Episode 113: Charlie Sennott and Alexis Algazy

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 turned his attention to local news. He teamed up with Steve Waldman to launch Report for America as an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Dan and Ellen talked with Waldman on an earlier podcast.

Sennott's newest creation is GroundTruth Media Partners, LLC based in Woods Hole, where he leads a small staff and publishes and writes the GroundTruth newsletter on Substack. The non-profit that was called "The GroundTruth Project" has recently rebranded to call itself Report Local with Report for America and Report for the World as its flagship initiatives. Report Local and the University of Missouri School of Journalism did groundbreaking work on water issues in the Mississippi River Basin. 

In his most recent post on Substack, Sennott writes about this new branding. He also writes about how he officially stepped aside from the program, but remains incredibly proud of the movement it has created.

As his own act of community service, Sennott is also serving as the publisher and editor of the Martha's Vineyard Times on Martha's Vineyard where he and his wife, Julie, who has an extended family on the Island, now live year round. 

Dan and Ellen are also joined by Alexis Algazy, a Northeastern student who has done a compelling story about why politicians need to engage in storytelling on social media.  

Dan has a Quick Take about public support for local news. Politico recently published an in-depth story on what’s gone wrong with a program in California that was supposed to provide $250 million to help fund local news over a five-year period, with the money to come from the state and from Google. The deal seems to be coming apart. And yet there are reasons to be optimistic — as you will hear.

Ellen has a Quick Take on the role of video in recording the violent acts of ICE agents in Minneapolis, and the protests all over that city. Video by bystanders has played an important role in exposing what's happening on the ground. But video and social media in general also pose a challenge for reporters covering the story for the Minnesota Star Tribune. Editor Kathleen Hennessey spoke about it in a brief interview with Semafor.