Month: August 2024

By Dan Kennedy

If local and regional news is going to survive, we need to find a path for profit-seeking enterprises. The nonprofit sector is becoming increasingly dominant, at least among startups that have any sort of significant reporting capacity. Yet after Ellen Clegg and I finished up our book, “What Works in Community News,” three of the for-profits that we wrote about switched to the nonprofit model: The Colorado Sun, The Mendocino Voice and Santa Cruz Local.

So I was heartened to learn that a new for-profit news site will debut in Texas this Monday. Max Tani reports for Semafor that Barbed Wire, which will cover politics, culture and entertainment, is a for-profit enterprise that’s pursuing advertising and voluntary memberships.

I’m not sure that Barbed Wire will be entirely for-profit, as Tani writes that “the outlet said it had a mix of private investors and nonprofit grants behind it.” But today’s successful for-profits often have a relationship with nonprofits so that they can raise tax-exempt money for public-interest journalism. Those include not just for-profit startups like The Provincetown Independent but also legacy newspapers like The Boston Globe, The Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and The Seattle Times.

Barbed Wire is expected to report statewide news with a point of view, and it’s connected with a number of Democratic political figures, according to Tani. We’ll have to see how that plays out, since Tani reports that the site “won’t necessarily be neutral on issues like climate change or abortion” but “is not explicitly partisan.”

That stands in contrast with the state’s largest nonprofit news outlet, The Texas Tribune, which is decidedly nonpartisan. Texas is also home to statewide outlets like Texas Monthly and The Texas Observer, so Barbed Wire is entering crowded territory. But Texas is a big state.

The two independent weekly newspapers that cover Martha’s Vineyard are using AI-powered translation software to provide the island’s growing Brazilian population with Portuguese-language articles, Aidan Ryan reports in The Boston Globe.

But though the service is surely a step forward, stronger coverage of the Brazilian community still depends on the human touch, MV Times publisher Charles Sennott and Vineyard Gazette publisher Monica Brady-Meyerov acknowledge. Ryan writes:

While these initiatives can reflect a sincere effort to serve the public with reliable information, they also often highlight the limitations of technology and gaps in staff diversity for many traditional English-language newsrooms.

Reliable automated translation can be a boon. The English-language New Haven Independent, for example, relies on people power to provide one translated article each week to run in La Voz Hispana de Connecticut, a weekly Spanish-language paper with which it shares a newsroom. A translated cartoon from La Voz runs in the Independent’s newsletter. (Both projects are featured in our book, “What Works in Community News.”)

AI could provide readers of both publications with much more than they’re getting now.

By Dan Kennedy

A proposal that would have required Google to pay California news outlets for the journalism that it repurposes has instead been replaced with a proposed deal that is already coming under criticism. Jeanne Kuang of CalMatters writes:

California lawmakers are abandoning an ambitious proposal to force Google to pay news companies for using their content, opting instead for a deal in which the tech giant has agreed to pay $172 million to support local media outlets and start an artificial intelligence program.

The money would be spread over five years and would be supplemented with $70 million from the state over that same time period. Google would continue paying $10 million a year to newsrooms under existing programs.

The deal apparently does not require legislative approval, though the annual appropriations that it specifies would be subject to a vote.

Gov. Gavin Newsom voiced his approval in a statement, saying: “This agreement represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California — leveraging substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians.”

But Kuang continued:

The Media Guild of the West, which represents reporters in Southern California, slammed the agreement and accused publishers and lawmakers of folding to Google’s threats.

“Google won, a monopoly won,” said Matt Pearce, the group’s president. “This is dramatically worse than what Australia and Canada got … I don’t know of any journalist that asked for this.”

According to Los Angeles Times reporter Lauren Rosenhall’s account of the deal, agreement was struck after a drawn-out battle over a bill, AB 886, that would have extracted much more money from the tech giant:

Google threatened to remove California news content from its platform if the bill passed, and then ran ads saying the legislation would reduce Californians’ access to news.

Lobbying over the bill grew intense, with a trade association Google belongs to launching an ad campaign aimed at lawmakers that cast the legislation as a giveaway to large media corporations. Records show the Computer and Communications Industry Assn. spent $5 million on ads against AB 886 over the last two years as the bill made its way through the Legislature.

The role of government in boosting journalism through measures such as tax credits and mandates that would force Google and Facebook to hand over some of their advertising revenues has moved to the center of the ongoing discussion of what to do about the ailing local news business.

Though federal legislation has stalled repeatedly, proposals in New York and Illinois to provide tax credits to news publishers that create or retain newsroom jobs have become law.

And in Massachusetts, a proposal to revive a state commission that would study the problem and make some recommendations was the subject of a legislative hearing earlier this summer (I was among those who testified) appears to be on track.

By Ellen Clegg

The Minnesota Star Tribune’s new opinion editor, Phillip Morris, only started his job in July. But what a difference a month can make.

The award-winning journalist from Cleveland hasn’t wasted any time shaking things up. On Aug. 15, Morris announced sweeping changes for the paper’s editorial and op-ed pages: the Strib, as the paper is known locally, will no longer write endorsements for candidates or ballot questions, and it’s launching Strib Voices, a new platform featuring bylined commentary from across Minnesota.

Morris is bringing on 11 columnists with a wide range of views. Community engagement editor Kavita Kumar, a former reporter on the Strib’s business desk, vows to scour the state to bring in new writers to keep the conversation flowing.

Even Keith Harris of The Racket, a zippy reader-funded alternative news outlet started by Northeastern University alum Em Cassel, writes that “The Strib May Have Just Done Something Right,” and notes, “The picks are diverse, with a Native American, Hmong-American, and Somali-American in the mix. There’s also a Lutheran pastor, a weed guy, and a civics wonk. I may happily read what at least some of these people will have to say.” (You can find our previous What Works podcast discussion with Cassel here.)

Until recently, the paper, based in Minneapolis, was known simply as the Star Tribune. Now it’s been rebranded as The Minnesota Star Tribune to reflect the statewide mission that it has embraced. The profitable, growing Strib is among the projects that we write about in our book, “What Works in Community News.”

From first appearances, the Strib’s decision to drop candidate endorsements does not seem to signal the timid retreat that many chain-owned dailies have made over the last few years. Gannett and other news outlets have axed editorial endorsements in part because owners do not want to alienate readers and in part because endorsements are deceptively staff-intensive, often requiring group interviews, in-depth reporting and fact-checking, and internal discussions by an editorial board and a publisher. Notoriously, even The New York Times announced recently that it was giving up local and statewide endorsements, although it will continue to weigh in on presidential elections.

Instead, the Star Tribune’s editorial board will remain firmly in place, offering signed opinion as well as unsigned editorials on “important moments for the state,” according to Morris. Much like the Times, the editorial board will not weigh in every day with an unsigned editorial but will presumably pick its shots. Analysis of issues will replace candidate endorsements, and candidates in major races will be invited to write commentaries explaining their positions.

“At a time when many media platforms are cutting back or shying away from opinion journalism, the Star Tribune is going in a very different direction,” Morris, who is also a vice president, wrote in a column outlining the changes. “We believe that now more than ever, amplifying the voices that reflect our state, in all its complexities, will increase understanding and create the most dynamic conversation that’s ever existed about this place we all call home.”

By Dan Kennedy

For the past two years, the North Shore town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, has been a hotbed of local news experimentation, with two (and, for a while, three) independent community journalism outlets battling to fill the gap left behind by Gannett’s near-disappearance.

Yet neighboring Swampscott, a virtual twin of Marblehead, has remained a news desert. Now that’s about to change.

Four Swampscott residents, three of them with journalism backgrounds, plan to launch a new nonprofit digital news organization sometime in late autumn. The publication, Swampscott Tides, already has a website. Founding president Anne Driscoll tells Steve Marantz, writing in the Jewish Journal of Greater Boston, that she envisions “a fair and factual independent news outlet,” adding:

I think people in recent years have begun to recognize what a loss it is not to have a local paper. You can’t have a functioning democracy if you don’t have functioning journalism. You can’t get information on what’s going on, events, local politics, how municipal government is functioning.

The story in Swampscott is a familiar one. In the spring of 2022, Gannett closed or merged a couple of dozen weekly newspapers in the Boston suburbs. Although the Swampscott Reporter continues as a standalone weekly, it was purged of virtually all local news, with content from across the chain filling the news hole.

The same thing happened with Gannett’s Marblehead Reporter, which led to the establishment of the nonprofit Marblehead Current and the for-profit Marblehead Weekly News. A third for-profit, digital-only project, the Marblehead Beacon, is now on hiatus, and it’s not clear whether it will be back.

Driscoll told the Jewish Journal that the Swampscott folks approached the Marblehead Current about the possibility of forming a partnership but that the Current decided against it.

Driscoll has a long background as a journalist at The Boston Globe, Brandeis University’s Schuster Institute for Investigative Reporting and other stops. Her three colleagues are Robert Powell, a financial journalist; Tim Dorsey, a corporate lawyer; and Peter Masucci, who has worked in various roles in television journalism.

The organizers are aiming to raise $200,000 to $400,000 so that they can hire a managing editor and one or two reporters.

Dan will be speaking this Monday, Aug. 12, from 1 to 2 p.m. on “What Works: The Future of Local News” as part of the Summer Institute for Journalism Education at Fitchburg State University. The event will be held at the Fitchburg Historical Society at 781 Main St. and is free and open to the public.

He’ll discuss what caused the local news crisis as well as “What Works in Community News,” the book that he and Ellen wrote about possible solutions. The three-day conference features a great lineup of speakers from journalism, public access television and academia, so we hope you’ll check it out. Please register here.

By Dan Kennedy

I’m back from vacation, and this morning I have a round-up of some items about the state of local news. Unfortunately, my top story is not good. The Tampa Bay Times, a news organization that does it the right way, is nevertheless facing a 20% cut to its payroll.

The paper, which has won 14 Pulitzer Prizes over the years, will offer buyouts to its 270 full-time employees, a number that includes 100 journalists. Top executives will take 10% pay cuts through the end of 2024, with chair and CEO Conan Gallaty taking 20%.

The Times has long since given up on daily print; it currently publishes print editions on Wednesdays and Sundays, and is digital-only the rest of the week.

What’s distressing is that the Times has an admirable business model. It’s a for-profit paper owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, a highly regarded journalism-education organization. The original idea, though, was that some of the Times’ profits would be used to subsidize Poynter. Those profits have long since dried up, forcing Poynter to raise money on its own. That model is the opposite of a newer hybrid, The Philadelphia Inquirer, a for-profit owned by the nonprofit Lenfest Institute, which was specifically set up to support the Inquirer and other news organizations.

The Times writes that “print advertising and circulation have declined steadily and digital revenue growth hasn’t made up for the shortfall.”

With other major Florida newspapers in the hands of bottom line-obsessed entities such as McClatchy (the Miami Herald) and Alden Global Capital (the Orlando Sentinel), it’s vital that the Tampa Bay Times survives and thrives.

The Maine event

I had not realized that Reade Brower was still in the newspaper business until I received a press release earlier this week announcing an innovative venture on the coast of Maine.

Brower sold The Portland Press Herald and its affiliated newspapers last summer to the National Trust for Local News — then turned around and helped assemble a company called Islandport Media. Now he and another veteran publisher, Kathleen Fleury Capetta, are combining four newspapers into the weekly Midcoast Villager, which will debut in September.

The four papers are the Camden Herald, The Free Press, The Republican Journal and The Courier-Gazette. Islandport’s holdings also include The Ellsworth American, a respected weekly newspaper that will not be part of the merger.

When I hear news like this, I worry that it’s a cost-cutting move and that the new entity will concentrate more on regional news than hyperlocal coverage. The press release, though, says that the company has been hiring, and will supplement the paper with targeted community newsletters. Brower and Fleury Capetta have something else in mind as well:

The publication will further invest in the community by opening the Villager Café in downtown Camden in 2025. The cafe will offer breakfast, lunch and coffee, but will also serve as a community center that hosts events related to local journalism, brings people together to talk about complex issues, and showcases local talent with concerts, readings, discussions and more. People are hungry for social connections; the cafe and the publication will bring people together and provide a greater sense of belonging for community residents.

This is a phenomenally great idea, reminiscent of the burgers-beers-and-news formula unveiled several years ago by The Big Bend Sentinel in Texas. Civic engagement and news consumption are intimately tied together, so giving residents a reason to gather and talk about local issues will surely help the newspaper as well.

“We really believe that we just have to save local news, and this is an effort to do that,” Fleury Capetta told Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan.

Let there be Light

There’s some very good news at The New Bedford Light, a high-profile nonprofit that covers the South Coast of Massachusetts: Karen Bordeleau, a former executive editor of The Providence Journal, has been named editor. She’ll work alongside the current editor, Andy Tomolonis, until he retires next year, according to an announcement by CEO Lean Camara.

Bordeleau is a fellow graduate of Northeastern University’s journalism program. Not to reveal her age (or mine), but back in the 1970s we both worked as co-op students at Rhode Island’s Woonsocket Call, which, sadly, was merged into The Times of Pawtucket last October.

Congratulations to Karen — and to the Light, which has acquired a first-rate editor to succeed Tomolonis and, before him, founding editor Barbara Roessner.

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen and Dan are talking with … each other. There’s lots happening in the local news space, and we want to hit some highlights.

We also have a programming note: This will be our final podcast this summer. We’re going to make like the French and take the rest of August off. Before signing off, though, we discuss the state of play for newsletters (who knew email is the killer app?); podcasts (we’re still free and we still do it for love, not money); and advertising (some newspapers are charging a fee if you’d like your digital feed served with no advertising.)

Ellen has a remembrance of Jack Connors, a legendary Boston advertising mogul and backer of local news who once tried to buy The Boston Globe. She also finds a refreshing stream of news about local people, businesses, and government on the home pages of hyperlocal outlets in swing states.

You can listen to our conversation here and access an AI-generated transcript. You can also subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

You can listen to our conversation here and access an AI-generated transcript. You can also subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

By Dan Kennedy

If local news is going to thrive, we need a variety of business models, especially on the for-profit side. Yet, at least among news start-ups with robust reporting capacity, nonprofits are becoming more and more dominant. Indeed, three of the for-profits that Ellen Clegg and I write about in our book, “What Works in Community News,” The Colorado Sun, The Mendocino Voice and Santa Clara Local, have converted to nonprofit status in the past year.

One unique exception is TAPinto, a New Jersey-based company with about 100 franchises. The way it works is that local entrepreneurs start a TAPinto in their community and are able to — well, tap into the mothership’s tech, advertising and training resources. It’s not bad for an out-of-the-box solution, but there are limitations.

Recently, though, TAPinto chief executive Mike Shapiro launched a related business called the Hyperlocal News Network. It’s similar to TAPinto except that publishers have more flexibility to establish their own identity. Sophie Culpepper writes about Shapiro’s new venture for Nieman Lab, reporting that Shapiro told her by email:

There are … hundreds, if not thousands, of existing publishers who are really struggling with their digital presence and would benefit from our technology and back office services, yet want to keep their own branding. Our license model enables them to do just that.

Shapiro spoke with Ellen and me on our “What Works” podcast in April 2022. You can listen to it and read an AI-generated transcript by clicking here. We also wrote about TAPinto in our book, and I’m providing an excerpt below.

***

TAPinto is a network of nearly a hundred hyperlocal websites, most of them in New Jersey, that employs an innovative franchise model. The network was begun in 2009 by Michael Shapiro, who back then was a New York lawyer looking to spend more time with his young son after he underwent open-heart surgery (he made a full recovery). Shapiro started a website that he called The Alternative Press in New Providence, where he lived, because he was dissatisfied by the lack of coverage in the local newspaper. As Shapiro tells it, he soon heard from residents of other communities asking him to expand, and a network was born. (The “TAP” in TAPinto stands for “The Alternative Press.”)

Although Shapiro is not a journalist, he said in an interview and on the “What Works” podcast that he takes journalistic objectivity seriously and requires his franchisees to adhere to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. The way it works is this. For a fee of $5,000, a franchisee can set up shop with what is essentially a turnkey operation: a website based on a ready-made template with backend and technical support, training, and everything else they might need to begin covering local news and selling advertising. Publishers keep 80 percent of whatever ad revenues they’re able to earn, with 20 percent going to TAPinto. Advertising can also be shared across sites, and some editorial content is shared as well. Publishers are required to produce at least one original piece of journalism each day; stories typically cover such topics as neighborhood development issues, feel-good features, and public-safety news. A common arrangement, Shapiro said, is for a businessperson to become a franchisee and employ a journalist either full- or part-time.

Access to TAPinto sites is free, and Shapiro said the $5,000 franchise fee is far lower than what it would cost for a local media entrepreneur to get started on their own. “I think we’ve been able to demonstrate that you can have profitable local news sites that are 100 percent advertising-based, and that, to me, is really important,” he said. “People who are economically distressed shouldn’t have to choose between putting food on the table or buying medicine and finding out what’s going on in their town. So that’s very fundamental to us. And it’s also fundamental on the ownership side. In a lot of these situations, you have to be wealthy to start an online local news site if you want to have the technology and the functionality and stuff we offer.”

Observers we spoke with gave Shapiro generally high marks but said the sites tend to be of uneven quality, which is not surprising given the inexperience of many of the franchisees. Nevertheless, TAPinto represents a genuinely new way of providing local news and bears watching — particularly if Shapiro is able to build out his network nationally or inspires imitators.