Month: August 2025

The Bedford Citizen, which may be the oldest nonprofit local-news startup in Massachusetts, is back on track after losing its top two newsroom employees earlier this year.

Bill Fonda is joining the Citizen as its new managing editor, replacing Wayne Braverman, who retired this past spring. Fonda, who worked nearly four years as editor of the award-winning Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in New Hampshire, is the citizen’s third managing editor; Braverman succeeded co-founder Julie McCay Turner in 2022.

Fonda’s hiring was announced Thursday in an email from Elizabeth Hacala, the Citizen’s board president and publisher.

The Citizen also recently hired a community reporter to replace the legendary Mike Rosenberg, who died while on the job last February. Rosenberg’s replacement, Piper Pavelich, had previously worked for The Lincoln County News, based in Newcastle, Maine.

The Citizen, which was founded in 2012, is among the projects that we feature in our book, “What Works in Community News.” It began as an all-volunteer project and gradually added paid professional journalism, though it still has a significant volunteer component.

What follows is an article that will be published in the Citizen later today:

Bill Fonda is The Bedford Citizen’s New Managing Editor

Please join us in welcoming Bill Fonda as The Bedford Citizen’s Managing Editor.

Bill most recently spent nearly four years as the editor of the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, a twice-weekly newspaper published by Newspapers of New England that covered 16 towns in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.

During his time at the Ledger-Transcript, the paper won two first-place awards and one second-place award for General Excellence from the New Hampshire Press Association, was named a Distinguished Newspaper/Small Circulation Weekly by the New England Newspaper and Press Association and received second place in General Excellence for weeklies over 5,000 circulation from the New England Newspaper and Press Association.

Bill also spent 16 years with the former GateHouse Media (now part of Gannett) after beginning his career with Spotlight Newspapers outside of Albany in his native New York. Joining The Bedford Citizen is a return of sorts, as his time at GateHouse included serving as managing editor for newspapers in and around Concord, including Bedford.

It is that experience which makes him appreciative of what The Citizen has accomplished and continues to achieve.

“To see the work that has been done to build and rebuild local news coverage in Bedford is inspiring, and something I want to be a part of,” he said. “I hope that I’ll be able to help advance the good work that is already going on here.”

By Dan Kennedy

Major philanthropies are stepping up to offset some of the cuts to public television and radio, Benjamin Mullin reports in The New York Times (gift link). But will it be enough? And what possible downstream effects might there be on local news organizations that also depend heavily on foundation money?

As we all know, the Republican Congress, acting at the behest of Donald Trump, eliminated funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting earlier this summer. The CPB, a semi-independent agency, had been set to spend $500 million over the next two years.

PBS and NPR receive most of their funding from grants and donations by, well, viewers and listeners like you, but their member stations — especially in less affluent and rural areas — are more dependent on government funding. Both national networks have been cutting their budgets in an attempt to help their member stations survive.

According to Mullin, foundations such as Knight, MacArthur, Ford and others have come up with an emergency $26.5 million to keep those stations afloat with a goal of reaching $50 million this year. “We believe it’s crucial to have a concerted, coordinated effort to make sure that the stations that most critically need these funds right now have a pathway to get them,” Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, the president and chief executive of the Knight Foundation, was quoted as saying.

Continue reading “Why a philanthopic effort to bolster public broadcasting may harm local news outlets”

Less than two years after its founding, the Plymouth Independent has established itself as one of the larger and more stable hyperlocal news startups in Massachusetts. Now it’s moving on to a new phase.

Founding executive editor and CEO Mark Pothier announced this morning that he’s stepping aside as soon as a successor is named. Pothier’s not going anywhere, explaining that he plans to stick around as a reporter, bringing the size of the news staff from three full-timers to four. A chief development officer will be hired as well, all the better to raise funds for an anonymous $1 million matching grant that will be used to start an endowment. Pothier writes:

My promise to the board was that I would build the site and organization over at least two years. My two-year anniversary is in September. There’s always more to do that we can’t get to. My email in-box seems to have a life of its own. This job has been all-consuming. I’m glad I signed up for it.

Plymouth is among the largest towns in the state, with a population of about 66,000. Nevertheless, a four-person staff is unusual these days, and it’s a lot for a digital-only nonprofit. The Independent’s staff is also unusually high-powered, as both Pothier and staff reporter Andrea Estes are Boston Globe veterans and the other staff reporter, Fred Thys, worked for prominent news outlets such as WBUR and VTDigger. Globe reporting legend Walter Robinson, a Plymouth resident, is among its board members.

The Independent’s aggressive reporting has also been the subject of two New England Muzzle Awards I’ve given out to town officials for stonewalling and threatening the news site.

The Independent’s search for an executive editor to replace Pothier is now under way. You can view the job listing here. As you’ll see, it’s a good-paying job with decent benefits. What follows is the full text of Pothier’s announcement.

Since the Plymouth Independent launched on Nov. 20, 2023, we’ve operated with a staff of three — me, Andrea Estes, and Fred Thys — buttressed by a formidable cast of contributors.

We’ve published more than 1,000 stories, along with many letters, columns, photos, obituaries, and images from local artists. The Independent has chalked up millions of page views. It’s built an email list of 31,000 “subscribers” to our free nonprofit news site.

From the start, it was obvious that Plymouth residents were craving local news. But none of us expected the overwhelming surge of interest the site generated from the first week. Since then, I’ve received dozens of messages and calls from editors of startup nonprofit news sites around the country, most of whom ask a variation of this question: What’s the secret to your out-of-the-box success?

There is no magic involved, just relentless work, the support of a strong and engaged board, our business sponsors, and especially you – the readers.

Financially, this adventure is always going to be a challenge. Only about one in 10 readers have contributed to the Independent. We appreciate those who have and continue to do so, no matter the amount.

Thankfully, a generous local family (that wishes to remain anonymous) has given us a $1 million challenge grant to start an endowment. We’re more than halfway toward matching that incredible gift with another $1 million from donors. The funding will buy us security, generating annual income from its returns that can be used toward paying operating expenses. (For more information about the endowment, please contact the Independent’s Development Office at 617-800-9705.)

The same family that seeded the endowment has also given us additional money to hire a chief development officer — a top-tier pro whose sole job will be to raise funds for operating expenses. That process is underway.

We’re also going to make another hire — an executive editor. No, I’m not leaving. My promise to the board was that I would build the site and organization over at least two years. My two-year anniversary is in September. There’s always more to do that we can’t get to. My email in-box seems to have a life of its own. This job has been all-consuming. I’m glad I signed up for it.

All along, the plan has been for me to eventually take a step back and hand over the reins to someone younger who can elevate the Independent to the next level. Our board has started looking for the right person.

When that day comes, I’ll still be here, but my focus will turn to finding, reporting, and writing stories that are important to you.

For readers, this means that the Independent will pack on more muscle. Going from a staff of three to four is significant. It will allow us take on more stories — including follow-ups and time-consuming investigative pieces — and mark the beginning of a new chapter for the Independent as we move into year three.

I look forward to helping write it.

Ellen and Dan are excited to report that Rozzie Bound Co-op, an independent bookstore in Roslindale, Massachusetts, is hosting a GBH Listening Session on Thursday, Aug. 21 — and it’s designated “What Works in Community News” as the recommended read.

“Magdeila Matta, a community producer with GBH News, is looking to engage with folks and learn how they engage with the media, as well as open up space for people to share what’s going on in their communities,” according to the announcement. “Come to this session to talk to Magdeila about what news matters to you.”

“What Works in Community News,” a close-up look at successful independent news in nine different parts of the country, has been longlisted for a Mass Book Award by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

Rozzie Bound Co-op is located at 739 South St. The listening session will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. And here’s a GBH News article on the story behind the bookstore.