From the assistant editor It’s been a hard couple of years for local news. Since 2005, over 2,220 newspapers in the U.S. have shuttered. About one-fifth of Americans live in a news desert, without reliable reporting on the issues that … Read more
Press Forward launch. Alden still buying. Texas Tribune’s reckoning. Invasions of Kansas newsrooms. Beyond news fatigue, active news avoidance. “Prompt engineers,” perhaps replacing journalists. With just a few months to go until 2024, we enter a potentially perilous presidential … Read more
A nonpartisan group of 22 foundations today announced the launch of Press Forward, a nationwide coalition committing more than $500 million over five years to help reinvigorate local news in America. Local news, including the once-thriving newspaper business, has been … Read more
The Asheville Watchdog is a tiny nonprofit in far western North Carolina, but its editorial meetings could double as a get-together of the Pulitzer alumni club. The project came together on the back deck of the house shared by retired … Read more
It’s a familiar statistic: Approximately 2,500 local news outlets in the United States have closed in the past 20 years — a trend that has continued throughout the pandemic. But, in some of these “news deserts,” the places where papers have … Read more
Beware of road metaphors. In the twisty-turny devolution of the local press since The Great Recession, we’ve been driven down pathways, ramps, routes, shortcuts, and, unfortunately, many dead-ends. Which brings us to the metaphor of the moment: The Roadmap for … Read more
On Sept. 6 of last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California Assembly Bill 179 into law and, with it, dedicated $25 million to funding local reporting in places underserved and underrepresented by the press in the state. The money … Read more
One year ago this week, Chicago Public Media announced the acquisition of The Chicago Sun-Times, a public radio station combining forces with a cherished hometown newspaper. The Chicago merger has created one of the largest nonprofit news enterprises in … Read more
The future of our democracy is being written in state legislatures across the country. They were the focus of coordinated efforts to undermine the 2020 election results, and now, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case based … Read more
