Episode 101: Carlene Hempel and Harrison Zuritsky
What Works: The Future of Local News
Release Date: 05/12/2025
Episode 108: Krichko and Keller
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan talks with , the founder of , 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 pulse, I'm listening." Kade is a Northeastern University graduate, and a part-time lecturer in the School of Journalism. He created and taught a course in Sports, Media and Digital Storytelling. Dan also checks in with...
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Episode 107: Rick Goldsmith
What Works: The Future of Local News
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 , a veteran filmmaker who has taken a close look at the state of corporate journalism in America. His “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink” tells the story of , the secretive hedge fund that has bought up many of our greatest newspapers and stripped them of their real estate and slashed their newsrooms. He...
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Episode 106: Tracy Baim
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , a Chicago-based journalist who directed the recently published LGBTQ+ , 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 LGBTQ media outlets in total, 80 of which responded to the survey. According to the accompanying report: “While they may have few similarities, there are several common denominators: Most are in need of additional resources to...
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Episode 105: Bill Marx
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen are back from summer break and talk with , the editor-in-chief of the . 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 , a new organization that aims to foster thoughtful, well-crafted book criticism in community news media across the country. Bill created and edited WBUR Online Arts, a cultural webzine that in 2004 won an Online Journalism Award for Specialty Journalism. Until recently, he taught a class on writing arts...
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Episode 104: Katherine Rowlands
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , who runs Bay City News Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that publishes journalism for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area at and . 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 reported on the Voice for our book, and was visiting in March of 2020 when ... well, you know what happened then. Rowlands also is owner and publisher of , a regional news wire supplying original journalism for the whole media ecosystem in her area, from TV...
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Episode 103: Stacy Feldman
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , 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 executive editor of , a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom focused on the climate crisis. She developed her plans for the Boulder Reporting Lab during a fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her...
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Episode 102: Rahul Bhargava
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , 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 Carnegie Mellon University. But he also minored in multimedia production. He brings the power of big data research to the masses, through newsroom workshops, interactive museum exhibits, and more. Rahul has...
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Episode 101: Carlene Hempel and Harrison Zuritsky
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with and . Carlene, a journalism professor at Northeastern, recently led a reporting trip to Flint, Michigan. Harrison and other students produced a stunning internet magazine called 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 students on reporting trips, where they work as part of a traveling press corps. She has taken groups to many countries, including Egypt, Syria, and . Harrison, a second-year student with concentrations in journalism and data science, joined her on...
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Episode 100: Tom Breen
What Works: The Future of Local News
For their 100th podcast, Dan and Ellen talk with , the editor of the Tom joined the staff of the Independent in 2018, and then became managing editor. Last November, he stepped up to succeed founding editor , who launched the Independent in 2005 and is still very involved. He's executive director of the Online Journalism Project, the nonprofit organization he set up to oversee the Independent, the Valley Independent Sentinel in New Haven’s northwest suburbs, and WNHH. He continues to report the news for the Independent and hosts a show on WNHH, and he started another nonprofit,...
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Episode 99: John Mooney
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , the founder of NJ Spotlight News, a digital nonprofit that's part of , 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 making a mark journalistically, it wasn't breaking even, and its sponsor, the Community Foundation, was getting impatient. After extensive talks, Mooney affiliated with NJ PBS. The name changed to NJ Spotlight News,...
info_outlineDan 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 students on reporting trips, where they work as part of a traveling press corps. She has taken groups to many countries, including Egypt, Syria, Cuba and Panama. Harrison, a second-year student with concentrations in journalism and data science, joined her on the Flint trip.
Like so many at Northeastern, Carlene has a background that includes academic achievement as well as wide-ranging professional experience. She has been a professor for 20 years and holds a PhD from Northeastern. She also started her career writing for The Middlesex News in Framingham, now The MetroWest Daily News, and The Boston Globe. She then moved to North Carolina, where she worked for MSNBC and The Raleigh News & Observer.
Dan has Quick Take from Maine. The former owner of the Portland Press Herald is going to have three of his weekly papers printed at the Press Herald’s facility in South Portland, giving a boost to the National Trust for Local News. And he’s also followed through on a plan to open a café at one of his weeklies in a unique effort to boost civic engagement.
Ellen weighs in on a new study of local news by our friend of the pod, Professor Joshua Darr at Syracuse University. Darr teamed up with three other researchers to do a meta analysis of surveys on media trust. They made a number of findings, but the headline is that Americans trust local newsrooms more than national news outlets. This is especially true if the local news outlet has the actual name of the community in its title. But there's a downside: that automatic trust also allows pink slime sites to take hold.