"E & P Reports" from Editor & Publisher Magazine hosted by Mike Blinder

What if the newsroom you've spent years competing against could become your most valuable partner? As publishers face shrinking staffs, declining revenue and audience challenges, an experiment involving 48 newsrooms offers a new path forward. The Economic Opportunity Lab demonstrates how collaboration can expand reach, share resources and attract new funding. In this episode of E&P Reports, Dana P...

The crisis facing American local journalism is no longer a slow, predictable decline. Newspaper closures are accelerating, rural communities are losing their last reliable news sources, and even the digital audiences publishers spent decades building are shrinking dramatically. Northwestern University's newly released 2026 State of Local News Report paints a troubling picture of an industry confro...

Imagine running a newspaper where you're the editor, reporter, photographer, designer and sometimes the person challenging city hall. For many rural publishers, that's not an exaggeration. It's their daily reality. Yet amid growing concerns about news deserts and disappearing newspapers, some small-town publishers are finding ways to survive by rethinking their business models and strengthening co...

When much of the news media industry is talking about contraction, Detroit PBS is doing something decidedly different: building. The public media organization has broken ground on a new 50,000-square-foot campus designed not simply as a television facility, but as a home for journalism, radio, education, culture, community engagement and multiplatform storytelling. During a recent episode of E&P R...

Every week seems to bring another announcement of a newspaper closing, a newsroom shrinking or another community joining the growing list of America's news deserts. Against that backdrop, launching a new local news organization might seem like a risky proposition. Expanding into print less than a year later might sound almost unimaginable. Yet that's exactly what Alabama Newswire has done. During...

For the third consecutive year, Northwestern University's Medill School has tracked how Americans' local news habits are changing. The latest survey confirms that audience demand for local journalism remains remarkably resilient, but it also reveals widening cracks in the industry's business model, growing skepticism about AI and an accelerating shift away from traditional broadcast platforms. Dur...

Twenty-five years after the attacks of September 11, leading journalists, First Amendment advocates and scholars gathered at Columbia University for The Forever War and the First Amendment, a symposium examining how two decades of conflict reshaped journalism. Fresh from the event, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Azmat Khan joined E&P Reports to discuss what the press learned—and fai...

News industry leaders weigh whether pressure to repeal Canada's Online News Act could threaten newsroom funding and weaken publishers' push for platform compensation worldwide. Could a deal to ease the U.S.-Canada trade war let Big Tech off the hook for funding news? Canada's Online News Act has secured millions for journalism, but publishers fear that support could become a bargaining chip in neg...

Local news remains under enormous financial pressure, but the market for community publications is far from dead. A varied group of independent publishers, entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations is stepping forward to invest in titles that still matter to their communities. Sara April, president of Dirks, Van Essen & April, says many of these buyers are motivated by more than profit. Their comm...

When wildfires roared toward Spokane, the journalists covering the disaster suddenly found their own homes, neighbors and newsroom in its path. Three newsroom leaders reveal how The Spokesman-Review raced toward the danger to deliver lifesaving information, verify rapidly changing facts and document the devastation consuming its community. Their experience offers a powerful lesson in what local jo...

Alternative weeklies were once the unruly heartbeat of American cities, shaping politics, culture, nightlife and public conversation before collapsing advertising and changing media habits pushed many toward extinction. Brady Walkinshaw believes the industry mistook disruption for irrelevance. Through Noisy Creek, he is acquiring, reviving and reinvesting in beloved local publications that others...

She expected to find an industry weighed down by layoffs, closures and uncertainty. Instead, a summer spent visiting independent newsrooms across America introduced Jasmine Shiffer to publishers, editors and reporters who remain deeply committed to serving their communities—and surprisingly optimistic about the future. Along the way, she discovered that local journalism's greatest strength isn't i...

For job seekers, landing a newsroom job can feel increasingly dependent on luck, connections and an opaque hiring process. Cristina Silva, managing editor for Operations & Standards at The Boston Globe and the new author of Poynter's Ask the Recruiter column, says candidates have more control than they may realize. The key is to understand how editors make decisions, communicate clearly and make i...

Local journalism does not need another obituary. It needs a new operating model. In New Jersey, Stefanie Murray is helping build one that treats local information as civic infrastructure, supported by collaboration, philanthropy, local business revenue and carefully protected public funding. Her message to the industry: The future may not look like the past, but communities still need journalism t...

As broadcasters debated whether to air President Donald Trump's recent prime-time address live and local newspapers continued rethinking political opinion pages, one question has become increasingly difficult to ignore: Has journalism's greatest challenge shifted from protecting free speech to preserving productive public discourse? Constitutional scholar Stuart Brotman believes the First Amendmen...

For decades, the leaders of America's newspaper industry have gathered separately to tackle many of the same challenges—from protecting journalism and strengthening business models to navigating public policy and emerging technology. This September, that changes as the News Media Alliance and America's Newspapers bring their flagship meetings together in Washington, D.C., creating an unprecedented...

While much of the news industry continues to focus on shrinking newsrooms, disappearing newspapers and expanding news deserts, Village Media is proving another path is possible. In this exclusive E&P Reports conversation, founder and CEO Jeff Elgie and Board Chair Richard Gingras explain how their digital-first company has grown into one of North America's most successful local news organizations...

Local media sales has entered a new era. Advertisers no longer need a salesperson to launch a marketing campaign, buy digital ads or build an online presence, giving them more choices—and less patience for generic sales pitches—than ever before. According to Dream Local Digital founder and E&P "Ad Sales Life" columnist Shannon Kinney, the sales professionals who thrive won't be those with the best...

News organizations have spent years debating whether artificial intelligence will replace journalists, whether social media is helping or hurting democracy, and whether younger audiences still value news. But according to Nebraska Public Media Chief Innovation Officer Chad Davis, those may no longer be the most important questions. During a recent episode of E&P Reports, Davis argued that journali...

A new global study suggests journalism's biggest challenge may not be AI, declining trust or shrinking revenues. Instead, it may be the widening gap between what news organizations say their priorities are and how their newsrooms actually operate. In a recent E&P Reports conversation, WAN-IFRA CEO Stig Kirk Ørskov and FT Strategies Insights Manager Lamberto Lambertini discussed findings from the F...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how media sales teams prospect, research, communicate and report results. Yet according to media revenue strategist Ryan Dohrn, the technology itself is not the competitive advantage. The real differentiator remains the same as it has always been: the salesperson using it. In a conversation with E&P, Dohrn argues that AI won't replace strong salespeople...

The future of local journalism is increasingly being shaped by two fundamental questions: Who should pay for it, and what should it produce? Those questions were at the center this conversation between E&P Publisher Mike Blinder and media critic, author and journalism educator Jeff Jarvis. The discussion grew out of two recent E&P Reports episodes that sparked debate beyond E&P's audience: an inte...

For decades, local journalism's business model rested on advertising, subscriptions and philanthropy. Now, according to Rebuild Local News co-founder Steven Waldman, a fourth leg is rapidly emerging: public policy. New state laws, tax credits and government-backed initiatives have already directed more than $129 million into local newsrooms, with tens of millions more expected this year alone. Wal...

As America approaches its 250th birthday, USA TODAY is reviving a nearly forgotten newspaper tradition with the debut of the "USA TODAY March," a new Sousa-style composition celebrating journalism, patriotism and community connection. In a recent E&P Reports interview, USA TODAY's Liz Johnson and composer and features writer Jim Beckerman discussed how the unusual project evolved from a piece of n...

For years, the local news industry has searched for a sustainable business model while navigating shrinking legacy revenues, rising costs and growing uncertainty. A new report, Meeting the Revenue Challenge: Philanthropy's Role in Local News Growth, examines how nonprofit local news organizations are attempting to build long-term durability through diversified revenue strategies and stronger commu...