Sugar River in Claremont, N.H. Photo (cc) 2015 by Mark Bonica.
By Dan Kennedy
Recently I took note of the demise of the Eagle Times in Claremont, New Hampshire, observing that the paper had also closed in 2009 and that it had apparently been operating on a shoestring for some time. Well, it turns out there may have been more to it than that. Or not.
Todd Bookman of New Hampshire Public Radio has produced a deep dive into the odd reign of former owner Jay Lucas, a venture capitalist with degrees from Harvard and Yale who grew up in nearby Newport. According to Bookman, Lucas bought the paper from an out-of-state chain in 2022 with big plans to revive local news in the area, but he fell short on the financial side. He shut down the paper in June after failing to make payroll.
“In the wake of the collapse, staff have claimed that Lucas repeatedly failed to pay overdue bills, and on occasion requested workers hold off on cashing their paychecks due to a lack of funding,” Bookman writes, adding that “the local boy who had made good, and decided to invest in his hometown, appeared to have harmed the very community he was aiming to help.”
It’s a harsh assessment, and Lucas comes across as an easy target, spouting optimistic aphorisms while letting the paper wither and die. Yet I came away from the story wanting to know more. As Bookman describes it, Newport is a low-income community that has been dealing with an opioid epidemic. Claremont, too, is struggling, with a median household income of $54,520, just a little more than half the statewide median of $95,628.
From the sounds of it, I’d say that any local newspaper owner would have a tough time making a go of it in such circumstances. Lucas says he hasn’t given up the idea of reviving it; he’s launching a nonprofit, and perhaps a new iteration of the Eagle Times will be part of that.
Earlier this month, Steve Taylor of the Valley News, based in Lebanon, New Hampshire, noted that the Eagle had been star-crossed since 1950, “when its publisher, John McLane Clark, drowned while canoeing in a flooded Sugar River.”
Clark, a former editorial writer for The Washington Post, had purchased the Eagle in 1946 after losing out to the incestuous pedophile William Loeb on a bid to buy Manchester’s two papers, the Union and the Leader. Those papers continue as the New Hampshire Union Leader. Meanwhile, Taylor writes, the Eagle lost money for much of its existence.
To paraphrase the science fiction writer William Gibson, the future of local news is here, but it’s unevenly distributed. Affluent communities across the country are hosting hundreds of independent start-ups, both nonprofit and for-profit, while news deserts are spreading in urban communities of color and rural areas.
The Claremont-Newport area needs quality news and information, but traditional market economics simply don’t work in such places. I hope someone — perhaps Lucas, perhaps not — comes through with a philanthropic model rooted in the community.
The retrenchment has also led to a loss of something else: reporters and columnists at local news organizations who decades ago regularly focused on their local media as a beat.
There are very few of them left.
I’m an instructor at Colorado College, where I manage the Journalism Institute. I also compulsively keep track of our state’s shifting media landscape.
The Center for Community News at the University of Vermont solicited and published the report. The goal was to find out who is doing similar work and where.
The Center for Community News is interested in fostering partnerships between academic programs and local newsrooms. The center is also seeking to find other ways higher-ed institutions are supporting their state’s media ecosystem — so they were especially interested in media newsletters being produced at a college or university.
The problem is, there weren’t many to track. I found just six, including my own, while researching for the report.
Very few states, it turns out, “have a dedicated publication, site, or newsletter that regularly and independently reports on and analyzes ongoing developments in the local media scene,” the report found.
My own weekly Substack newsletter is called Inside the News in Colorado. Each week, I report on, comment on and analyze the goings on in Colorado’s media scene. I connect local developments to what’s happening nationally, and I explore what makes the state’s local news ecosystem unique.
My newsletter also pokes and prods, critiques and uplifts, and seeks to spark debate and a better understanding about the practice of local journalism. And it maintains a weekly running tab on the health of the state’s media landscape.
Other newsletters across the country include NC Local, authored by Catherine Komp. The Newsroom Digest, out of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey, is another. Gateway Journalism Review from Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s School of Journalism, in the College of Arts and Media made the list. And Media Nation by Northeastern University professor Dan Kennedy in Massachusetts is another. [Note: Kennedy is also the co-leader, with Ellen Clegg, of the Northeastern-based project What Works: The Future of Local News, comprising a book, a podcast, a website and events.]
Kennedy has been producing Media Nation for more than 20 years and writes more about national media issues. But he mixes it with plenty of local and regional happenings.
If someone were to, say, leak an internal email from The Boston Globe, it is likely they would do so with Media Nation.
The NC Local newsletter’s format is a mix of digestible roundups and some original reporting.
A recurring item titled “Well Done” offers “noteworthy work from the NC news & information ecosystem.” The most-clicked links each week tend to come from a bulletin board section where Komp rounds up job postings and opportunities.
The chunky Newsroom Digest newsletter highlights notable local journalism in New Jersey. It comes with a “Media Moves” section that introduces its audience to new local journalists and tracks newsroom personnel changes.
While they differ in style and delivery, each is filling a gap in coverage in their state or region by reporting on an important industry: their own.
“When I was at the [Boston] Phoenix, I think all of us at the alternative press thought big local media were a powerful local institution that ought to be held to account just like big business and everything else,” Media Nation’s Kennedy said for the report.
I believe colleges and universities make good places to produce these kinds of state-based media newsletters.
Journalism departments in particular are likely equipped to run them, especially if they have practitioners on the faculty. They are outside of a state’s established media organizations but also adjacent to them.
Richard Watts, the director of the Center for Community News, commissioned the “Local News as a Public Good” study. He says there are important reasons for more newsletters consistently reporting on local media in individual states.
“They draw attention to the key role local news plays by writing about the stories and the impact of those stories,” he said. “They help amplify and they showcase the importance of the media ecosystem for a vibrant democracy.”
Furthermore, such newsletters can serve as the “canary in the coal mine to draw attention to media platforms in trouble, or actions by unscrupulous owners,” Watts added. “And they can share ideas and best practices across the system to help strengthen individual media platforms. And, lastly, they help create a community of stakeholders committed to the importance of a free press.”
To that end, the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont is looking to help anyone in a higher-ed program who might be interested in launching a state-based media newsletter.
“I think a really good person to do something like this is, first, someone who is doing more than just reporting on the industry or ecosystem,” said Komp of NC Local in the Center for Community News study.
“It does need to be somebody who is engaging with journalists, with publishers, with journalism educators, with students, with funders, in ways that are not just reporting on what’s happening but in ways that are looking to always find solutions and address challenges.”
Less than two weeks ago I wrote that Hearst’s plan to acquire The Dallas Morning News and add it to its expanding group of Texas newspapers was a positive development for the Lone Star State. Hearst is a privately owned chain that has a reputation for producing quality statewide and regional news, although its community-level coverage is lacking.
Now comes a terrifying development: Katie Robertson reports in The New York Times (gift link) that Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that has inflicted so much damage on journalism, is countering with a higher offer — $88 million as opposed to $75 million. Let’s be clear that Alden can afford to pay more because it will finance the acquisition by slashing the Dallas paper’s newsroom and perhaps selling off its real estate, as it has done in so many other places, from Denver and Chicago to Hartford, Connecticut, and Lowell and Fitchburg in Massachusetts.
According to Robertson, the Morning News would be added to Alden’s MediaNews Group, one of two chains it owns; the other is Tribune Publishing. She quotes from a MediaNews Group letter to the DallasNews Corp. board:
We have been considering a potential transaction with DallasNews for several years because we are consistently impressed with its commitment to high-quality local journalism supported by operational efficiency that maximizes resources available for the newsroom.
Under Hearst ownership, Poynter media-business media analyst Rick Edmonds predicted that some business operations would be consolidated but the newsroom would be left alone. If the ghouls from Alden take charge, though, all bets would be off. Robertson reports that Alden has already bought up 10% of DallasNews’ stock. We can only hope that the board is willing and able to fight off this truly frightening takeover attempt.
Meanwhile, Patrick Soon-Shiong, the medical-device billionaire who helped deliver the Tribune papers to Alden, has yet another scheme for resuscitating the Los Angeles Times, which has failed to thrive under his feckless ownership and which has been floundering since he killed his paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the election, and just days before Jeff Bezos did the same at The Washington Post.
The “red-pilled billionaire,” to use Oliver Darcy’s wonderful description, has decided to take the Times public. He announced the news during an interview with Jon Stewart that Darcy describes as weirdly obsequious, with Stewart and his staff seemingly not having done any research on the MAGA-curious Soon-Shiong. The aforementioned Edmonds writes (fourth item) of Soon-Shiong’s harebrained scheme to engineer a Wall Street bailout:
The truly baffling part, though, is how in the world he imagines going public is a match for the Times’ situation. Typically, initial public offerings allow founders who have put together a business with a still-growing, big base of customers to cash in. Plus, it’s a vehicle to raise capital for major expansion.
But who wants to buy into a particularly troubled franchise in a declining industry?
These are dark times for the news media, with major papers and television networks paying obeisance to Donald Trump. The need for tough, independent journalism is greater than ever. It’s still out there, but you really have to wonder who’s going to be picked off next.
The tragic fire in Fall River, Massachusetts, which claimed the lives of nine residents at an assisted living facility, is a significant news story not just locally but nationally. Broadcast networks and The New York Times have all weighed in with coverage.
But the story is also playing out in a community whose own news ecosystem is shaky. The Boston Globe and local television news have made it their top story, but what about Fall River-based news organizations? Northeastern journalism student Alexa Coultoff took a look at how Fall River gets its news and wrote up her findings for our What Works project on local journalism earlier this year. She also appeared on our podcast.
What she found was that the legacy paper, The Herald News, had been hollowed out by its corporate chain owner, Gannett, and that perhaps the most reliable source of coverage was produced by the public access cable channel, hosted by Bristol Community College.
Yet the fire is getting solid coverage at the local level. Despite its small staff, The Herald News has published multiple stories. Today’s front page is taken up entirely by the fire, with reports on the firefighters union’s concerns about staffing, how local hospitals responded, and how survivors are coping. Inside there’s a sidebar on who owns the assisted living facility, known as Gabriel House.
A digital news organization called the Fall River Reporter, which Alexa described as a breaking news service for the city and a number of other communities, has had some coverage as well, with stories by former Herald News reporter Jo Goode and local journalist Ken Paiva as well as from State House News Service.
The public access outlet, Fall River Community Media, has posted quite a bit of information on its Facebook page, including the video of a news conference by Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon and updates from the city, the United Way and the firefighters union.
The fire at Gabriel House is a community tragedy, and the way these stories are told is a reflection of civic health and engagement. Despite lacking the resources of the Boston-based media, Fall River’s information providers are giving a voice to officials and residents rather than relying on outsiders to tell their story.
More: Fall River has an independent radio station, WSAR, which broadcasts at AM 1480 and 95.9 FM. The website carries some links to coverage from other outlets, but the station has also broadcast segments on the fire.
For the past 16 years I’ve been reporting on the decline of local news and on efforts to offset it. But though it’s simple enough to spout anecdotes, it can be more challenging to come up with hard numbers, though some have tried.
The latest attempt dropped last week: a comprehensive study by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack, the latter a platform that connects journalists and public relations professionals. I’ve been looking over some of the findings this week, and what’s interesting is that it’s based entirely on data from millions of articles published during the first three months of this year. That means it’s not dependent on the vagaries of counting news outlets by hand, but it also means the researchers had to pile assumption upon assumption and then hope they got it right. I think they did for the most part.
Dallas Morning News headquarters. Photo (cc) 2018 by Shaggylawn65.
By Dan Kennedy
This morning I want to share some good news about local news — and from a legacy newspaper company, no less. The Hearst newspaper chain has acquired The Dallas Morning News, adding to its constellation of Texas newspapers including the Houston Chronicle, the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express-News.
Hearst is a privately held chain and, though corporate chain ownership is always problematic, the company has shown that it’s committed to strong regional and statewide news. We discussed Hearst’s strategy in Connecticut in our book, “What Works in Community News,” where Hearst has a cluster of newspapers that includes the New Haven Register, the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport, the Times-Union of Albany, New York (OK, not quite Connecticut), and the digital-only CT Insider. Hyperlocal is left to smaller outlets and digital startups.
Readers with long memories may recall that DallasNews Corp. at one time was known as Belo, and that it owned The Providence Journal. Rick Edmonds, who analyzes the news business for Poynter, reports that the Texas transaction was worth some $75 million, writing:
Staff reductions on the business side can be expected as those Dallas Morning News functions are consolidated with the rest of Hearst, but except for production, I would expect the newsroom to remain nearly intact. The Morning News’s story on the deal said that it has 157 news employees.
Ken Doctor, a former newspaper industry analyst who now runs local news digital startups in Santa Cruz, California and Eugene, Oregon, had a positive take on the news.
“To have a state like Texas with one owner for those four markets is really something,” he said. “Hearst has held on to their newspaper business and is reinvesting. That’s really contrarian and a good sign for the industry. And they do great journalism.”
The deal ends 140 years of local ownership for the Morning News, which is a shame. Hearst publishes 28 dailies and 50 weeklies. But for the paper to wind up in the hands of a decent publisher rather than a cost-cutting behemoth like Gannett or Alden Global Capital is certainly good news for the News’ staff and the people they serve.
Nonprofit acquires Vt. weekly
A for-profit weekly newspaper in southern Vermont is going nonprofit. The Deerfield Valley News, founded in 1966, is being acquired by The Commons, a venerable nonprofit newspaper based in Brattleboro.
“We’ve never had the resources for more finely grained news coverage like gavel-to-gavel coverage of municipal government news, and The Deerfield Valley News will continue to perform that critical role, as it has, week after week, for years and years. That won’t change,” said Commons editor-in-chief Jeff Potter in a statement. The Valley News writes:
Randy and Vicki Capitani, owners of The Deerfield Valley News for nearly 35 years, have announced the sale of their venerable weekly print newspaper to Vermont Independent Media, publisher of the The Commons.
The sale was completed on June 27, bringing The Deerfield Valley News under the umbrella of Vermont Independent Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news corporation. The Deerfield Valley News will be a nonprofit sister publication of The Commons, an independent newspaper covering Brattleboro, the Connecticut River Valley, and southern Vermont.
Vermont Independent Media and its board of directors plan to maintain the The Deerfield Valley News as a paid-circulation newspaper serving the Deerfield Valley, and current subscriptions will be honored under the new management. The newspaper will continue to operate out of its Wilmington location, and editorial staff and other key personnel will remain in their roles.
N.H. paper shuts down. Again.
Sadly, another newspaper serving New Hampshire is shutting down. The Claremont Eagle Times ceased publishing several weeks ago, Steve Taylor writes in The Valley News. (That Valley News is based in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, and is not to be confused with The Deerfield Valley News.)
According to Taylor, the Eagle Times has struggled since its founding in 1950. Indeed, the news of its closing rang a bell, and sure enough, the paper closed for the first time in 2009. I guess at some point it was revived. When I took note of the first shutdown, there was another news outlet in town called Your Claremont Press. That no longer seems to be in existence, either.
The shutdown came not long after the staff walked out because their paychecks bounced. By the end, the once-daily print paper was coming out three days a week. Its website had reportedly not been updated since June 15, and it currently appears to be down.
Katherine Ann Rowlands. 2017 photo by Cali Godley.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Dan and Ellen talk with Katherine Ann Rowlands, who runs the Bay City News Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that publishes journalism for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area at LocalNewsMatters.org and The Mendocino Voice. And by the way, this is our last podcast until September.
The Bay City News Foundation acquired The Mendocino Voice and took it nonprofit a little more than a year ago. Dan reported on the Voice for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and was visiting in March 2020 when … well, you know what happened next. At that time, co-founders Kate Maxwell and Adrian Fernandez Baumann were hoping to turn the nominally for-profit operation into a cooperatively owned venture, but COVID sidetracked those plans. Maxwell and Baumann have since moved on, and Rowlands has some pointed observations about why there have been no successful examples of local-news co-ops.
Rowlands also is owner and publisher of Bay City News, a regional news wire supplying original journalism for the whole media ecosystem in her area, from TV to start-up digital outlets.
The first-ever COVID news conference in Mendocino County, Calif., on March 5, 2020. Mendocino Voice co-founder Adrian Fernandez Baumann is shooting video and co-founder Kate Maxwell, seated, wearing blue and off to the right, is taking notes. Photo (cc) 2020 by Dan Kennedy.
Dan has a Quick Take about the New England Muzzle Awards. Since 1998 he has been writing an annual Fourth of July roundup of outrages against free speech and freedom of expression in New England during the previous year, first for the late, lamented Boston Phoenix, later for GBH News and now for his blog, Media Nation. This is the 27th annual edition.
Ellen reports on the death of Nancy Cassutt, a newsroom leader at Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media’s “Marketplace.” Nancy was a driving force in helping Mukhtar Ibrahim get Sahan Journal off the ground.
