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update | Sep 11, 2025

Medill launches shared services hub to continue strengthening Chicago local news

The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications announced the creation of a shared services hub, which will provide expertise  and infrastructure support to news outlets in the Chicago region. Thanks to a grant from The Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the new hub will work directly with local news organizations in the Chicago area on critical needs,  including consumer research, audience strategy, product development, revenue diversification and legal services. “We’re grateful to the McCormick...

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update | Jan 22, 2025

Deserted By Fact-Checking Meta policy reversal could mean more misinformation for communities lacking local news

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook is eliminating fact-checking may amount to a double whammy for people living in this country’s ever-expanding news deserts. Having lost their primary local news sources, these communities often turn to social media and other alternatives to try to stay informed. Now one of those key sources is removing safeguards against the spread of misinformation. “It’s absolutely correct that it’s in areas that are underserved by professional journalism that this move...

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update | Sep 20, 2024

Report rings public media alarm bell Ralph Nader group calls for more government funding, less corporate influence to boost local news

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

Public media funding has become so inadequate in supporting local news reporting that it needs a drastic overhaul, a report released Thursday by the Center for Study of Responsive Law concludes. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who founded the Center in 1968, supplies the lengthy, alarm-bell-ringing introduction for the report, which is written by Michael Swerdlow, a researcher for the Center and a Columbia University law student. “This lack of funding for public media, at a time...

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update | Sep 9, 2024

Medill Launches News Bureau To Cover Illinois Government Students to produce content to be distributed to about 700 local news outlets

by Medill Staff

The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications announced Monday the creation of the Medill Illinois News Bureau, which will provide local news outlets with coverage of the state legislature and government agencies. Working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois (CNI), Medill graduate and undergraduate journalism students will develop expertise in covering state government, producing stories and multimedia content that will be distributed to news organizations statewide and in bordering states. CNI is a nonprofit,...

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update | May 30, 2024

Illinois Passes $25 Million in Tax Credits To Boost Local Journalism Legislation package offers ‘pretty significant solutions to a pretty wide variety of challenges’

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

The Illinois legislature has approved measures that provide $25 million in tax credits over the next five years for local news organizations to hire and retain journalists, becoming the second large state in two months to try to bolster the ailing local news industry with tax incentives. In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the Illinois House gave final passage to two other components of a larger package designed to address the local news crisis....

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update | Aug 28, 2023

Sarah Stonbely Named Director of Medill’s State of Local News Project The research director at the Center for Cooperative Media has been studying local news for years

by Medill Staff

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...

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update | Jan 10, 2023

Media Strategy Executive Will Lead Local News Accelerator

by Medill Staff

Mackenzie Warren, a top news executive at the nation’s largest local news publishing company, has been named director of the new Local News Accelerator at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Warren has been a senior member of Gannett’s news executive team for more than a decade. In his two most recent posts, he focused on news strategy and career-development for journalists. He will bring those leadership experiences to Medill’s downtown...

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update | Aug 23, 2022

What’s New in Local News? Four case studies showcase innovative business models

by Mark Caro | LocalNewsIni

While local newspapers shutter at an alarming rate and news deserts expand, it’s important to seek out the emerging oases that may point to a brighter future. That was the theme of a webinar organized July 26 by the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung USA. The webinar highlighted creative approaches to deliver vital, useful news and information to a diversity of communities. These efforts are taking place in urban, suburban and rural...

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update | May 4, 2021

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.

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

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 were devastated, right? Nope. While in-person events went on the shelf, many local news outlets made an impressive shift to virtual, sometimes even ramping up their level of connection to their audience. The Texas Tribune, which was known for its public gatherings before the pandemic, found that the simpler, less...

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update | Nov 12, 2020

Two Major Industry Players Join Medill’s New Subscriber Index

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Two major news industry organizations, McClatchy and Mather Economics, have signed on to the new Medill Subscriber Engagement Index, a tool designed to give local news outlets more actionable intelligence on their readers than ever before. McClatchy, one of the nation’s largest local news chains, is providing data from its 30 local outlets, including such well-known outlets as the Miami Herald, Charlotte Observer, Kansas City Star and Sacramento Bee, according to Shannan Bowen, McClatchy’s Director...

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update | Sep 30, 2020

Arkansas’ Print-to-iPad Switch Inspires Loyalty, but Some Miss the Rubber Bands

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Local news publishers across the country are asking themselves this existential question: How do I convert subscribers from print to pixels? Successfully overseeing that transition would allow local news companies to save the cost of manufacturing and distributing a printed newspaper, and it would help readers build a digital habit for the long term. In early 2018, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette undertook a bold experiment. In phases over more than two years, it took away subscribers’...

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update | Mar 25, 2020

Local News Outlets Drop Paywalls for Pandemic Stories, but Gain Digital Subscribers Anyway

by Mark Jacob

Even though many local news organizations have moved their COVID-19 stories outside their paywalls, several are seeing encouraging boosts in their digital subscriptions during the crisis. That’s a rare bit of good news as the pandemic poses an alarming threat to the many news outlets that struggled to find financial sustainability even before the virus shut down much of the economy. Some observers are predicting that 2020 could be a disastrous year for local news...

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update | Oct 25, 2019

Medill Local News Initiative Wins Google Innovation Award to Create Digital Reader Index

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Building on major research into the behaviors of local digital readers, Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative and its Spiegel Research Center have been named recipients of a Google Innovation Challenge award to create a Subscriber Engagement Index. The index will serve as a new tool to give local news organizations “timely, unique, actionable insights about the online behaviors of their digital subscribers,” said Medill Senior Associate Dean Tim Franklin, head of the Medill Local News...

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update | Jul 25, 2019

Webinar Highlights How Gannett Is Using Medill’s Research Findings

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

A recent webinar for the News Media Alliance highlighted how research by Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative has helped the Gannett news chain come up with new strategies to attract and keep digital subscribers. Gannett’s Indianapolis Star was part of a project last year in which Medill analyzed 13 terabytes of data from the Star, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle. The key takeaway: Creating a regular reader habit was paramount in retaining subscribers....

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update | Jul 16, 2019

Medill Going on Road Show to Share Local News Insights Medill will discuss their local news research findings at conferences for Newspaper Association Managers, News Leaders Association, and Online News Association.

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Northwestern University’s Medill Local News initiative, whose data analysis has identified reader habit as vital to retaining online subscribers, is taking its research findings on the road to help the journalism industry navigate a shift in its reliance from advertising dollars to reader revenue. Medill and its partners will discuss the research findings and the paths forward for local news at three major conferences in the next two months – the Newspaper Association Managers on...

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update | Apr 11, 2019

The ‘eHarmony of Political Coverage’ and Other Local News Innovations Medill’s Research on Digital Subscriptions Empowers Newsrooms

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

Here’s a neat trick that other newsrooms might want to steal. During Chicago’s recent election, the Tribune ran a quiz headlined, “Which Chicago mayoral candidate do you align most closely with?” The Tribune got candidates to answer a set of 14 questions, and then readers were invited to answer the same questions and learn which politician they were most in synch with. The feature served multiple purposes: educating readers on the candidates, helping readers focus their...

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update | Feb 27, 2019

Can News ‘Snacking’ Save Local Journalism from Starvation?

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

The old-fashioned image of the loyal newspaper reader was someone who went through each edition methodically, reading deeply from front to back. Today’s loyal online news reader may be quite different. Perhaps she catches a look at a local news homepage while waiting for the train. Or she might read an emailed newsletter with story links, scanning a dozen headlines on different stories. If she finds something interesting and has the time, she reads the...

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update | Dec 20, 2018

Anti-Press Rhetoric Raises the Stakes for Engagement in Local News

by Jeannette Hinkle | Jenny_Hinkle

Amid anti-press rhetoric at the national level, editors of local news organizations are feeling a trickle-down effect that increases the urgency of deepening connections with their readers. President Donald Trump’s “enemy of the people” vitriol has reached the Chicago Tribune, for example, with reporters, editors and columnists absorbing more “hyped-up” feedback through social media platforms, email, voicemail and even mailboxes, said Chicago Tribune Standards Editor Margaret Holt. “People will say nasty, obnoxious stuff and they...

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update | Dec 18, 2018

Local News Outlets Counting on Digital Subscribers More Than Page Views

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

A recent meeting of Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative team and its three “learning lab” partners – the Chicago Tribune, Indianapolis Star and San Francisco Chronicle – found heightened interest in news organizations growing their digital subscriptions as a key strategy for financial sustainability. A “click” culture in American newsrooms, in which online page views were the overriding measure of success because they boosted advertising revenue, appears to be giving way as online ad sales continue...

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update | Nov 12, 2018

McCormick Foundation Gives $100,000 to Medill for In-Depth Analysis of Media Markets

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

A $100,000 grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation will fuel new research by Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications that is intended to provide tools that can improve the financial viability of local journalism, while also seeking to increase Americans' sense of community and making them more informed about their democracy. The grant, announced Nov. 12, will include both data analysis and qualitative research this year and next, conducted as...

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update | Oct 24, 2018

Local News is the 'Biggest Crisis' in Journalism, but a Sustainability Campaign is Underway

by Mark Jacob | LocalNewsIni

This is the first in a series of articles on America's local news crisis and the work of the newly launched Local News Initiative at Northwestern University's Medill School. It's a jarring contradiction: The public has never had better access to news, yet local journalism is suffering a dramatic decline. Which means there’s plenty to read and view, but it might not tell us very much. On a single day in July, the New York...

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update | Oct 1, 2018

The Local News Challenge and You

America has seen a dramatic decline in coverage of local news. The digital revolution has massively disrupted the business model for local news. Many news organizations are slashing their staffs. Others are closing altogether, creating a widening sea of “news deserts.” Why does it matter? A self-governed democracy needs an informed citizenry. Local news is the oxygen for engaged communities that enrich our everyday lives. The crisis in local news is deepening, but there are...

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