Ellen Clegg describes the challenge facing Minnesota’s local media following a political assassination

My What Works partner Ellen Clegg has written a must-read piece on how local newsrooms in Minnesota are responding to the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a member and former speaker of the Minnesota House.

Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot while another public official, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, suffered serious but non-fatal gunshot wounds. The gunman, identified as Vance Boelter, remains at large as of 5:10 p.m.

While a larger news outlet like The Minnesota Star Tribune has the reporting capacity to cover a big breaking-news story like this, Ellen writes that smaller outlets, often launched with a handful of journalists, now find themselves scrambling to keep up.

She puts it this way: “An all-hands national news story like this poses a core question for hyperlocal newsrooms, which typically launch with smaller staffs and a tightly focused mission of covering neighborhood people, politics and policies.”