PIX11’s Post

I suffered a whiplash recently in digesting updates about the news industry. On Feb. 21, at the Knight Media Forum, Press Forward announced the addition of 11 local chapters to the six original sites (including one in Wichita) announced in November. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Knight Foundation, and several other major funders established Press Forward as a five-year initiative to invest $500 million in local journalism. Press Forward Locals, as the chapters are called, aim to “bring new donors and foundations together to expand resources for local news,” according to the Press Forward website. But the day after the Press Forward announcement, the daily e-mail from Editor & Publisher, a trade publication, included a link to the 2023 State of Local News report issued late last year by the Medill Local News Initiative Northwestern University. Knight and MacArthur also helped fund the State of Local News Project, yet the 95-page report is far less upbeat than the Press Forward announcement. While acknowledging that a “growing number of news outlets forged promising business models,” the report also noted that “the growth in alternative local news sources — digital and ethnic news outlets, as well as public broadcasting — has not kept pace with what’s being lost.” Based on current trends, the report said that by the end of this year, the U.S. will have lost a third of its newspapers since 2005. In the past couple of decades, the report said, the country has lost about two-thirds of its newspaper journalists — about 43,000. Collaboration is the best way for local news outlets to continue the watchdog journalism that holds public officials and power brokers accountable for their actions. The Center for Cooperative Media is a leader on this front. Promising models in our region include the Wichita Journalism Collaborative and the KC Media Collective. These are classic cases of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It would be great to see the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation | Greater Horizons follow the lead of its counterparts around the country, including the Wichita Foundation, in providing critical funding to support a thriving news ecosystem. An informed citizenry is a public good worthy of philanthropic support — something that the Health Forward Foundation and other Kansas City-area funders recognize. #journalismmatters https://lnkd.in/gb2m4mbf

📚 According to new research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the survival and success of local newsrooms hinge on two critical tasks: 1️⃣ Becoming experts in identifying unmet needs in our communities. 2️⃣ Consistently producing the most reliable journalism addressing those needs. Easy, right? The study offers a compilation of good ideas that can help newsrooms thrive by focusing on what truly matters: serving their communities with accuracy and dedication to finding their audiences where they already are: https://lnkd.in/eqSTmqEM One example from North Carolina: The News Reporter in Whiteville saw a need for growth and development stories, new story forms and a voter guide. Because the team identified and produced excellent journalism to meet those needs, the paper has seen essential subscriber growth: https://lnkd.in/dpZTjqJJ What other news organizations are pivoting to meet the information needs in their communities? #localnews #research #communityneeds

The news division will be restructured into three separate “newsrooms”: the first will house regular news content, the second for opinion, and the third will focus on “service and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation. The aim is to give the millions of Americans — who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed — compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want.” https://lnkd.in/g-r4wG44

Local news leaders, does your newsroom struggle with understanding your audience and diversifying sources? Register for this helpful workshop for expert advice!

Tomorrow! We still have some seats available for our first American Press Institute Tech Talks of 2024: Building trust with Source Auditing. Is your newsroom looking to build trust with readers, improve engagement with your audience, and ensure that your journalism accurately reflects your community? Learn how source auditing can help you work toward those goals by taking a data-informed look at your journalism. Source auditing is more than just cataloging sources and looking at data: it involves an intentional effort to build trust across your newsroom and with your readers. Join me and some smart newsroom leaders to talk about how you can make this work happen in your news organization.

Great debate about the state of the #news industry with Steven Waldman and Jeff Jarvis on "E&P Reports," the vodcast series hosted by Editor & Publisher (E&P) Magazine publisher Mike Blinder. Waldman and Jarvis don't agree on everything. But they agree that #community needs and serving communities need to be the focus of #journalism today and going forward. ✅ The number of good legacy media organizations is still enormous, roughly 4,000 in the U.S. Many of those folks are working hard to make it work, serve their communities, and innovate in their own way as best they can. Can't write all off old legacy media. — Waldman ✅ How do we help innovation? How do we help the good entities? How do we not let the bad entities (hedge-fund-owned entities) rule these debates? Look at NJ Civic Info, the consortium in New Jersey run by Chris Daggett that has gotten New Jersey funds and handed out $11 million to local media so far. There are good efforts there. Look at all members of Institute for Nonprofit News and LION: Local Independent Online News Publishers. Questions. How do we deal at a local level with a good state like New Jersey and come up with rules and structures for government involvement in news that is not corrupted in places like Texas and Florida? It’s a great challenge. What would be supported? What support would be withdrawn from what kinds of outlets in those places is a real concern. —Jarvis ✅ CJPA (California Journalism Preservation Act) is flawed. They want to help entities that are above $100K in revenue. It will help hedge funds, conglomerates, and harm community news. Most of money in current bill will go to national media, not California publishers. —Waldman and Jarvis ✅ Rebuild Local News has proposed a fix for CJPA bill. Money should go to California publishers and be based on head count for newsrooms, not pageviews. Proposed other ways as well. Having a California policy where most of the money goes to national media doesn't make sense.—Waldman ✅ We need to get over this love of newspapers (old legacy media) and make tough decisions about what is worth saving and what isn’t worth saving. Where are newspaper assets? Are they more valuable? Is that the way to do it? Whatever we do, community needs to be No. 1 in our focus. LAist is a great example, led by Kristen Muller on content and Ariel Zirulnick on community engagement/strategy. They rebranded KPCC (legacy media) into LAist, a community-driven media outlet that serves community with journalism. —Jarvis ✅ Tech companies should help pay for saving local news. We had a digital revolution. They were the big winners. They have a responsibility to pay for the collateral damage. —Waldman ✅ We need to encourage new competition and innovation in journalism. There is a lot of innovation going on in journalism right now. There are encouraging signs. They just are small right now. These are not easy problems to solve. It's good we are having these conversations. —Jarvis and Waldman

Join me (and some really smart folks) to learn more about how source auditing can build trust with readers and improve community engagement

A long overdue update on the status and future of Psychedelic State(s) of America. "I’ve typed up a few dozen versions of a mission statement so far - none of which have struck the right tone yet for me to feel comfortable stapling it on the proverbial forehead of this new venture of mine. I may eventually get around to posting a thoroughly-refined manifesto of sorts on here, but for now I’ll just say this: I believe that the state of psychedelic journalism is ripe for disruption - and that psychedelic-intrigued readers and viewers alike are being deprived of people-first, policy-informed journalism at the expense of 'evergreen content' and five-figure ad buys by the half dozen." Check out the link below for the full update - and subscribe to Psychedelic State(s) of America today to support people-first, policy-focused psychedelic journalism.

Newsrooms of the future will look different than #newsrooms of the past. But the same principles of good journalism will always apply. ✅ Trust is earned ✅ Do rigorous reporting — there's a difference between covering someone/something and talking about it ✅ Be correct every day ✅ Have rigorous editorial processes to ensure you get everything right ✅ Fact-check every detail ✅ Own up to mistakes when you get anything wrong ✅ Be transparent about processes and ethics ✅ Explain the who, what, where, when, why, and how of story production ✅ Be objective and subject all sides to the same equal interrogation of positions and statements — this leads to the truth ✅ Ask the right questions — challenging questions, rigorous questions ✅ Focus on the unexciting topics that are most important to the public interest ✅ Drill down on the things that matter The current news and journalism ecosystem in the United States is not working well. The good news is that every American can help transform journalism and strengthen the news industry. We can restore faith in journalism. We can create more connected communities where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. The way we get there will require some paradigm shifts in #journalism and #education. It starts with #localnews. Those shifts are in motion and getting stronger. Those shifts will create positive ripples in the world. I launched a weekly newsletter to talk about those paradigm shifts and provide actionable ideas on how you and your community can grow. The newsletter is called The Community Builder. Our first edition examines the local news crisis and what can be done to ensure that quality local journalism remains in your community. Read: https://lnkd.in/gxgXmtw8 Subscribe to The Community Builder newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gAgfngq7 McKnight Foundation John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford Knight Foundation Institute for Nonprofit News Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group Press Forward Silvia R. Kathy Im Jim Brady Democracy Fund The Joyce Foundation Annie E. Casey Foundation Tonya Allen Tanner Curl Elizabeth Dunbar Djordje Padejski David Cohn David Gehring Marc Lavallee Tim Murphy, MBA Tracie Powell The Pivot Fund André Natta Andrew Haeg Charlie Rybak Phillip Smith Jordan Peacock Holly Kleppe World Savvy Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation Whitney McKinley Molly Carina Dengler Molly de Aguiar Jill Geisler Jason Feifer Antonio Tijerino Anthony De Rosa Alan Murray Amy Webb Jordan Hoffner

Towards the end of last year, I had the privilege of addressing the attendees of Forecast 2024 at the prestigious Harvard Club in New York resplendent in its holiday decorations. As my friend, Jeff Charney, describes it, Forecast 2024 is attended by “broadcasting and business leaders, innovators, and legends.” In my role of Chief Strategy Officer of Ad Fontes Media, I was invited by Radio Ink Magazine President and Publisher, Deborah Parenti, to speak about the vital role local news plays in the fabric of our communities and directly impacts the integrity and vitality of our democratic way of life. Local Radio stations play a very part in that with most formats delivering news, traffic and weather updates throughout the day. As Deborah summed it up: “When you want to know what’s going on with the school board, how zoning initiatives might impact the value of local real estate, and what time the nearby high school is playing its crosstown rival, you turn to local news. This is true journalism that is alive so long as on-air lights are lit and local reporters are on the scene. But that takes money – big money that is being lost to Big Tech – estimated near $2 billion every year.” And it’s not just big tech that is undermining the local news business, sophisticated grifters that operate “Made for Advertising” (MFA) sites - you know the ones, they promote all kinds of whacky silver bullet cures for whatever you think might ail you or false conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality - accounted for one in five impressions delivered in the recent Association of National Advertisers Programmatic Transparency Study, even though not a single participant in the study intended that any of their ads appear on those sites. These sites, which in the aggregate “steal” $17BB from advertisers through programmatic media, are directly taking money from quality news publishers and returning little to no value back to advertisers while delivering horrible user experiences and dubious information to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves on one of them. Suffice it to say, local journalism finds itself in a fight for survival and I was very happy to have the opportunity to address the owners and CEOs of many of the nation’s local radio stations and thank them for their service in the war on truth. AS Deborah goes on to write in her excellent piece (link below): “Freedom is in Peril, Defend it with all of your Might! As ad dollars decrease, the survival of local newsrooms hangs in the balance, and with them hangs the survival of service to communities otherwise void of reliable news and information in our increasingly divided and dangerous world. We’re talking about responsible journalism that delivers the facts, not bias, at street level.” I encourage you to read her provocative and important piece on the link below. #journalismmatters #journalism #localnews https://lnkd.in/ePqf6E2a