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,...
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Episode 98: Neil Brown
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , 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 , the bow-tie-wearing legend who led the St. Petersburg Times to national recognition. The paper is now known as the Poynter is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Dan has a Quick Take on President Trump’s bouncing tariffs. They’re on, they’re off, they’re on, they’re off. But his gyrations are having real...
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Episode 97: Marta Hill
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan talks with , 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 . In that role, she works with her peers at NYU to produce what she describes as “an accessible, down-to-earth science publication.” Marta is originally from Minneapolis, which makes it almost a tragedy that Ellen, a fellow transplant from the Twin Cities, couldn't be here. (Ellen will be back for our next podcast). At...
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Episode 96: Mike Beaudet
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with Mike Beaudet, longtime investigative reporter for WCVB-TV and a multimedia professor at Northeastern's school of journalism. Mike has won many awards for his hard-hitting investigations and leads a project aimed at reinventing television news. On March 21 - 22, he'll lead a conference at Northeastern called Mike's students are producing content for everything from Instagram, YouTube to TikTok. Dan has a Quick Take about the National Trust for Local News. Co-founder exited the nonprofit suddenly last month. That came amid reports that the Portland Press Herald...
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Episode 95: Erica Heilman
What Works: The Future of Local News
Dan and Ellen talk with , who produces a podcast called . Heilman's shows air monthly on Vermont Public and other NPR stations, as well as the BBC. Rumble Strip can also be found on all the usual podcast platforms. Her episodes range in length from a few minutes to, well, as long as they need to be! As wrote in a profile in Seven Days Vermont, "She wants to make meandering, kaleidoscopic stories about the stuff of ordinary Vermont life." In 2020, Heilman produced a memorable pandemic miniseries, "." It featured listener-submitted recordings of life in lockdown, and it was the Atlantic's No. 1...
info_outlineDan 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 executive editor of Inside Climate News, 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 newsroom provided crucial reporting on the recent antisemitic attacks in Boulder.
Dan has a Quick Take later on a huge threat to one of the most important cogs in the regional news ecosystem. I’m referring, of course, to public radio and television, which face huge cuts after the Republican-led House voted recently to cancel $1.1 billion in funding over the next two years that it had previously approved. Now the measure moves to the Senate, which has to take a vote on it by mid-July. Regardless of what happens, this is the closest public media has ever come to an extinction-level event.
Ellen's Quick Take is on local news coverage of the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband. Minnesota news consumers have a lot of great media options, and these newsrooms stepped up bigtime to cover this crisis.