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  • news |

    Journalism Behind Bars Local news coverage is springing up in prisons across America

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    Yukari Kane co-founded the Prison Journalism Project in 2020 with a clear goal in mind: to not only shed light on the experiences of incarcerated people across the country but empower them with the writing skills needed to tell their own stories. The United States is home to more than 1,600 state and federal prisons. Roughly 1% of the country’s adult population is currently incarcerated, and about one in every 20 people will serve prison time...

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  • news |

    A Cross Section of Illinois News Entities Get $4.3 Million from State

    by John Volk | volk_maps

    Fifty-five Illinois local news organizations operating 130 outlets have received $4.3 million in state tax credits so far this year under a law designed to encourage the retention and hiring of journalists, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Medill Local News Initiative. It matches the total disbursed in all of 2025, the first year of the program. Just under $700,000 budgeted for this year remains available to local news...

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  • news |

    The Daily Herald Deal Even Illinois’ Model Local News Infrastructure Couldn’t Slow Alden’s Expansion in Chicago

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    By many counts, Illinois has among the most robust infrastructure to support local news in the country. It passed legislation in 2024 that provides tax credits to local news organizations to support hiring and retaining journalists and a sale notice law to create opportunity for local news outlets to stay under control of local owners. The state is also home to philanthropic organizations that have contributed millions of dollars to support local journalism. Despite this,...

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  • news |

    Paddock closes at least 13 Illinois newspapers, adding five new news deserts Alden-owned Tribune Publishing will take over Paddock’s Daily Herald later this month

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    With little advance notice or explanation, Paddock Publications has ceased publishing at least 13 of its 20 newspapers in Illinois this month. In May, the company entered into an agreement to sell its Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald newspaper to Tribune Publishing, owned by the investment firm Alden Global Capital. The Daily Herald would be under new ownership after a scheduled closing on June 22. The Paddock closures create an additional five news desert counties in...

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  • news |

    Baltimore was just the start for local-news champion Stewart Bainum Jr.

    by Brier Dudley

    After creating a successful local-news startup, The Baltimore Banner, Stewart Bainum Jr. and his team began exploring opportunities in other places. Last fall, they ranked 40 cities east of the Mississippi “and the number one was Pittsburgh,” Bainum said in a phone interview Tuesday. When he reviewed the study in December, Bainum thought it’s interesting but “we’ve got our hands full” in Baltimore. “Well hell, 30 days later it was announced the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was...

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  • news |

    Researchers document AI firms' pilfering of news sites

    by Brier Dudley

    If they were stealing jewels or pirating movies, AI companies might be prosecuted. But they face few consequences for ripping off news publishers, using copyrighted work and rarely providing even attribution. This pilferage is documented by an “AI news audit” released Monday by Canadian researchers at McGill University in Montreal. It found AI models to be quite knowledgeable about current news stories. But in queries involving web searches, they provided no source attribution in 82%...

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  • news |

    Medill awards funding to Chicago local media organizations The Bigs takes home a $10,000 first-place prize

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    Terrence Tomlin and Eugene McIntosh didn’t expect to walk away from a week at Medill’s Media Innovation and Leadership Academy (MILA) with a check for $10,000. But as they’ve learned through their decade of pioneering their sports media company The Bigs, they’ve carved out a space for themselves in the Chicago media landscape. The Bigs began as an idea in McIntosh’s one-bedroom apartment in Hyde Park in 2015. Fast forward to 2026, the Black-owned sports...

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  • news |

    Big donors get blinkered view of local journalism crisis

    by Brier Dudley

    A new report, commissioned by funders of local news, offers provocative suggestions for saving the industry. It includes some sharp observations. They should be valuable to the national philanthropies, allied as a group called Press Forward, that in 2023 pledged more than $500 million to help save local journalism. The more research the better, because saving local news is a big, complicated problem. But I suggest Press Forward and other donors don’t rely too much...

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  • news |

    Chicago-area publications join Arizona State’s NEWSWELL Growing Community Media donates its four publications, seeks long-term sustainability

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    Last summer, interim executive director Max Reinsdorf knew Growing Community Media (GCM) needed to find a more sustainable path forward. The financials simply weren’t adding up. GCM, which includes four newspapers in the west suburbs and West Side of Chicago, already had converted these titles from commercial to nonprofit status six years ago, but that wasn’t enough. Now he believes he’s found a pathway to sustainability: NEWSWELL, a nonprofit associated with Arizona State University. On...

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  • news |

    Other states making progress on saving local journalism

    by Brier Dudley

    New Mexico is poised to become the latest state to save local newsroom jobs through policies approved by its Legislature. The Land of Enchantment offers another model for states that believe local journalism is essential to their civic health and want to help their news industries survive and grow. While the vast majority of Americans trust and appreciate local news, only a few states so far have enacted tax credits and other measures to help news...

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  • news |

    Alden Global Capital makes push to buy Daily Herald in Chicago suburbs Full-page ad argues investment firm will pay the highest price

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    Alden Global Capital, the private equity fund that owns the Chicago Tribune and more than 160 other newspapers across the United States, wants to add the Daily Herald to its portfolio. The company, which operates through MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, is the second largest local news publisher in the U.S. behind Gannett. Alden published a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune to express interest in acquiring the employee-owned Daily Herald, which...

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  • news |

    Washington newspapers saved at last minute, ‘a small miracle’

    by Brier Dudley

    It took a few weeks but a Christmas miracle is coming true near the Canadian border, in Washington’s Whatcom County. The Northern Light, a weekly newspaper serving more than 10,000 households in Blaine and Birch Bay, was saved by a remarkably generous gift over the holidays. It was about to close until the family owners decided, after a last-minute conversation, to donate their business to a fledgling nonprofit newspaper operator. Publication paused briefly but resumes...

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  • news |

    Pittsburgh’s next steps How the Post-Gazette’s closure could impact the local media landscape

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    In May, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — founded three years before George Washington became the first president of the United States — will cease operations. The paper’s owner, Block Communications Inc. made the announcement on Jan. 7, following a court ruling that ruled against the company in a protracted dispute with an employee union. Over the last 20 years, the announcement said, the paper has lost over $350 million. It’s the latest high-profile case of a legacy newspaper...

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  • news |

    Newspaper family saves Oregon paper

    by Brier Dudley

    Saving local journalism isn’t always straightforward, as a turnabout in Oregon demonstrates. Two newspapers in Linn County just about failed after they were sold to a former employee. But veteran owners and community support jolted them back to life this month. I wrote in November that selling local newspapers to employees should be an option for owners who might otherwise shut them down or sell to parsimonious chains. The goal is to preserve independent newspapers, which...

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  • news |

    Paths to sustainability New LION report says local news organizations need to focus more on business side

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    News organizations with staff focused on revenue generation had a median revenue 700% higher than news outlets without it, according to a report released by Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers on Wednesday. The exhaustive LION report of its members’ activities outlines a framework for thinking about the future of sustainability for local independent online news organizations. “One of the first things that I was excited about that we did at LION — and this really took...

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  • news |

    Illinois Press Association CEO Resigns After Dispute Over ICE Lawsuit

    by Mary Randolph

    The CEO of the Illinois Press Association, who had joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration for actions toward journalists outside a Chicago-area ICE facility, resigned this week following a dispute with the IPA's board over the litigation. Don Craven, who had led the IPA since 2021, added the organization to the lawsuit Sunday alongside other Illinois news outlets and advocacy groups. The IPA board disagreed with the decision and told him “to do whatever...

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  • news |

    Sale of Illinois newspapers puts new state law to the test

    by Ben Szalinski

    SPRINGFIELD – A newspaper publisher in central and southern Illinois has sold eight of its Illinois papers to a Kentucky-based company, testing a new state law designed to keep newspaper ownership local. The Strengthening Community Media Act took effect on Jan. 1 as part of a package of legislation aimed at boosting local journalism. Its supporters said it was a response to growing news deserts that have been worsened by national media companies purchasing and...

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  • news |

    Wincing at ‘The Paper,’ a Newspaper Spinoff of ‘The Office’

    by Brier Dudley

    It’s not as hilarious as “The Office” but the spinoff series “The Paper” often hits its mark, painfully. That was my take after watching several episodes of the new show, debuting Thursday on NBCUniversal’s Peacock, about a struggling Midwest newspaper. Like “The Office,” it’s a deadpan workplace documentary. The setup is that Dunder Mifflin, the setting of “The Office,” was sold to a corporation that owns the fictional Toledo Truth Teller newspaper. The newspaper’s skeleton...

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  • news |

    Too many Americans are losing faith in the role of journalists

    by Brier Dudley

    Further evidence that we’re living in a bizarro world, where wrong is right and down is up, came in a recent Pew Research Center survey. It found a shockingly large number of Americans don’t strongly believe journalists should hold public figures accountable, by calling out false and misleading information. Did they skip civics and history lessons? Are people so fatigued by awful national and global news, they don’t care anymore? Or maybe this is just...

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  • news |

    A verdant news desert in Skamania County

    by Brier Dudley

    On election nights, there should be electricity in a newsroom — and pizza bought by the editor. Yet on the evening of Aug. 5, the night of a busy primary in Skamania County, the lights were out at the county’s only local newspaper. The Skamania County Pioneer’s storefront office, a few blocks from the courthouse in Stevenson, is now a bookstore. There are old papers in back, and the store collects subscription payments. But the...

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  • news policy data |

    Illinois Newsrooms Receive $4 Million from State

    by John Volk | volk_maps

    Forty Illinois local news entities operating 120 outlets are receiving $4 million in state tax credits under a new law designed to encourage the retention and hiring of journalists, according to documents released this week. The organizations that have received credits represent a cross section of Illinois’ local news ecosystem, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Medill Local News Initiative. They span major legacy organizations, small community newspapers, digital...

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  • news |

    This tech CEO wants to save local news from the AI onslaught

    by Brier Dudley

    Local newspapers have an intriguing new ally in their quest to get paid by AI firms hoovering their stories and putting their future at risk. Matthew Prince, CEO of San Francisco-based Cloudflare, believes his company has a tool that may solve this dilemma for both news publishers and tech firms. Prince has skin in the game beyond Cloudflare. He and his wife, Tatiana, own The Park Record, an award-winning newspaper in his hometown of Park...

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  • news |

    Stop the Presses? Does Print Have More of a Future in Media Than We Think?

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    Stephen Crane knows some people think he’s out of his mind. It’s July 2025, and he’s celebrating the second anniversary of his passion project: the Morgan County Correspondent, a weekly newspaper he started to provide coverage of his hometown county to the southwest of Indianapolis. A county of 73,000 people with both suburban and rural enclaves, Crane couldn’t stand seeing the two papers in his community — the Gannett-owned Mooresville Times and the Reporter-Times —...

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  • news |

    Oregon newspapers close, Dallas paper rejects Alden bid

    by Brier Dudley

    Cuts to Oregon’s newspaper industry continue this month with the closure of two newspapers east of Portland. Cuts to Oregon’s newspaper industry continue this month with the closure of two newspapers east of Portland. I wonder if Oregon legislators regret not passing Senate Bill 686 in June. The legislation would have required tech giants profiting from news to pay $122 million a year to local news outlets, with payments allocated based on the number of journalists...

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  • news |

    Hitting Reset After Months of Turbulence, the National Trust for Local News Seeks Stability

    by Liam Scott | liamjscott

    Two days after Tom Wiley joined the National Trust for Local News in May as its new CEO, the organization announced that it was selling 21 of its Colorado newspapers to a for-profit Arizona-based company. The large sale had been in the works long before Wiley joined the nonprofit, but it marked perhaps the biggest disruption at the Trust following what had already been a turbulent few months. In January, the organization’s co-founder and CEO Elizabeth...

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  • news |

    Local Public Broadcasting Cuts As Congress Moves to Slash Public Media Funding, Local News Outlets Brace for Impact

    by Brier Dudley

    Public broadcasters are glued to their screens this week, watching Congress move toward eliminating their funding as requested by President Donald Trump. “I actually have a link to the Senate floor so I usually have that on the background,” Cara Williams Fry, general manager of Pullman-based Northwest Public Broadcasting, told me on Tuesday. Clawing back the $1.1 billion already promised to public broadcasters will have a ripple effect across the local news industry. It does...

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  • news |

    Government Agency Buys Newspaper Does The New Owner Represent A Savior, A Conflict Or Both?

    by Eric Rynston-Lobel

    Joe Turnham knew it would be cataclysmic if The Tuskegee News closed its doors. He’s seen all the maps showing the collapse of local news. He’s seen what happens in communities that lose their local paper. He didn’t want Macon County, Alabama to join the list. So when Gayle Davis, the then-owner of the paper in her mid-80s, was prepared to shut things down in the absence of a buyer, Turnham convinced his employer to...

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