What Works: The Future of Local News

Em Cassel is editor and co-owner of The Racket , a reader-funded website covering politics, music, arts and culture in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. (She was also a student in Dan's digital journalism course at Northeastern University .)  Em made a name for herself as food editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief of City Pages in the Twin Cities. She was the first woman editor in the 41-year his...

Jody Brannon, director of the Center for Journalism & Liberty at the Open Markets Institute , started her career in print in her native Seattle. Never one to shy from a challenge (she's an avid skiier and beamed in from the snowy mountains of Idaho), she transitioned to digital relatively early on in the revolution. She has had leadership or consulting roles at washingtonpost.com , usatoday.com ,...

Chris Krewson is the executive director of Local Independent Online News Publishers, better known as LION Publishers . The national nonprofit aims at supporting local journalism entrepreneurs and has some 400 members.   LION tapped Chris as its leader in 2019, and he brings significant digital experience to the job. In fact, he's had many prior lives. He was the top editor at Billy Penn , a mobile...

Pam Johnston , general manager for news with GBH, has a deep background in local television in Boston at WLVI, and earlier at local stations in Raleigh, North Carolina and Portland, Maine. At GBH, which is a public media company, she has a broad portfolio. She is responsible for news operations across all platforms, including radio, television and digital. She  also supervises two NPR programs, GB...

Lex Weaver is editor-in-chief of The Scope at Northeastern University. The Scope is a  digital magazine focused on telling stories of justice, hope and resilience in Greater Boston,  with an emphasis on communities of color. Their mission: practicing journalism as an act of service. They work to amplify the voices of those overlooked by traditional media. Dan looks at The Boston Globe as it turns...

Ken Doctor , a former Knight Ridder executive and longtime media analyst, recently rejoined the ranks of working journalists. He's the founder and CEO of Lookout Local , a digital local news site in Santa Cruz, California. Ken hopes that Lookout Local can provide a model of what works in the local news ecosystem. He says he wants to change the conversation. 

Babz Rawls Ivy is host and co-producer of LoveBabz LoveTALK on WNHH LP radio in New Haven. But that doesn't begin to describe her. So let's add a few more words: Force of nature. Wise presence. Storyteller. WNHH is a low-power FM community station launched seven years ago by the New Haven Independent , a pioneering online nonprofit news site. Paul Bass , founder and editor of the Independent, want...

Lincoln Millstein played a critical role in launching The Boston Globe's free digital site, boston.com . Boston.com began as a portal, and carried Globe journalism but also curated other news sites and community blogs. It had a separate staff, and the office was in downtown Boston, not in the old Dorchester plant. Lincoln went on to be executive vice president at New York Times Digital, then moved...

Inés San Martín and John Allen join the What Works podcast to discuss the founding of Crux , a digital site that covers all things Catholic, and the "corporate resurrection" that took place three days after The Boston Globe shut it down. Crux quickly partnered with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization, and now is a hybrid business model combining nonprofit support, crowd-fundin...

Callie Crossley is a multitalented broadcast journalist and producer. She hosts Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and shares radio essays each Monday on GBH's Morning Edition. She hosts Basic Black , which covers news events that have an impact on communities of color. Her work on "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years" won numerous awards. She shares her views on the thinning out of...

Myojung Chung and John Wihbey , colleagues from Northeastern University's School of Journalism, share the findings from their new working paper , published by Northeastern's Ethics Institute . They and their colleagues examined attitudes about the regulation of social media in four countries: the U.K., Mexico, South Korea and the U.S. With Facebook (or Meta) under fire for its role in amplifying d...

Jaida Grey Eagle is a photojournalist working for the Sahan Journal in Minneapolis through Report For America . She is Oglala Lakota and was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and raised in Minneapolis. Her photography has been published in a wide range of publications, and featured on a billboard on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. She is also a co-producer of "Sisters Rising," a documenta...

Joshua Darr, a professor at Louisiana State University, is right in the What Works sweet spot: His research delves into the divisive partisan rhetoric that infuses our national political debate and whether communities with a vibrant local news source experience less polarization. Dan and Ellen talk with Joshua about his research, as well as the Trusting News project report on how local and regiona...

Phil Balboni is a legendary figure in broadcast journalism, as well as the founder, president and CEO of GlobalPost, a highly acclaimed international news site. His list of awards is lengthy, and includes the Peabody, Murrow and Emmy. His latest venture is DailyChatter, a nonpartisan newsletter that covers international news. The Columbia School of Journalism recently announced that it was creatin...

Damon Kiesow is a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where he holds the Knight Chair in Digital Editing and Producing. But Dan and Ellen first met Damon about 10 years ago when he was at The Boston Globe, developing mobile products for Boston.com and BostonGlobe.com . He focuses on something called human-centered design: how readers interact with a print newspaper versus...

Rhema Bland is the first permanent director of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting at the University of North Carolina school of journalism. She's a veteran journalist who has reported and produced for CBS, the Florida Times-Union, WJCT and the New York Daily News. The society's mission is essential to the future of the industry: to "increase the ranks, retention and profile of re...

Penelope (Penny) Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, arguably launched a movement with her path-breaking research on "news deserts" and the forces undermining community newspapers across the nation. Abernathy, a former executive with The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, was also Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics...

Art Cullen, editor of the twice-weekly Storm Lake Times in rural Buena Vista County, Iowa, tells the story of his fight for survival at a time when local papers across the country are cutting back and shutting down. The paper is the subject of a vivid documentary, "Storm Lake," that will be broadcast on most PBS stations on Monday, Nov. 15, at 10 p.m., including GBH-2 in Boston. 

Chris Lovett, longtime news director and anchor of the Boston Neighborhood Network News local cable access show, reflects on his career in community journalism, on camera and off. A Dorchester native, he's interviewed local activists, politicos and neighborhood stalwarts. And he's not done with journalism yet, so stay tuned.

Freelance investigative journalist Julie Reynolds talks about her singular pursuit of the truth about Alden Global Capital, the secretive New York hedge fund that has gobbled up newspapers across the country, stripping assets and firing reporters. Reynolds connects the dots from Alden to Cerberus Capital Management, the "shadow bank" that backed Alden's recent takeover of Tribune Publishing. Dan e...

In their first episode of the What Works podcast, Dan Kennedy of Northeastern University and veteran journalist Ellen Clegg discuss the crisis in community journalism, as well as promising initiatives aimed at solving it. Kennedy interviews Massachusetts Representative Lori Ehrlich, a Marblehead Democrat who has co-sponsored legislation to create a commission to assess the state of local journalis...