Month: November 2025

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Dan and Ellen talk with Todd Landfried, co-founder and CEO of N2 Media Holdings. As consumers cut the cord on cable TV, he hopes to develop a sustainable model for local news production.

We know from our research that local television news is still highly trusted. His mission: to reinvent local news for the streaming era. Landfried’s idea, called The Local, is to develop statewide newscasts in Colorado, and eventually in all 50 states, that would be carried on the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube.

Ellen is back and fully bionic after a short hiatus for knee replacement surgery.

Dan has a Quick Take about a finding in a recent report by LION Publishers that gets into how to think about raising money. LION, as most of our listeners know, stands for Local Independent Online News. Anyway, its latest sustainability report found that startup news organizations can’t just hope that revenues are something that are going to materialize. Fundraising takes dedicated employees, as Dan will explain.

Ellen’s Quick Take is on an alt-weekly in Seattle called The Stranger that has become an influential political force, as The New York Times recently reported. This summer, 47 candidates for local office paid a call on the newsroom in order to seek an editorial endorsement. And they brought snacks!

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

The following is a press release from Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.

Researchers and local journalism experts at Northeastern University, in partnership with industry-leading audience research firm SmithGeiger Group, have published a survival guide for local TV newsrooms that are struggling to reach a new generation of news consumers.

The Reinventing Local TV News Project recommends that news organizations hire a Digital Content Creator, a role researchers tested in three major market newsrooms for a year of experimentation on digital platforms. Reinvent: A Survival Guide for Local TV News offers guidance for news organizations and journalists on how to integrate that new role into the newsroom, the most effective ways for Digital Content Creators to tell stories, and ways to measure the reach of that work.

Continue reading “Northeastern researchers offer a lifeline for TV newsrooms seeking younger audiences”

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Dan talks with Kade Krichko, the founder of Ori magazine, a beautifully crafted premium print publication devoted to grassroots storytelling across the globe. (Ellen is recovering from knee replacement surgery but is producing behind the scenes. She’ll return to the air soon.)

Kade describes himself as a world wanderer with a knack for misadventure. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, ESPN, Vice and Outside, among other publications. He admits to loving a good story, and writes, “If the tale has a pulse, I’m listening.” Kade is a Northeastern University graduate and a part-time lecturer in the School of Journalism. He created and taught a course in Sports, Media and Digital Storytelling.

Dan also checks in with longtime political journalist Jon Keller. Jon was recently laid off by WBZ-TV (Channel 4) after a 20-year career there. He was one of five staff members who lost their jobs as part of what appears to be a deep corporate purge by David Ellison, whose Skydance Media company bought Paramount earlier this fall. CBS is part of Paramount, and WBZ is part of CBS.

Jon is not going away, fortunately, and is still writing for MASSterList and Boston magazine. He has some sharp observations on the role of local TV news in covering state and city politics.

Later on in the podcast, Dan has a Quick Take about the latest bad news from our tech overlords. The Columbia Journalism Review reports that the new AI-powered web browsers designed to replace Chrome and Safari are able to circumvent a news organization’s digital paywall. Not always — it depends on the technology that was used to build the paywall. But at a time when publishers are already losing traffic because of AI, this is a direct assault on the business model for journalism in the digital age.

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

The Plymouth Independent, a digital startup that ranks among the larger such projects in Eastern Massachusetts, has named a new executive editor. David Kidwell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from Chicago, will assume the Independent’s top editorial position in January. He succeeds founding editor Mark Pothier, who will remain as a staff reporter.

According to the Independent’s announcement:

Kidwell has had an outstanding career in journalism, spanning nearly 40 years. He started as a beat reporter for small town newspapers, going on to become an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald for 15 years and then the Chicago Tribune for 12 years. More recently, he worked as an editor at two nonprofit investigative groups in Chicago, the Better Government Assn. (BGA) and Injustice Watch.

Kidwell has won two Pulitzer Prizes, most recently at the BGA, where he conceived, oversaw and edited a series of stories about dozens of fire deaths that occurred because of lax enforcement of fire and building codes by local officials. In 2001, he was a member of the Miami Herald team that covered the story of the exiled Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez.

“I am very excited to start this new adventure in Plymouth, and to be working with such a team of seasoned journalists,” Kidwell said. “I believe what you have been building is not only important to the people of Plymouth, but to the future of journalism. I can’t wait to get started.”

Pothier, a Boston Globe alumnus, announced in August that he was planning to step aside. That the Independent was able to attract someone of Kidwell’s stature to take his place is a testament to how attractive a stable nonprofit news organization is at a time when good journalism jobs are scarce.