2025

Local News Summit Chuck Todd Talks Local News with Michigan Press Leaders

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Public media cuts, increased collaboration and the importance of local sports headlined a panel at a Local Media Association’s summit in Detroit on Wednesday aimed at raising the visibility of the challenges facing local news, potential solutions and its impact on communities. Over the last two decades, Michigan has lost about 40% of its newspapers, well above the national average of about 33%, according to Medill’s State of Local News Report. The event aimed to...

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discussion | Jun 28, 2019

Common Problem for Local Journalists Worldwide: Threats and Intimidation Seminar Hosted by Medill and German Foundation Highlights Dangers to Media

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Joie Chen, a former CNN journalist who is Northwestern University’s Director of Medill Programs/Washington, was talking to the Global Seminar on Local News about how U.S. journalists feel besieged. She cited the murders of five newsroom staffers last year at the Capital Gazette in Maryland. She recalled the physical assault on a reporter by now-Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana. And she noted President Donald Trump’s denunciations of the media as “the enemy of the people”...

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discussion | Jun 27, 2019

The Local News Crisis Circles the Globe, Seminar Finds Feeling Pressure from Tech Companies, Foreign Journalists Are Scrambling. One Outlet Is Even Buying a Tour Bus Company.

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The financial pressures on local news are a worldwide problem, according to participants in the Global Seminar on Local News, co-sponsored by Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative and Germany’s Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung USA foundation. At the Chicago seminar June 25, Dapo Olorunyomi, Publisher and CEO of Nigeria’s Premium Times, said his country’s media were dramatically squeezed by competition from tech companies. “The true newsroom in Nigeria is Facebook,” with 25 million people in his country using...

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discussion | May 29, 2019

Medill Teams With German Foundation for Global Seminar on Local News

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The Medill Local News Initiative and Germany’s Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung foundation will host the Global Seminar on Local News, a June conference in Chicago to discuss worldwide challenges to local journalism and their impact on democracy. The seminar will feature presentations by news executives from Bulgaria, Nigeria, Mexico and Germany as well as influential U.S.-based voices on the crisis in local news. The June 24-26 event is invitation-only, but video of the main discussions on June 25...

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