Month: November 2023

Press Forward, the recently announced initiative to raise $500 million for the support of local news, is establishing local chapters in Alaska; Chicago; Minnesota; Philadelphia; Springfield, Illinois; and Wichita, Kansas. According to the announcement, “Press Forward Local chapters are an opportunity for funders to create place-based initiatives for local news, driven by the specific needs of their communities.”

By Dan Kennedy

One of the more innovative efforts at saving newspapers from chain ownership is winding down, although the papers themselves remain protected. The Colorado Sun announced Wednesday that it would transfer its ownership shares of Colorado Community Media (CCM), a chain of 24 weekly and monthly papers in the Denver suburbs, to the nonprofit National Trust for Local News, which led the effort to buy the papers two years ago. The Sun had been given a stake in CCM in return for helping to run the papers.

The reason given for pulling out was that the Sun is in the process of converting from a for-profit public benefit corporation to a nonprofit, which I wrote about recently for Nieman Lab. A story in the Sun that appeared Wednesday urged nonprofit status for CCM as well: “Just as we believe that nonprofit is the right fit for The Sun, we believe it’s a good fit for these weeklies, too. That will be a decision for the​​ Trust and the board of directors of the Colorado News Conservancy, the parent company of CCM.” No money is changing hands. (The Conservancy is the entity established by the National Trust and the Sun to run the CCM papers).

Sun editor and co-founder Larry Ryckman said on X/Twitter: “We’ve been proud co-owners of Colorado Community Media for 2 years & wish it well in this new chapter. They’re doing great work & deserve your support.” Linda Shapley, publisher of CCM, was quoted in the Sun as saying: “I’m grateful for The Sun’s support at a time that was most critical for our future At Colorado Community Media, we’re excited to be part of the evolving Colorado news ecosystem, and we’re dedicated to serving our communities with timely, factual news and information.”

The Sun and CCM are the subject of a chapter in “What Works in Community News,” a book about the future of local journalism by Ellen Clegg and me that will be published in January. In September 2021 I spent nearly a week in Denver reporting on Colorado’s media ecosystem. Obviously that ecosystem is still in flux, but the period covered by our book ends in late 2022.

I believe what was taking place in Colorado back then is a story still worth telling: the founding of the Sun by 10 journalists who’d quit The Denver Post following deep cuts by its hedge-fund owner, Alden Global Capital; the Sun’s early hopes of raising money through blockchain technology; its unique governance structure; and its participation in the acquisition of CCM.

Ellen and I look at our book not as a standalone entity but, rather, as the hub of an ongoing story that also comprises updates to our website, a podcast (Shapley, National Trust executive director Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, and former Denver Post editor Greg Moore have all been guests, and we hope to have Ryckman on once the book has been released), and an evolving social media presence (we’re currently on X/Twitter and Mastodon, but that may change).

So of course we want you to read our book. But we also hope you’ll turn to our other platforms to keep up on the latest.

By Ian Dartley

It all started with a dog.

“I was walking my dog around the dog park one morning,” said Winston Chen, a resident of Arlington, Massachusetts. “During the pandemic, leash laws weren’t enforced. Now they’ve started getting fined for having dogs off leash. All the dog owners were upset.”

But when Chen recommended they approach the town’s parks and recreation commission, he received groans.

“Two and a half hours? They had no time for that,” Chen recalled. So he teamed up with his neighbor, longtime journalist David Trilling, to brainstorm ideas on how they could empower artificial intelligence to deliver the local government’s services to the people of Arlington. They started a nonprofit, Nano Media, which uses AI to power their first local news project, Inside Arlington.

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In brief

• • Arlington residents use AI-driven nonprofit, Nano Media, to simplify access to local government information through Inside Arlington.
  • The organization automates content, particularly through transcription of government meetings, to enhance information accessibility.
  • Nano Media aims to empower local news with AI, emphasizing its role as a tool to aid journalists and engage citizens in the community.

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Trilling and Chen recently discussed their work at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism. They told students and faculty members they had identified a gap in awareness of the town’s inner workings. Inside Arlington, they said, can distill information residents need in a timely and organized fashion.

They coined the idea “local news in a box.” With the exception of the police log (privacy concerns complicate that), they wanted to automate as much content as possible. One way was through the transcription of government meetings.

They train their model to learn names and exercise judgment by feeding it transcriptions of board meetings. As a result, Chen said, these transcriptions are “almost as good as a human’s.” He added: “Some of the tools and processes we use are proprietary. But we use a variety of AI-based tools, such as large language models,” known in the AI world as LLMs.

Trilling said that Inside Arlington values accuracy over flash. “We wanted to make it as boring as possible,” he said. “When the AI has to exercise judgment, it often does a decent job. But it doesn’t have the context to make a good judgment. Of five topics discussed in a meeting, which is most important to a reader? It can’t distinguish that. It doesn’t know if something has been a major topic in a town for a long time.”

As AI continues to careen into the path of journalism, most obviously through Gannett and the MSN news service’s recent controversies where several sports articles were completely botched (in the MSN article, a deceased NBA player was called “useless” and in Gannett’s case, stories about high school football games were littered with errors and strange language), there were understandably some concerns about what sites like Inside Arlington might mean for local news.

Did Arlington need another news site? The town already has a nonprofit news organization, YourArlington, doing things the old-fashioned way­­ — with human reporters. Some of those in attendance at Northeastern were skeptical.

“I think a lot of us look at local news as part of an ongoing conversation a community is having among themselves,” said a faculty member. “The process is as important as the result, a way of building civic engagement. How does increased automation contribute to civic engagement? You can make an argument it detracts.”

Chen responded that AI doesn’t eliminate the human dimension. “We do not advocate for a world where AI drives the flow of information,” he said. “We believe that humans belong in the driver’s seat. Whether it’s AI-driven or something else, it’s helping the information and making it more digestible.”

Chen and Trilling said they believe that converting a three-hour video into an easy-to-read summary of a zoning meeting drives civic engagement by making that content more accessible. Their prime example of this is a feature on the website that allows residents to find out easily about local ordinances.

Chen demonstrated by navigating to a part of the Inside Arlington website that had a chatbot. He typed in a question about how a resident can obtain a permit for raising chickens and hens, and the chatbot spit out a full, detailed response within seconds.

While this tool wowed the audience, there were still further concerns about the ongoing integration of AI and journalism. One student asked how they could reassure journalists that their technology is a tool for journalists to use, not a replacement that will leave them unemployed.

“I hope journalists have an open mind,” Trilling answered. “They’re being replaced by the Gannetts of the world, not AI.” Trilling stressed that their site is a tool that can help journalists thrive and outlets flourish, adding, “It shouldn’t replace humans. It should make them more productive.”

The rest of the discussion centered on how their site will help residents of Arlington communicate with town officials. Toward the end, one student asked whether their tool may end up doing more harm to local news in the long run than good. Trilling and Chen answered by saying they believe that their AI tool addresses a problem instead of creating a new one.

“Local news has so many challenges,” Trilling said. “You’ve got to do something to help it.” The Nano Media website says that the nonprofit’s mission is “to foster an informed and engaged citizenry by revitalizing local news in an economically sustainable way.”

But though Trilling and Chen’s creation might be helpful in communities with no local news, it’s certainly within the realm of possibility that other newsrooms, especially those owned by cost-cutting corporate chains, will see this as little more than an opportunity to save money.

The future of their project is not clear, but their endgame, they said, is to find a way to streamline local news about issues ranging from taxes to development. And they stressed that they see Inside Arlington as an experiment.

“We’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks,” Trilling said.

Editor’s note: In keeping with the theme of this story, we asked ChatGPT to write the headline and the bullet points summarizing the article. We also used ChatGPT to write social-media posts promoting the article.

Ian Dartley is a graduate student in Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.

On the latest What Works podcast, Ellen and Dan talk with Meg Heckman, a colleague of ours at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism. Meg is an associate professor and author who’s had a long career as a journalist. She spent more than a decade as a reporter and, later, the digital editor at the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, where she developed a fascination with presidential politics, a passion for local news and an appreciation for cars with four-wheel drive.

Her book, “Political Godmother: Nackey Scripps Loeb and the Newspaper That Shook the Republican Party,” documents the lasting impact of New Hampshire publisher and conservative activist Nackey Loeb. Loeb and her husband, the right-wing provocateur William Loeb, helped shape the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary at their newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader. As you’ll hear, Heckman draws a straight line from Nackey Loeb’s support of Republican Patrick Buchanan in 1992 to the rise of Donald Trump a generation later.

In Quick Takes, Ellen calls attention to a piece in ProPublica by journalist Dan Golden about his history working for the local daily in Springfield, Massachusetts. Turns out the good-old-days in newspapering weren’t all good. Golden cautions against recreating them. ProPublica, a nonprofit, allows other outlets to republish its work, so you’ll find Golden’s essay on our website.

Dan Kennedy takes a look back at an example of how diligent local news reporting can have an enormous impact nearly 45 years after the fact. Recently the EPA proposed a ban on trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent that’s been linked to leukemia, birth defects and other health problems. The road to that ban began in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1979, with a super-smart young reporter Dan had the honor of working with. Dan wrote about it for The Boston Phoenix back in 1998.

You can listen to our conversation here and subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

With the January 2024 publication date of our book, “What Works in Community News,” drawing ever closer, we want to keep you up to date on new developments at the projects that we track.

The big news today is that Mukhtar Ibrahim, the founder of Sahan Journal, is stepping down as chief executive officer. Ibrahim launched the nonprofit (relaunched, actually; it’s complicated) five years ago to cover Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. He writes:

I am proud of the remarkable success story that our dedicated staff has built. We have grown from a four-person newsroom to an amazing and talented team of 20, covering a wide range of essential topics and producing innovative multimedia content. We have built an equitable, transparent, and responsive work culture that supports the professional development and well-being of every staff member.

Kate Maxwell, the publisher and co-founder of The Mendocino Voice in Northern California, has written a useful guide for the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri aimed at newsrooms looking to put together a kit to be used when covering emergencies. It’s a need that the Voice is experienced with, given that it covers an area frequently hit by wildfires. Maxwell begins:

For newsrooms preparing to cover emergencies, there are a range of material and operational considerations to examine such as necessary equipment, staff support and schedules, and how to stay safe in the middle of a disaster. Planning the practical ways you will communicate with each other and community members, and how to get crucial information out to the people who need it, is an essential part of preparing your newsroom and your community for an emergency.

Finally, Joe Amditis of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey, tells us about a collaborative effort to put together ahead of next week’s legislative elections. The guide, NJ Decides 2023, was put together by the center; NJ Spotlight News, one of the media organizations that we profile in our book; and the NJ Civic Information Consortium, a publicly funded effort to bolster local news in New Jersey.

A number of other news outlets assisted with reporting, and the guide is available not only in English but also in Chinese, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu and Korean. According to Amditis:

The collaborative then split the races up, with journalists from each news organization claiming the candidates they would commit to chase down.

Collaborative members sent hundreds of emails, social media messages, text messages and phone calls trying to convince candidates to fill out the form. Many did so immediately; others needed to be reminded multiple times.