The people of Aberdeen, South Dakota, were not about to allow their town to become a news desert. The local newspaper of many years, The American News, was withering on the vine. Contractions, layoffs and buyouts had reduced the staff to one reporter. Troy McQuillen, publisher of the Aberdeen Magazine, launched The Aberdeen Insider and feedback from the community has been very positive.
Four of the 16 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were awarded to local news outlets this year. Marjorie Miller, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, says local media outlets seem to be focusing their resources on stories their audiences cannot get elsewhere instead of attempting to replicate stories from national news outlets and wire services. Among the winners was Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today.
Browse news media job boards, and you’ll find opportunities for data specialists and other newsroom roles now requiring experience working with data. In mid-June, E&P spoke with Samantha Sunne about data journalism and the book “Data + Journalism: A Story-Driven Approach to Learning Data Reporting.” Sunne co-authored the book with Mike Reilley, who teaches data and digital journalism at the University of Illinois in Chicago and founded JournalistsToolbox.org.
Typically, a university newspaper is the learning laboratory for the institution’s journalism school. Harvard University doesn’t have a school of journalism, but it does have The Harvard Crimson, one of the oldest and most-respected student newspapers. It operates both financially and editorially independent from the university and has a long tradition of serving the university family as well as Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts.
Every year, the small town of Keene, New Hampshire, transforms its downtown into an event space for the Radically Rural Summit, an annual event for community-minded people to share how they solve problems in their towns. This year’s theme is Reimagining Rural and will include events focused on communication, connection and philanthropy.
Merchandising has become a valued revenue stream for many newspapers and news outlets to generate new subscriptions, increase awareness of their quality journalism, promote community identity and boost the bottom line to expand newsrooms and coverage. Although the purpose of merchandising promotions is extra revenue, they are also often fun — for the community and newsrooms.
The United States Postal Service versus local carriers — publishers around the U.S. have asked this question for decades. It is not a new question, and the answer is ever-evolving. Editor & Publisher is following up on “Handling carrier challenges” from our May issue to dive deeper into the question facing publications as they navigate carrier challenges.
One of local news’ powers is to remind us of what we have in common, or “building community.” Though not a new concept, E&P found that creating community means different things to newsrooms around the country. Regardless of its definition, putting strategies in place to better connect and engage the public — with the newsroom and one another — is meaningful and worthwhile.
This week, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) introduced the Community News and Small Business Support Act (H.R.4756) to the U.S. House of Representatives with co-sponsor Suzan DelBene (D-WA). At its core, the bill lays out a five-year plan to provide payroll tax credits to local/community news outlets, expressly to hire and retain local news reporters across the country. Small businesses (with fewer than 50 employees) that advertise in local newspapers, digital news sites, on local radio or with local TV stations are also eligible for tax credits.
The Trace, a nonprofit news organization covering gun violence, has bolstered local reporting with a community engagement focus. For the first six months when The Trace opened bureaus in Chicago and Philadelphia, the community engagement reporter's only assignment was to listen to local members of the community.
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