Posts

trends | Jul 27, 2026

Is this Reddit’s moment for local news? The social media platform’s tools for publishers has piqued the interest of newsrooms

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Last October, the Big 12 conference issued a rule change that only really makes sense if you watch Big 12 football: Fans at Texas Tech’s Jones AT&T Stadium were no longer allowed to throw tortillas onto the field during the opening kickoff. In another era, it’s a story that the Dallas Morning News — located roughly 350 miles southeast of Lubbock, Texas — likely would’ve given less priority. But the paper’s coverage of Texas Tech...

Continue Reading

trends | Jun 23, 2026

Struggling in the Suburbs The Daily Herald’s sale to Tribune Publishing is the latest example of suburban newspapers’ struggles

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Few suburban newspapers have existed as long as the Daily Herald, founded as the Cook County Herald just seven years after the end of the Civil War. But now, the news organization that prides itself as “Suburban Chicago’s Information Source,” is facing a major transition. On Monday, Alden Global Capital, the private equity firm which owns Tribune Publishing and is the second-largest newspaper owner in the United States, officially took ownership after acquiring the state’s third-largest newspaper...

Continue Reading

trends | May 13, 2026

Saving Legacy Newspapers What value do investors see in print media?

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Stewart Bainum Jr. just committed $30 million over five years to prevent the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from shutting down. David Hoffmann and his media company spent $50 million to take majority control of Lee Enterprises, which owns more than 100 newspapers across the country. And several organizations swept in to save a few dozen newspapers across Iowa and Illinois that were part of News Media Corp. and Mid-America Publishing that would’ve otherwise gone extinct. These major...

Continue Reading

trends | Apr 23, 2026

Local TV News is Consolidating and Contracting Can it adapt to major changes in audience and business model?

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

For months, there was uncertainty. Then on March 31, there was shock. Employees at WRTV, the ABC affiliate local TV station in Indianapolis, gathered together for a meeting they’d found out about just an hour before. Their station, owned by E.W. Scripps Co., had just officially been sold to Circle City Broadcasting. But, they thought, they’d still keep their jobs for at least a period after the acquisition. “We’re all expecting answers, about health coverage...

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 31, 2026

Going Underground What local newsrooms can learn from informal news networks

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Over the course of human history, write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in “The Elements of Journalism,” the spread of news and information was quite basic. “They wanted people who could run swiftly over the next hill, accurately gather information, and engagingly retell it,” they say of how people valued the idea of “journalism” centuries ago. In other words, the concept of people relying on their friends and neighbors to find out what’s happening around...

Continue Reading

trends | Feb 24, 2026

All in on high school sports At the Minnesota Star Tribune, an investment decades in the making takes shape

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

There’s no shortage of reasons why Chris Carr loves high school sports — the community, the joy and the camaraderie, among them. For 25 years, he’s worked at the Minnesota Star Tribune, mostly in the sports department, and now he’s helping lead the way for the paper’s latest endeavor: Strib Varsity, a high school sports desk that not only writes stories but tracks stats and scores and broadcasts live streams for hundreds of schools around...

Continue Reading

trends | Jan 6, 2026

Turning Back the Clock At Newsday on Long Island, a nostalgia beat brings massive traffic

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

In another era, Long Islanders fell asleep hearing the frantic commercials for Crazy Eddie (“His prices are insane!”) and the dry humor from Coronet’s Furniture (“No talking orangutans”) on their TV sets; they spent their summers in share houses on Fire Island and enjoying ice cream sundaes at Jahn’s; they celebrated birthdays at United Skates; and they flocked to clubs to see musicians, from reggae icon Jimmy Cliff to Long Island-native rock-and-roll pianist Billy Joel. For many, those memories are still vivid decades...

Continue Reading

trends | Dec 2, 2025

Rapidly Expanding Local News Networks Nonprofit and for-profit news networks are expanding local news in places that need it

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

When Michael Shapiro started TAPinto, you couldn’t miss him around town. He was president of the Rotary Club, on the board of the chamber of commerce and at any event you could think of around New Providence, New Jersey, a suburb of roughly 14,000 about the distance of a marathon west of New York City. “If you were in town, you couldn’t go to any kind of function in the town without seeing me,” Shapiro...

Continue Reading

trends | Nov 17, 2025

Email over algorithms: how newsrooms are reclaiming their audiences

by Jackie Spinner

It was big NBA news when the San Antonio Spurs signed a $229 million contract extension with star point guard De’Aaron Fox this summer. But for the San Antonio Express-News, the timing of the four-year deal was lousy: The paper’s Spurs newsletter had gone out the day before. Not long ago, the newspaper would have counted on push alerts or social media posts to draw readers to its website. But as habits shifted, newsrooms across...

Continue Reading

trends | Oct 28, 2025

With news creators and influencers on the rise, what’s next for local news? ‘It’s just much more approachable’

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Jonah Fialkow has never considered himself to be a sports journalist.  He sells beer and hot dogs as a vendor at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs, after all. But he also has a TikTok account with more than 50,000 followers. There’s little objectivity in his work (he’s such a big Cubs fan that he wrote his college admissions essay about Wrigley Field), and some of his commentary, that sometimes include clips of him selling...

Continue Reading

trends | Oct 8, 2025

The Marvel in Mullen Gerri Peterson’s Nebraska Paper Bucks the Trend in Rural America, Finds Pathway to Success

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

Try searching the McDonald’s website for the restaurant closest to zip code 69152, and you’ll receive an apology: no restaurants in that area. Try the same search for a Walmart, and you’ll receive a similar message. Zip code 69152 belongs to Mullen, Nebraska, a village of roughly 465 residents tucked into Hooker County, population 698. Located in the western part of the state in the Nebraska Sandhills, the closest McDonald’s and Walmart are a three-hour...

Continue Reading

trends | Sep 17, 2025

Going cold turkey Is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Gambit to Dump Print a Harbinger?

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

When Julia Wallace heard the news, she had a flashback to 20 years ago. On Aug. 28, president and publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Andrew Morse made the seismic announcement: As of Jan. 1, 2026, the AJC would become a fully digital operation. It would stop printing a physical newspaper, something it has done since shortly after the Civil War. “The fact is, many more people engage with our digital platforms and products today than...

Continue Reading

trends | Jul 10, 2025

Journalist Deserts The Number of Local Journalists Has Plummeted 75% Since 2002, Study Says

by Eric Rynston-Lobel

The United States has seen a staggering 75% decline in local journalists since 2002, according to a report released on Thursday by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack. In their research that creates the Local Journalist Index, they found that more than 1,000 (of the 3,141) U.S. counties do not have even one full-time local journalist, and the shortage isn’t limited to rural areas. Even in densely populated cities like Los Angeles, there are very few...

Continue Reading

trends | Jul 10, 2025

Meeting Your Audience Where They Are – Literally Local News Outlets Adding Events to Grow Engagement, Revenue

by Hannah Carroll

A WWE-style belt decorated with The Pilot logo, donned by a proud Southern Pines electrician, is a sight one could only bear witness to at the ‘Best of the Pines’ awards event. From small town celebrations like this one to nationally-known annual festivals like that at The Texas Tribune, intimate information-based conversations hosted by Mirror Indy, and networking nights by Block Club Chicago, hosting events is increasingly playing a key role in publications’ audience and...

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 3, 2025

Maine Pages National journalists go local as Midcoast Villager combines legacy papers to boost region’s news

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

Alex Seitz-Wald was a high-profile NBC News national political reporter for 10 years when he made a dramatic shift in his professional life: He became deputy editor of the Midcoast Villager, a digital-print outlet created from the combination of four coastal Maine community papers and an online site. Not only is the Midcoast Villager trying to show that a regional approach can improve local news coverage while sustaining a viable business model, but it also...

Continue Reading

trends | Oct 22, 2024

Writer Underwriting Writer After the Chicago Tribune didn’t replace retiring architecture critic Blair Kamin, he funded his own successor

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

Blair Kamin ended his 28-year run as the Chicago Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic with a Jan. 13, 2021 column that concluded: “Imagine Chicago without a full-time skyline watchdog. Schlock developers and hack architects would welcome the lack of scrutiny.” That kicker was Kamin’s way of urging the Tribune’s editors and owners to replace him, just as he had succeeded another Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic, Paul Gapp. The job was a vital one in a...

Continue Reading

trends | Oct 10, 2023

Newsrooms on the Run What happens to journalism when journalists work and meet remotely instead of together?

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

The classic newspaper newsroom maintains a powerful mystique among journalists and non-journalists alike. You need not have set foot in one to conjure up vivid images of reporters working the phones, banging on typewriters or computer keyboards, smoking cigarettes (in the olden days) or chugging coffee and barking at colleagues while trying to nail down The Story. The grit, hard work and ink-stained glamor are tangible in movies such as “The Front Page” (originally a...

Continue Reading

trends | Aug 10, 2023

Restart the Presses? Plant closures and consolidation prompt earlier deadlines, longer drives, higher costs as papers scramble to stay in print

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

Every newspaper printing-press closure is another shoe dropping on the local news landscape, and a big one dropped in June. That’s when Gannett announced that it will shutter its Pueblo Chieftain printing operation in Pueblo, Colo. The plant is scheduled to print its final Chieftain issues this Sunday, Aug. 13. The following day the Denver Post, owned by Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group and located about 110 miles north of Pueblo, will take over the...

Continue Reading

trends | Dec 6, 2022

More Newspapers Consider Pivot to Postal Delivery to Cut Costs and Ease Headaches But the ride to the mailbox may be bumpy

by Greg Burns | LocalNewsIni

Switching newspaper delivery from costly carriers to the U.S. Postal Service seemed like a no-brainer for Jordan Brechenser, president and publisher of Vermont News and Media. But things quickly got complicated, and that was before a local postmaster obtained an order of protection and moved to a new post office after a confrontation in a local bar. The decline of print journalism has left penny-pinching publishers with fewer and fewer levers to pull. Stepping back...

Continue Reading

trends | Oct 31, 2022

Pro-Journalism Legislation Faces a Make-or-Break Session The JCPA has a shot at passage in lame-duck Congress, advocates say

by Greg Burns | LocalNewsIni

The clock is ticking on the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. With the midterm elections coming up on Nov. 8, the lame-duck session could be the last realistic chance for Congress to pass this bipartisan effort to make Google and Facebook pay for local news content on their platforms. U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., a lead sponsor of the measure, believes the legislation is likely to win approval in a matter of weeks, he said...

Continue Reading

trends | Aug 18, 2022

Battles over Newspaper Legal Notices Intensify Publishers urged to do more to increase visibility

by Susan Chandler

They are usually not the most scintillating content in a newspaper: the small-print legal notices that state and federal governments are required to publish to inform constituents of what they are doing. But from a business point of view, the notices, which cover everything from rezoning requests to sidewalk café permits, are a vital stream of revenue for U.S. newspapers at a time when other traditional advertising revenue continues to decline. Since 2005, the U.S. has...

Continue Reading

trends | Jul 13, 2022

What’s New in News? Panel to Spotlight Innovation Case studies of news models show bright spots in bleak landscape

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

The news about local news has grown bleak, with an alarming number of communities worldwide losing their newspapers and the reliable information they provide. In its recently published State of Local News 2022 Report, the Medill Local News Initiative found that two newspapers a week are shuttering in the U.S., creating ever-expanding news deserts. When legitimate news sources disappear, misinformation and disinformation campaigns often fill the vacuum, with dark implications for democratic societies. But bright...

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 23, 2022

Go Big or Go Home: The Baltimore Banner Readies for Launch Nonprofit start-up charts course for local-news donors

by Greg Burns | LocalNewsIni

While many other local media organizations operate out of basements, spare bedrooms and the stripped-down offices that replaced once-mighty newsrooms, the hottest new nonprofit in local journalism is moving into swanky new digs overlooking Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The Baltimore Banner’s much-anticipated debut is going to be different than those of other nonprofit journalism experiments, not least because it has ample funding from the start. As many as 50 staffers will be on-hand for the office...

Continue Reading

trends | Feb 22, 2022

Local News Struggle in Southern New Mexico: How a Start-up Ended

by Anandita Bhalerao

When Diana Tittle retired to Sierra County in southern New Mexico in 2012 with her husband, she never imagined she would be working eight-hour days, seven days a week without ever taking a paycheck. And yet that is how Tittle spent the past year working for the Sierra County Sun, an online nonprofit news outlet focused on investigative journalism that holds local government accountable. Sierra County Sun editor Diana Tittle. Tittle’s official title was editor,...

Continue Reading

trends | Feb 14, 2022

Alaskan newspaper surviving after owner gave it away for free

by Fiona Skeggs

When former teachers Melinda Munson and Gretchen Wehmhoff took over The Skagway News in Alaska, its future looked bleak. Poor quality and bad economics had run down a newspaper that for decades served a historic port city hosting throngs of tourists in a typical year. A would-be savior who bought the paper intending to run it from afar had concluded his plan wouldn’t work. Then the pandemic crippled its cash cow: A travel guide popular...

Continue Reading

trends | Jan 19, 2022

Going Nonprofit Puts Salt Lake Tribune on Path to Sustainability Utah News Outlet at Forefront of Emerging Strategy, with Chicago Sun-Times Also Getting Aboard

by Emily Anderson

When local philanthropist Paul Huntsman took over The Salt Lake Tribune in 2016, progressive community members were rooting for a revival of this counterpoint to its conservative competitor, the Deseret News. Just two years later, the future looked bleak as Huntsman laid off one-third of the newsroom staff, under pressure from declining ad revenues. In 2019, he announced a plan to convert the newspaper into a nonprofit, charting a path that has caught the attention...

Continue Reading

trends | Jan 10, 2022

Local News Rebirth in Chicago: ‘More Exciting Than It’s Ever Been’ With Nonprofit News on the March, There Are Plenty of Concerns, but Also New Feelings of Optimism

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Chicago journalism is undergoing a dramatic restructuring that has turned the nation’s third-largest media market into a center for news experimentation. While the city’s media have seen brutal job cuts in recent years, including a dramatic downsizing at the Chicago Tribune, a sense of rebirth and optimism prevails. Longtime observers talk about “an explosion of media” that makes it “more exciting than it’s ever been.” The changes are attracting national attention, according to Sue Cross,...

Continue Reading

trends | Sep 20, 2021

Is 24/7 Digital and Sunday-Only Print the Future for Local News?

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 dailies, on the other hand, have made strides online but are cutting back on their print days. Is it possible that local news outlets of all sizes will meet in the middle? In the future, will most local news outlets publish 24/7 online but put ink on paper only once...

Continue Reading

trends | Sep 8, 2021

Small Publishers Have Longer Runway to Digital, but They Still Need to Take Off

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 some seem to be in no big hurry to build up their online presence. Problem is, while these small outlets may well have a longer runway to a digital-first future, they do have to get airborne sooner or later. There are significant challenges. There’s the issue of tech support, which...

Continue Reading

trends | Aug 19, 2021

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 editing for a single reporter. Whether you call it reporter-sharing or co-sponsored reporting or something else, these types of reporter-editor set-ups are boosting in-depth journalism at a time when local news organizations are under tremendous pressure to tighten staffing. Open Campus, a national nonprofit digital news outlet focused on coverage...

Continue Reading

trends | Jul 26, 2021

News Unchained: More Outlets Going Back to Local Ownership

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 chains and seek to reverse what they see as decades of disinvestment. Sara April, whose firm Dirks, Van Essen & April brokers the sale of newspaper companies, expects to see more news outlets go into local hands as some big chains focus on their larger products and spin off their...

Continue Reading

trends | Jul 6, 2021

Nonprofit Investigative Outlets Serve News Needs in Midwest Last in a Series on Medill Students’ Innovation Tour

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 journalism. In a new video reporting project at Northwestern University, students profiled seven innovative organizations in the Midwest, including two that conduct investigations to shed light on the biggest stories of our time. The Midwest Center for Investigative Journalism, an Illinois-based outfit, tracked how the COVID-19 pandemic affected workers in...

Continue Reading

trends | Jun 28, 2021

How Journalism Students Are Filling Gaps in Local News Second in a Series on Medill Students’ Innovation Tour

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

As the local news crisis grows, staffs are thinning out and gaps in coverage are widening. But reinforcements are coming -- journalism students doing the work that would otherwise go undone. University of Kansas students are operating a local news website in a “news desert” about 10 miles east of the campus. Students at Franklin College in Indiana are covering state government for a nonprofit website that is battling against civic disengagement. Both programs are...

Continue Reading

trends | Jun 21, 2021

How Creative Thinkers Are Reinventing Local News in the Midwest First in a Series on Medill Students’ Innovation Tour

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 “news desert” in Kansas. And a digital-only Ohio newsroom modeling “solutions journalism.” These are some of the innovative news organizations profiled in a new video reporting project by students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Medill Professor Craig Duff’s class of 14 students worked in...

Continue Reading

trends | Jun 3, 2021

Local News Outlets Upgrading Apps and Battling App-rehension

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 boosts engagement and loyalty. While they see mobile apps as a win-win for their customers and themselves, the apps remain a niche product, with a small minority of visitors consuming their news that way. The Medill Local News Initiative interviewed executives from McClatchy, Tribune Publishing and the San Francisco Chronicle...

Continue Reading

trends | May 17, 2021

Journalism at Your Service: How Newsrooms Help Readers With Everyday Lives

by Grace Miserocchi | gracemiserocchi

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 which they don’t just report the news — they help readers find the services they need to navigate their lives. Key to this is using effective communication methods such as texting and phone hotlines to reach the public and listen when they ask for help. Megan Griffith-Greene, a senior editor of...

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 22, 2021

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

by Buck Ryan | maestrobuckryan

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 of North Carolina. Chatham County is hotter than a pistol, whether that means a rise in population, median income or traffic jams. The question is whether the fate of its weekly newspaper, the Chatham News + Record, will be so hot. Welcome to this tale fit for a movie script....

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 15, 2021

‘The Floor Is Collapsing’ on Local News, but Congress May Be Poised to Help

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 local journalism more financially sustainable. “This Congress is going to be the most likely to tackle local news that we’ve had in a very long time,” said Steven Waldman, President of Report for America and coordinator for the Rebuild Local News coalition. “People understand that the collapse of local news...

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 9, 2021

How Newsrooms Are Building Better Paywalls News Outlets Apologize Less and Innovate More, With a ‘Freemium’ Model and Dynamic Paywalls

by Hannah Farrow

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 at Starbucks, ‘I’d like a medium coffee.’ ‘Well, sorry, ma’am, we’re going to have to charge you $4 for that,’” Nash said. At a time when local news finances are in need of a double shot, newsrooms are getting more aggressive and less apologetic about their paywalls. And they’re trying...

Continue Reading

trends | Jan 5, 2021

Daily Yonder Seeks to Cover Rural America Without Stereotyping It Rural Perspective on COVID-19 and Election Brings Attention to Digital News Outlet

by Hannah Farrow

Farms, factories, vacation towns — rural can mean a variety of things. And in the midst of a pandemic, during presidential elections and as people live their daily lives, the Daily Yonder aims to cover it all. The digital-only rural news source faces a unique challenge: how to unify a variety of rural readers without pigeonholing them into one category, all while growing readership and seeking policy change. The Daily Yonder was started in 2007...

Continue Reading

trends | Dec 16, 2020

Local News Outlets Boost Digital Subscriptions by About 50% in a Year Newsroom Challenge for 2021: Keep New Customers in the Fold and Find More

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The pandemic and other major news events have helped boost digital subscriptions dramatically at local news outlets in 2020, with a new industry analysis putting the overall increase at about 50% in a year’s time. But that encouraging news comes with questions for 2021: Can local news organizations keep those new subscribers and attract more if the news cycle quiets? Can legacy outlets establish brand affinity in an often chaotic and crowded web world? Can...

Continue Reading

trends | Nov 18, 2020

How National Digital Networks Are Transforming Local News Axios, ProPublica, The Athletic and Chalkbeat Take Different Approaches to Going Local

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

National digital news organizations are increasingly entering local media markets, creating a new model for serving local audiences whose traditional news sources have suffered from years of disinvestment. In the last few months, Axios has announced that it is placing reporters into four local markets, and ProPublica is starting new operations in the South and Southwest while also expanding its Illinois operation to cover the Midwest. Meanwhile, The Athletic reported that its sports coverage –...

Continue Reading

trends | Nov 9, 2020

8 Reasons Why Email Newsletters Are a Game-Changer for Local News

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

In the early 2000s, we were supposed to write blogs. Then we weren’t. In the mid-2010s, we pivoted to video. Then we hit pause. So when people say local news outlets should go all-in on email newsletters, some degree of skepticism is understandable. Are newsletters the future, or are they just a fad? The local news industry is in the midst of a major strategic shift from reliance on shaky advertising revenue to asking readers...

Continue Reading

trends | Oct 1, 2020

Local Heroes and National Solutions Discussed at Medill’s Youngstown Film Event Ohio’s Senator Brown ‘Willing to Vote’ for Exemption to Help Local News Outlets Bargain With Tech Giants

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Speaking at a Northwestern University online event to debut a new documentary on the local news crisis, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio expressed support for a temporary anti-trust exemption that would give news publishers more leverage to negotiate with tech giants over advertising revenue. The Medill Local News Initiative event on Sept. 30 marked the first showing of “Newstown,” a film by Northwestern professor Craig Duff that examines the aftermath of last year’s closing of the 150-year-old...

Continue Reading

trends | Sep 23, 2020

What Happens When a Newspaper Dies? Medill Professor’s Film Looks at Impact in Youngstown

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The Youngstown Vindicator, a 150-year-old newspaper, announced in the summer of 2019 that it was closing. The fate of the newspaper known as the “Vindy” was a painful blow to its northeast Ohio city and a grim symbol of the growing distress in America’s local news industry. The news was also the inspiration for a new documentary called “Newstown” by former Youngstown resident Craig Duff, a professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media,...

Continue Reading

trends | Sep 16, 2020

How Covid-19 Has Changed Beat Reporting

by Hannah Farrow

As the coronavirus spread across the country, local news outlets reacted to the economic disruption with pay cuts, layoffs and furloughs. They also made a pivot in how they covered the news. Kristen Hare, the local news innovation reporter for the Poynter Institute, cited the “reimagining” of beat reporting in which it’s less about the beat, and more about emerging areas of reader interest. As trends in society shift — or when a coronavirus spreads around the...

Continue Reading

trends | Jul 27, 2020

Digital Start-ups: Great Local News Hope or Disappointment?

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

As many legacy news outlets struggle to survive, industry analysts are looking to digital start-ups as a promising way to revive coverage of local news. After all, digital-only means you don’t need massive presses or barrels of ink or fleets of trucks. The barriers to publication are low, so there’s great growth potential. Right? Well, maybe not. At least not yet. A recent update of the University of North Carolina’s “news deserts” research by Penny Abernathy...

Continue Reading

trends | Jun 15, 2020

Can Local News Outlets Ride the Wave of New COVID-19 Subscribers? ‘This Is a Moment of Reckoning’

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Local news outlets are working hard to keep the digital subscribers they’ve gained from COVID-19 coverage, and they’re seeing encouraging signs that the newcomers are sticking with them in these turbulent times. As news outlets shift away from an advertising revenue model, subscriber retention is an increasingly crucial issue. Newsrooms are engaging these new customers through personal email appeals and giving special attention to “zombies” – a nickname for people who buy subscriptions but never...

Continue Reading

trends | May 19, 2020

Reporters Navigate Remote-Work Challenges During Pandemic

by Hannah Farrow

Creative Loafing Tampa Bay moved into a new office last December. Editor-in-chief Ray Roa was on paternity leave while the other employees settled into an open-concept work floor with tall ceilings, exposed bricks and natural light. They’d enjoy yoga classes and team bonding experiences in the office’s event hall, CL Space, which also acts as a main revenue source as it can host up to 200-person gatherings. Soon after Roa returned to the office, the...

Continue Reading

trends | Apr 22, 2020

COVID-19 Accelerates Local News Trends, for Bad and Good As Financial Crisis Deepens, Newsrooms Making Quicker Shift From Print to Digital and From Dependency on Ad Dollars to Reliance on Reader Revenue

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Before 2020 even started, we knew it was shaping up as a brutal year for journalism jobs as major chains were merging and cutting staff. We knew small publications, especially weeklies, were struggling. We knew “news deserts” were growing across the country. Then came COVID-19. Now 33,000 American journalists have been laid off, furloughed or given pay cuts. The impending recession – or even depression – could take out some of the best advertising customers...

Continue Reading

trends | Apr 7, 2020

Beyond Diversity: Journalists Say Ultimate Goal Is Inclusivity Racial Imbalance Remains a Problem in Newsroom Staffing, but Serving a Community Is More Than a Numbers Game

by Hannah Farrow

Sadé Carpenter, who recently left Chicago Tribune as the deputy editor of food and dining, walked up to the front of Chicago’s journalism town hall at the Allegro Hotel on Feb. 23. She grabbed the mic and pointed out: “There are a lot of white men on this panel.” Of the 12 panelists, five of them were exactly that. Four of the panelists were journalists of color. Only 21.9% of newsroom employees are members of...

Continue Reading

trends | Mar 13, 2020

Illinois Bill Would Create Local Journalism Task Force Legislation Includes Medill School in Proposed Fact-Finding Effort

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

A former television broadcaster turned legislator has filed a bill in the Illinois General Assembly that would create a task force to explore the state’s local news crisis and offer recommendations for how to address it. The task force would “review all aspects of local journalism” in Illinois, with an eye toward identifying “communities underserved” by journalism and well as “strategies to improve local news access and public policy solutions to improve the sustainability of...

Continue Reading

trends | Feb 24, 2020

Chicago Journalism Town Hall Tackles Tough Finances, Elusive Diversity

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

About 300 people attended a Chicago journalism town hall Sunday that was characterized by sharp comments about the search for financial stability and the need for diversity both in newsroom staffs and service to audiences. The three-hour discussion came at a time of turmoil in Chicago’s news industry, with Tribune reporters making a public call for a white-knight investor as Alden Global Capital, a firm known for slashing news staffs, takes a major stake in...

Continue Reading

trends | Feb 18, 2020

New Kansas City Newsroom on the Runway: ‘Start-ups Tend to Help Each Other’

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

As digital news start-ups show the ability to attract and keep audiences, they are paving the way for more such outlets to fill the gaps created by the financial distress of the nation’s legacy news chains. A case in point is The Beacon, a Kansas City start-up that plans to start publishing this summer in a media market where the 140-year-old Kansas City Star is part of the McClatchy chain, which filed for bankruptcy protection...

Continue Reading

trends | Jan 27, 2020

Chicago Becomes a Hotbed for News Collaboration Rather Than Competition

by Hannah Farrow

Chicago has long been known as a media battleground. While many cities are down to one daily newspaper — if that — Chicago has two, plus a wealth of niche news outlets. But as investigative resources dwindle in local journalism, Chicago has become a hotbed for collaboration rather than competition, reflecting a national trend. The goal: Serve the public and have greater impact by teaming up with other newsrooms to produce more fleshed-out, well-rounded reports....

Continue Reading