Three journalists from the Boulder Reporting Lab at a news conference held by Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn hours after a recent antisemitic terrorist attack. Founder and publisher Stacy Feldman, arms folded, is wearing a green cap. Next to her, wearing a striped blue shirt, is reporter Brooke Stephenson. Senior reporter John Herrick is wearing a tan T-shirt and holding a notebook. Photo courtesy of Stacy Feldman.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Dan and Ellen talk with Stacy Feldman, founder and publisher of Boulder Reporting Lab, a nonprofit newsroom covering Boulder, Colorado. She launched the Lab in late 2021 to fill critical gaps in news coverage in a state where newspapers have been gobbled up by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund. Alden is known for gutting papers, not growing them.
Stacy was co-founder and executive editor of Inside Climate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom focused on the climate crisis. She developed her plans for the Boulder Reporting Lab during a fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her newsroom has provided crucial reporting on the recent antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder.
Dan has a Quick Take later on a huge threat to one of the most important cogs in the regional news ecosystem — public radio and television, which face huge cuts after the Republican-led House voted recently to cancel $1.1 billion in funding over the next two years that it had previously approved. Now the measure moves to the Senate, which has to take a vote on it by mid-July. Regardless of what happens, this is the closest public media has ever come to an extinction-level event.
Ellen’s Quick Take is on local news coverage of the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband. Minnesota news consumers have a lot of great media options, and these newsrooms stepped up big-time to cover this crisis.
Cynthia Tu of Sahan Journal. Photo (cc) 2025 by Lev Gringauz / MinnPost
By Dan Kennedy
Like it or not (and my own feelings are mixed), artificial intelligence is being used by news organizations, and there’s no turning back. The big question is how.
The worst possible use of AI is to write stories, especially without sufficient human intervention to make sure that what’s being spit out is accurate. Somewhat more defensible is using it to write headlines, summaries and social-media posts — again, with actual editors checking it over. The most promising, though, is using it to streamline certain internal operations that no one has the time to do.
That’s what’s happening at Sahan Journal, a 6-year-old digital nonprofit that covers immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota. It’s one of the projects that Ellen Clegg profile in our book, “What Works in Community News.” And according to Lev Gringauz of MinnPost (one of the original nonprofit news pioneers), the Journal has embarked on a project to streamline some of its news and business functions with AI. (I learned about Gringauz’s story in Nieman Lab, where it was republished.)
Bolstered with $220,000 in grant money from the American Journalism Project and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, the Journal has employed AI to help with such tasks as processing financial data of the state’s charter schools, generating story summaries for Instagram, and adding audio to some articles.
The real value, though, has come in bolstering the revenue side, as the Journal has experimented with using AI to retool its media kit and to understand its audience better, such as “pulling up how much of Sahan Journal’s audience cares about public transportation.”
“We’re less enthusiastic, more skeptical, about using AI to generate editorial content,” Cynthia Tu, the Journal’s data journalist and AI specialist, told Gringauz. Even on internal tasks, though, AI has proved to be a less than reliable partner, hallucinating data despite Tu explicitly giving it commands not to scour the broader internet.
And as Gringauz observes, OpenAI is bleeding money. How much of a commitment makes sense given that Sahan Journal may be building systems on top of a platform that may cease to exist at some point?
Two other AI-related notes:
➤ Quality matters. In his newsletter Second Rough Draft, Richard J. Tofel has some useful thoughts on the panic over Google’s AI search engine, which has been described as representing an existential threat to news organizations since it will deprive them of click-throughs to their websites.
Tofel writes that clickbait will be harmed more than high-quality journalism, noting that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been hurt less than HuffPost, Business Insider and The Washington Post. “If there is one overriding lesson of publishing in the digital age,” Tofel writes, “it remains that distinctive content remains the most unassailable, the least vulnerable.”
Though Tofel doesn’t say so, I think there’s a lesson for local news publishers as well: hyperlocal journalism should be far less affected by AI search than national outlets, especially for those organizations that emphasize building a relationship with their communities.
➤ Here’s the pitch. Caleb Okereke, a Ph.D. student at Northeastern, is using AI to screen pitches for his digital publication Minority Africa. He writes that “we are receiving 10x more pitches than we did in our early days after launch,” adding: “With a lean editorial team, we faced a challenge familiar to many digital publications: how do you maintain depth, fairness, and attention when the volume scales but the staff doesn’t?”
He and his colleagues have built a customized tool called Iraka (which means “voice” in the Rutooro language) and put it to the test. As he writes, it’s far from perfect, though it’s getting better.
“As of now, editors are using Iraka individually to provide a first-pass on submissions, testing its utility alongside regular human review,” Okereke reports. “Every pitch is still manually read, and no editorial decisions are made solely based on the model’s output. This staged integration allows us to observe how the tool fits into existing workflows without disrupting the editorial process.”
On a day when anti-Trump “No Kings” protests were scheduled across the country, shocking news out of Minnesota is dominating media coverage. The Democratic former speaker of the Minnesota House, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed early Saturday in their suburban Brooklyn Park home in what Gov. Tim Walz called a “politically motivated assassination.”
Another Democratic legislator, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot multiple times in their home in nearby Champlin. Hoffman and his wife were critically injured, according to Walz, but are expected to survive. The gunman, identified by authorities as Vance Boelter, is still at large as of this writing.
CNN, as could be expected, was up early with vivid running coverage, complete with clips from Walz’s emotional press conference. “Our state lost a great leader,” he said, choking up, “and I lost the dearest of friends.” Minnesota State Police said the gunman impersonated a police officer. Thousands of Minnesotans are under a shelter-in-place order, Walz called for “No Kings” protests in the state to be canceled, although a source in Minneapolis reports that people are still turning out.
An all-hands national news story like this poses a core question for hyperlocal newsrooms, which typically launch with smaller staffs and a tightly focused mission of covering neighborhood people, politics and policies. For perspective, I called Emily Krumberger, a longtime nonprofit media creator in the Twin Cities who is now the vice president of programming for AMPERS, the Association of Minnesota Public and Educational Radio Stations. AMPERS, whose slogan is “Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities,” is a network of 17 community radio stations “from border to border” and works to empower local storytellers and citizen journalists.
Many Americans say they have lost trust in national news — but most still believe they can rely on the accuracy of local news.
In 2023, trust in national newspapers, TV and radio reached historic lows. Just 32% of Americans said they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in these news sources. In 1976, by comparison, 72% of Americans said they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in mass media, including newspapers, TV and radio.
And in 2021, the United States ranked last among 46 countries in the trust citizens placed in news outlets.
Yet even as the local news industry is declining in the U.S. — more than 3,200 local and regional newspapers have closed since 2005 — Americans still place much more trust in local news than they do in national news.
Co-founder Dave Nordman says the grant, the largest one-time gift the Guardian has received, “will help us expand our editorial reach, improve our digital presence, and build deeper partnerships with local institutions.” Adds Cliff Rucker: “The Guardian is doing important work — producing high-quality journalism and making it available to everyone.”
The Central Massachusetts city has more than 200,000 residents and is served by a variety of news outlets. Yet it has had to contend with a shortage of coverage ever since the daily Telegram & Gazette was acquired by GateHouse Media (which later morphed into Gannett) in 2015 and began slashing the news report. The Rucker grant should help the Guardian raise both its metabolism and its profile.
Nordman, who also serves as lead consultant to the Guardian, is a former executive editor of the T&G. He’s a cross-campus colleague, too: his day job is as executive editor of Northeastern Global News, our university’s news service.
The full press release follows:
Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation donates $100,000 to The Worcester Guardian
Major gift strengthens nonprofit newsroom’s mission to deliver accessible, high-quality local journalism
The Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to The Worcester Guardian, the city’s nonprofit community news organization dedicated to keeping local journalism free and accessible to all.
The gift marks the largest one-time contribution to The Worcester Guardian since its founding and will help the organization expand its coverage, grow partnerships and invest in long-term sustainability.
For the Rucker Foundation, the donation reflects a continued commitment to institutions that strengthen the fabric of the Worcester community.
“The Guardian is doing important work — producing high-quality journalism and making it available to everyone,” Cliff Rucker said. “These are exactly the kinds of organizations we want to invest in — ones that make a real difference in the community. We hope this contribution inspires others to step up and support The Guardian as well.”
Launched in 2023 and a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, The Worcester Guardian provides nonpartisan, in-depth reporting on issues central to the city’s future: government, education, health, business, and the environment. With no paywall and no subscription required, the Guardian ensures that all residents have access to accurate, trustworthy local news. Its reporting team includes experienced journalists with strong ties to the region.
Dave Nordman, co-founder and lead consultant of The Worcester Guardian, said the donation will accelerate the organization’s growth and strengthen community ties.
“This generous gift will help us expand our editorial reach, improve our digital presence, and build deeper partnerships with local institutions like Worcester’s colleges and universities,” Nordman said. “It’s a transformative investment in the future of local journalism.”
Tim Loew, chair of The Worcester Guardian’s Board of Directors, emphasized the broader community impact.
“On behalf of the entire board, I want to express our deep gratitude to the Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation,” Loew said. “Their support speaks volumes about the value of local journalism. This funding will allow us to deepen our coverage, better serve readers, and ensure the long-term sustainability of nonprofit news in Worcester.”
The Rucker Foundation’s support continues its long-standing commitment to initiatives that strengthen education, the arts, youth development and community life. Past projects include support for Worcester Academy, Music Worcester, Quinsigamond Community College, and nonprofits focused on opportunity, equity and revitalization.
The Worcester Guardian is also backed by a growing group of local organizations which believe in its mission. In addition to the Rucker Foundation, the Guardian has received support from the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, Polar Beverages, The Hanover Insurance Group Foundation, Synergy, Fallon Health, Dewey Square Group, Webster Five, Mirick O’Connell, Workplace Resource, Glickman Kovago & Jacobs, Anna Maria College, Kelleher and Sadowski, Worcester State University, UniBank, Worcester Bravehearts, Masis Staffing, Better Business Bureau of Central New England, Fidelity Bank, Railers HC Foundation, Schwartz Foundation, UMass Memorial and Enterprise Cleaning Corporation as well as dozens of individuals.
To learn more about The Worcester Guardian or to support its mission, visit theworcesterguardian.org.
To learn more about the Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation, visit csrfoundation.com.
