A verdant news desert in Skamania County | Local News Initiative
On election nights, there should be electricity in a newsroom — and pizza bought by the editor.| Local News Initiative
On election nights, there should be electricity in a newsroom — and pizza bought by the editor.| Local News Initiative
The loss of local news is linked with increased government secrecy, according to a new study conducted by the Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment at the University of Florida.| Local News Initiative
Two days after Tom Wiley joined the National Trust for Local News in May as its new CEO, the organization announced that it was selling 21 of its Colorado newspapers to a for-profit Arizona-based company.| Local News Initiative
Forty Illinois local news entities operating 120 outlets are receiving $4 million in state tax credits under a new law designed to encourage the retention and hiring of journalists, according to documents released this week.| Local News Initiative
Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative. This column was originally published in The Times on August 1st and is reprinted here with permission. Dudley’s work will appear regularly on the Medill Local News Initiative site.| Local News Initiative
Stephen Crane knows some people think he’s out of his mind.| Local News Initiative
Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative. This column was originally published in The Times on July 30th and is reprinted here with permission. Dudley’s work will appear regularly on the Medill Local News Initiative site.| Local News Initiative
The latest insights and trends on the local news landscape across the country. Through data and graphics, explore the state of local news outlets and learn about news deserts, network sites and pathways to sustainability.| Local News Initiative
Oregon, Washington State, Illinois, Hawaii and New York all have proposed legislation this year to recoup money from Big Tech platforms, mainly Google and Meta, for revenue gained from publishing local news content.| Local News Initiative
A WWE-style belt decorated with The Pilot logo, donned by a proud Southern Pines electrician, is a sight one could only bear witness to at the ‘Best of the Pines’ awards event.| Local News Initiative
Public media cuts, increased collaboration and the importance of local sports headlined a panel at a Local Media Association’s summit in Detroit on Wednesday aimed at raising the visibility of the challenges facing local news, potential solutions and its impact on communities.| Local News Initiative
Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative. This column was originally published in The Times on July 16th and is reprinted here with permission. Dudley’s work will appear regularly on the Medill Local News Initiative site.| Local News Initiative
The United States has seen a staggering 75% decline in local journalists since 2002, according to a report released on Thursday by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack.| Local News Initiative
Small newsrooms have fallen behind larger ones in adopting Artificial Intelligence, and the technology is under-used at the local level mainly because of time and resource constraints, a new report shows.| Local News Initiative
PLYMOUTH, Mass. – Mark Pothier was wrapping up the young-adult phase of his music career, including a 1983 stint as keyboardist for the then-synthy band Ministry, when he took a $5 an hour job for the Pembroke Reporter, a recently launched community paper along Boston’s South Shore. Pothier rose through the ranks of the umbrella Memorial Press Group (MPG), a chain of suburban newspapers, and in 1986 was named executive editor of the flagship, the Old Colony Memorial in Plymouth.| Local News Initiative
Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative. This column was originally published in The Times on June 25th and is reprinted here with permission. Dudley’s work will appear regularly on the Medill Local News Initiative site.| Local News Initiative
Melanie Jongsma still smiles when you call her a ‘YouTuber.’ It’s not a title she would’ve imagined being associated with when she took over as publisher of The Lansing Journal in 2020. All she wanted at the time was to keep local news afloat in her hometown in the south suburbs of Chicago.| Local News Initiative
In April 2024 the Local News Initiative, in conjunction with the Knight Lab at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Communications and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung USA, published a report titled, “Impact of AI on Local News Models: AI Is Disrupting the Local News Industry. Will It Unlock Growth or Be an Existential Threat?”| Local News Initiative
We track closures and mergers of local news outlets, as well as the emergence of new local news providers, across newspapers, digital, ethnic media, and public broadcasting. We identify local news deserts and communities in danger of becoming news deserts. We are a forum for thought leadership and the latest research on changes to the journalism landscape and practice.| Local News Initiative
Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts – counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche. Trump won 91% percent of these counties over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of voting data by Medill Journalism School’s State of Local News project.| Local News Initiative
Executive Summary Introduction Newspapers Digital Public Broadcasting Ethnic Media The Possibilities for Reviving Local News Executive Summary There was both good news and bad news for local journalism this past year. The good news raised the possibility that a range of proposals and programs could begin to arrest the steep loss of local news over the past two decades and, perhaps, revive journalism in some places that have lost their news. The headlines on the bad news resoundingly conveyed ...| Local News Initiative
