What Works: The Future of Local News

Dan and Ellen talk with Emily Sweeney of The Boston Globe. As the Globe's first social video journalist, Emily broke through the clutter on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram with her Boston accent and her collection of track suits. Not to mention her skills as a reporter.  There's a Northeastern connection, as well. Sweeney played on NU's championship-winning Division 1 women's ice hockey team.  Dan...

Dan and Ellen talk with Professor Carlene Hempe l at Northeastern and her student Sydney Woogerd . This spring, Carlene brought a team of student journalists to Asheville, North Carolina, for a week-long intensive reporting trip that focused on the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The result: a digital multimedia investigation called Caught in the Current: Helene Recovery in Asheville an...

Dan and Ellen talk with Ron Mitchell , publisher and editor of the Bay State Banner . In 2023, Mitchell and Andre Stark, both seasoned television news journalists, purchased the Banner, a newspaper covering the Black community in Boston. The Banner was started in 1965 by Melvin Miller. The print weekly is legendary for covering stories that were ignored by other publications. Stories about the Bla...

Dan talks with  Joe Kriesberg , the publisher of CommonWealth Beacon , and Laura Colarusso , the editor. CommonWealth Beacon is a digital nonprofit that's part of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, better known as MassINC, and Joe is the CEO. CommonWealth Beacon covers politics and public policy at the state level, and has increasingly been branching out into local coverage as wel...

Dan and Ellen talk with Rachel White , CEO of the Associated Press Fund for Journalism. Rachel joined the nonprofit AP Foundation in 2024, after a 10-year run with The Guardian , the one-time print newspaper in the UK that has become a global digital powerhouse. In 2016, White became president of   theguardian.org , a nonprofit organization she founded that raises tax-deductible funds to support T...

Dan and Ellen talk with Zuri Berry , the executive editor of The Banner in Montgomery County, Maryland. He's also a Boston Globe colleague of Ellen's from days of yore. Zuri is one of those journalists who's done a little bit of everything. We're talking reporter, columnist, video producer, digital editor, radio host, audio editor — over more than two decades in this business. And he's got an MBA...

On this episode, Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy talk with Barbara "Bob" Allen, an LA-based journalist, trainer and consultant who founded CollegeJournalism.org in 2025. The site provides resources and news for journalism educators and student media advisers across the country. Allen is also the editor of the Student Press Report , a brand-new national news desk covering the state of the college press...

Dan and Ellen talk with Dale Anglin , the inaugural executive director of Press Forward , a philanthropic effort that is dedicated to funding local news initiatives nationwide. Before she was named as the leader of Press Forward, Anglin served as a vice president for grantmaking at the Cleveland Foundation . She also led the foundation's journalism strategy. Then and now, she focuses on local news...

Dan and Ellen talk with Charlie Sennott , a former foreign correspondent at The Boston Globe who left in 2008 to become a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Global Post and The Ground Truth Project. Ground Truth, a nonprofit, was a partner to GBH News, FRONTLINE, PRX The World, and the PBS NewsHour. It focused on partnerships to amplify international and national news projects. Now, Charlie has tu...

Dan and Ellen talk with Mike Beaudet and Lisa Thalhamer. Mike is a colleague at Northeastern, where he is a journalism professor. He is also an investigative reporter at WCVB-TV, Boston's ABC affiliate. He's worked in local television news for more than 30 years. Before joining WCVB-TV he was an investigative reporter and anchor at WFXT-TV in Boston. Beaudet's research at Northeastern focuses on t...

Dan and Ellen talk with Jennifer Peter,  who was named editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project in September of 2025. The Marshall Project is a national nonprofit that covers issues related to criminal justice. She's only the third editor in 10 years, replacing Susan Chira, a former New York Times editor. Peter started her career as a reporter, working for 12 years at newspapers in Idaho, Connectic...

Dan and Ellen talk with Chris Fitzsimon, publisher and CEO of The States Newsroom , the nation's largest nonprofit news organization covering state government. Chris is also the host of a new podcast called Stories from The States . Recent topics on his pod include the impact of Medicaid cuts, ICE detention, and redistricting.    Fitzsimon knows his way around state politics. From 2004 to 2017, he...

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 here at What Works that local television news is still highly trusted . His mission: to reinvent local news for the streaming era. Ellen is back and fully bionic after a short hiatus fo...

Dan talks with Kade Krichko , the founder of Ori Magazine , a beautifully crafted premium print publication devoted to grassroots storytelling across the globe. 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 p...

Dan is flying solo this week because Ellen is recovering from knee-replacement surgery. But fear not — she's behind the scenes making sure this episode gets recorded properly, and she edited what you are listening to. She'll be back on the air soon. Our guest is Rick Goldsmith , a veteran filmmaker who has taken a close look at the state of corporate journalism in America. His documentary "Strippe...

Dan and Ellen talk with Tracy Baim , a Chicago-based journalist who directed the recently published LGBTQ+ Media Mapping Project , which tracks LGBTQ news outlets across the country. The LGBTQ+ Media Mapping Project was created in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, the Local Media Foundation, News Is Out and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. The project surfaced 107...

Dan and Ellen are back from summer break and talk with Bill Marx , the editor-in-chief of the Arts Fuse . For four decades, he has written about arts and culture for print, broadcast and online outlets. He has regularly reviewed theater for the public station WBUR and the Boston Globe. He is a founder of Viva La Book Review , a new organization that aims to foster thoughtful, well-crafted book cri...

Dan and Ellen talk with Katherine Ann Rowlands , who runs Bay City News Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that publishes journalism for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area at LocalNewsMatters.org and The Mendocino Voice . And by the way, this is the last podcast until September. Bay City News Foundation acquired The Mendocino Voice and took it nonprofit a little more than a year ago. Dan re...

Dan and Ellen talk with Stacy Feldman , founder and publisher of Boulder Reporting Lab. The Lab is a nonprofit newsroom covering Boulder, Colorado. She launched the Lab in late 2021 to fill critical gaps in news coverage in a state where newspapers have been gobbled up by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund. Alden is known for gutting papers, not growing them. Stacy was co-founder and exe...

Dan and Ellen talk with Rahul Bhargava , a colleague at Northeastern University. Rahul is a professor who crosses boundaries: the boundaries of storytelling and data, the boundaries of deep dives into collaborative research and interactive museum exhibits and plays. He holds a master's degree in media arts and science from MIT, and a bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Ca...

Dan and Ellen talk with Carlene Hempel and Harrison Zuritsky . Carlene, a journalism professor at Northeastern, recently led a reporting trip to Flint, Michigan. Harrison and other students produced a stunning internet magazine called Flint Unfiltered that takes a deep dive into the causes and effects of Flint's economic downturn and toxic water crisis. Since 2009, Carlene has been leading student...

For their 100th podcast, Dan and Ellen talk with Tom Breen , the editor of the New Haven Independent. Tom joined the staff of the Independent in 2018, and then became managing editor. Last November, he stepped up to succeed founding editor Paul Bass , who launched the Independent in 2005 and is still very involved. He's executive director of the Online Journalism Project, the nonprofit organizatio...

Dan and Ellen talk with John Mooney , the founder of NJ Spotlight News, a digital nonprofit that's part of NJ PBS , the state's public broadcasting network. Mooney, who covered education for The Star-Ledger in Newark, took a buyout in 2008, put together a business plan, and launched their site in 2010 under the auspices of the nonprofit Community Foundation of New Jersey.  While Spotlight was maki...

Dan and Ellen talk with Neil Brown , a longtime journalist who is the president of the Poynter Institute. For listeners who might not know, the Poynter Institute is a nonprofit based in St. Petersburg, Florida, that is devoted to teaching best practices in journalism. It is named for Nelson Poynter , the bow-tie-wearing legend who led the St. Petersburg Times to national recognition. The paper is...

Dan talks with Marta Hill , an extraordinary young journalist who he got to know during her time at Northeastern. Marta is currently a graduate student in the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program at New York University, where she's also the editor-in-chief of Scienceline . In that role, she works with her peers at NYU to produce what she describes as "an accessible, down-to-earth sc...