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.”
Co-founder Dave Nordman says the grant, the largest one-time gift the Guardian has received, “will help us expand our editorial reach, improve our digital presence, and build deeper partnerships with local institutions.” Adds Cliff Rucker: “The Guardian is doing important work — producing high-quality journalism and making it available to everyone.”
The Central Massachusetts city has more than 200,000 residents and is served by a variety of news outlets. Yet it has had to contend with a shortage of coverage ever since the daily Telegram & Gazette was acquired by GateHouse Media (which later morphed into Gannett) in 2015 and began slashing the news report. The Rucker grant should help the Guardian raise both its metabolism and its profile.
Nordman, who also serves as lead consultant to the Guardian, is a former executive editor of the T&G. He’s a cross-campus colleague, too: his day job is as executive editor of Northeastern Global News, our university’s news service.
The full press release follows:
Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation donates $100,000 to The Worcester Guardian
Major gift strengthens nonprofit newsroom’s mission to deliver accessible, high-quality local journalism
The Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to The Worcester Guardian, the city’s nonprofit community news organization dedicated to keeping local journalism free and accessible to all.
The gift marks the largest one-time contribution to The Worcester Guardian since its founding and will help the organization expand its coverage, grow partnerships and invest in long-term sustainability.
For the Rucker Foundation, the donation reflects a continued commitment to institutions that strengthen the fabric of the Worcester community.
“The Guardian is doing important work — producing high-quality journalism and making it available to everyone,” Cliff Rucker said. “These are exactly the kinds of organizations we want to invest in — ones that make a real difference in the community. We hope this contribution inspires others to step up and support The Guardian as well.”
Launched in 2023 and a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, The Worcester Guardian provides nonpartisan, in-depth reporting on issues central to the city’s future: government, education, health, business, and the environment. With no paywall and no subscription required, the Guardian ensures that all residents have access to accurate, trustworthy local news. Its reporting team includes experienced journalists with strong ties to the region.
Dave Nordman, co-founder and lead consultant of The Worcester Guardian, said the donation will accelerate the organization’s growth and strengthen community ties.
“This generous gift will help us expand our editorial reach, improve our digital presence, and build deeper partnerships with local institutions like Worcester’s colleges and universities,” Nordman said. “It’s a transformative investment in the future of local journalism.”
Tim Loew, chair of The Worcester Guardian’s Board of Directors, emphasized the broader community impact.
“On behalf of the entire board, I want to express our deep gratitude to the Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation,” Loew said. “Their support speaks volumes about the value of local journalism. This funding will allow us to deepen our coverage, better serve readers, and ensure the long-term sustainability of nonprofit news in Worcester.”
The Rucker Foundation’s support continues its long-standing commitment to initiatives that strengthen education, the arts, youth development and community life. Past projects include support for Worcester Academy, Music Worcester, Quinsigamond Community College, and nonprofits focused on opportunity, equity and revitalization.
The Worcester Guardian is also backed by a growing group of local organizations which believe in its mission. In addition to the Rucker Foundation, the Guardian has received support from the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, Polar Beverages, The Hanover Insurance Group Foundation, Synergy, Fallon Health, Dewey Square Group, Webster Five, Mirick O’Connell, Workplace Resource, Glickman Kovago & Jacobs, Anna Maria College, Kelleher and Sadowski, Worcester State University, UniBank, Worcester Bravehearts, Masis Staffing, Better Business Bureau of Central New England, Fidelity Bank, Railers HC Foundation, Schwartz Foundation, UMass Memorial and Enterprise Cleaning Corporation as well as dozens of individuals.
To learn more about The Worcester Guardian or to support its mission, visit theworcesterguardian.org.
To learn more about the Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation, visit csrfoundation.com.
Professor Rahul Bhargava’s approach to data storytelling includes forks and Brazilian drumming.
It’s an all-Northeastern podcast this week as Ellen Clegg and I talk with Rahul Bhargava, 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.
Bhargava has collaborated with groups in Brazil, in Minnesota and at the World Food Program. He helps local communities use data to understand their world, and as a tool for change. There’s more to data than just bar charts. Sometimes it involves forks! His recently published book, “Community Data: Creative Approaches to Empowering People with Information,” unlocks all sorts of secrets.
Keeping with our all-Huskies theme, Ellen and I also talk with Lisa Thalhamer, a longtime TV journalist who is now a graduate student at Northeastern. Lisa realized that like many fields, journalism suffers from a gap between academic research and its implementation in workplaces. She is finding ways to bridge that gap, and urges an Avenger’s-style team to lift up the work of a free press.
My Quick Take is about the latest developments from the National Trust for Local News. It involves a chain of weekly papers in Colorado — their very first acquisition dating back to 2021. And it’s not good news at all for the journalists who work at those papers and the communities they serve.
There are two problems with direct government funding of journalism. The first is that it opens the door to government interference. The second is that, even if safeguards are built in to protect independence, the money can be reduced or cut off in the event of a crisis.
That is exactly what is happening in New Jersey and California. In the former, that state’s Civic Information Consortium, a pioneering effort to distribute taxpayer funds for journalism and other types of storytelling, is in danger of being zeroed out after receiving $3 million this past year. In the latter, a deal that California officials had reached with Google to pay for news is starting to come apart.
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New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, has proposed getting rid of the funding in his budget for fiscal year 2026. The consortium calls it “a potentially devastating blow to local media and civic information access across the state. Without this funding, NJCIC’s critical work could cease.”
Since it was launched in 2021, the consortium has granted some $9 million to 56 organizations. It’s administered by an independent board appointed by the governor and run out of Montclair State University. Ellen Clegg and I wrote about it in our book, “What Works in Community News.”
Murphy declined to comment on the cut when contacted by Terrence T. McDonald of the New Jersey Monitor, but McDonald noted that the governor’s office had said earlier this year that his budget proposal would include “some belt-tightening.” Even so, McDonald observed that next year’s budget was on track to be larger than the current year’s.
The California situation stems from a much-criticized deal that the state cut with Google last year. According to Jeanne Kuang of CalMatters, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has reduced a $30 million allocation to help pay for local news to just $10 million for the coming year as he wrestles with a $12 billion deficit.
That, in turn, trigged a cut by Google from $15 million to $10 million. The money — now just $20 million instead of $45 million — will be administered by a newly formed California Civic Media Fund, which Kuang writes will comprise “a board of publisher representatives to determine how to distribute it.”
California’s five-year deal with Google was reached after the state abandoned efforts to pass legislation that would have taxed Google for the news that it repurposes. One version of the tax would have brought in $500 million a year.
There are all kinds of problems with what essentially amounts to a link tax, started with the reality that news publishers benefit when Google links to their content. Users who click through encounter those publishers’ advertising, or may even be induced to subscribe if they have a paywall.
Now publishers are facing a much deeper threat from Google, as the search giant is going all-in on artificial intelligence, thus eliminating the need to click through.
“Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue,” Danielle Coffey, the CEO and president of News/Media Alliance, said in a statement reported by The Verge. “Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft. The DOJ remedies must address this to prevent continued domination of the internet by one company.”
“DOJ remedies” is a reference to recommendations by the Department of Justice after Google recently lost two separate antitrust cases.
Ann and Jerry Healey. Photos (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.
When I wrote last week that the nonprofit National Trust for Local News had sold 21 of its Colorado newspapers to a corporate chain called Times Media Group, I observed: “I honestly don’t know what kind of reputation the company has. But it’s ironic that a nonprofit founded as an alternative to chain ownership has found it necessary to cut a deal with one of those chains.”
Well, now. According to Sarah Scire of Nieman Lab, the chain, which owned some 60 papers in California and Arizona before the Colorado deal, has reputation for “gutting” its properties. Scire writes:
The Times Media Group is, to put it mildly, an odd choice of buyer for the mission-driven National Trust for Local News. The Trust is a nonprofit that has emphasized the importance of local control for local newspapers and describes community newspapers as “vital civic assets.” The Times Media Group is an out-of-state, for-profit media company with a history of reducing local newsrooms.
Colorado media-watcher Corey Hutchins calls Scire’s article “the Nieman Lab story heard ’round Colorado.”
The papers that the Trust sold off are in the Denver suburbs; the nonprofit is retaining seven other papers in more rural areas, where it says the news desert problem is more acute. Among those laid off was Linda Shapley, the editorial director of Colorado Community Media (CCM), the umbrella group for the Trust’s papers before the selloff. I interviewed Shapley for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and she’s been a guest on our podcast.
Last week I tried unsuccessfully to connect with Jerry and Ann Healey, who sold CCM to the Trust in 2021. Jerry Healey did talk with Hutchins, telling him that he “kind of bought into their [the Trust’s] vision,” adding, “But after a while, I realized that it wasn’t working.”
In September 2021, I interviewed the Healeys at a coffee shop just outside of Hartford, Connecticut. They were there to visit their daughter, who worked for ESPN. They had sold their papers to the National Trust just a few months earlier, and at that time they were hopeful they had left their legacy in good hands. I interviewed Shapley at CCM’s headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, the following week.
What follows is an except from “What Works in Community News,” which I co-wrote with Ellen Clegg.
***
David Gilbert, a reporter with Colorado Community Media (CCM), was summoned into publisher and co-owner Jerry Healey’s office one day in the spring of 2021. “I’ve got news for you,” Healey told him. “I’ve sold the papers.” Healey wanted Gilbert to write the story about the transaction. CCM published 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in Denver’s suburbs. Gilbert, who’d been on staff for four years, imagined the worst — namely, a corporate chain owner was coming in that would slash costs and eliminate jobs. His first thought, he said, was “Oh, crap, time to pack up my things. I wonder if I can get my job back driving a truck.”
Imagine that you run a local news site and a protest breaks out in your community. You cover it, but you’d like to place it within a broader context. How many other protests are taking place near your city and town? What are they about?
Our Northeastern colleague Rahul Bhargava, a professor in the School of Journalism, has come up with a way of tracking demonstrations. He’s developed a map that can be embedded so community news outlets can show their readers what’s taking place nearby. You can set the map so that it depicts protests anywhere from within five to 100 miles. Rahul writes for Storybench, our media-innovation publication:
[I]t appears that local reporters are covering protests in their area, but not often connecting them to larger movements. That might be because coalitions like #50501 aren’t as well known as unions and long-standing activist groups; they don’t have communications people with long-standing relationships to journalists.
One approach to help reporters make those links for readers, and put individual events in a broader context, is to use data about local protests. Connecting this weekend’s rally to events over the last few weeks might connect dots for audiences that are seeing public displays of resistance. I wondered if I could quickly map protests in my area based on existing data sources.
The map is based on data compiled by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a nonprofit, and the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC), part of the Harvard Ash Center.
At CCM headquarters in Englewood, Colo. Photo (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.
The National Trust for Local News is shedding papers in Colorado, while in Maine a former top executive with the Trust is taking on a new role. The Trust, a nonprofit that buys newspapers to save them from falling into the hands of corporate ownership, has some 50 titles in Colorado, Maine and Georgia.
I’ll deal with Colorado first. The Trust made its debut in the spring of 2021 when it purchased Colorado Community Media, a chain of 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in the Denver area. The Colorado Sun, a digital startup based in Denver, was brought in to help run the papers and was given an ownership stake. Ellen Clegg and I wrote about all that in our book, “What Works in Community News.”
A lot has happened since then, including the Sun’s decision to unwind its relationship with the papers. Now CCM is breaking up, with 21 publications in the Denver metropolitan area being transfered to Times Media Group, a Tempe, Arizona-based chain whose owner has ties to Colorado. Seven other papers will be retained by the National Trust.
The Flint Unfiltered team. From left: Claire Adner, Emily Niedermeyer, Alaa Al Ramahi, Professor Carlene Hempel, Steph Conquest-Ware, Mary Raines Alexander, Alexa Coultoff, Harrison Zuritsky and Asher Ben-Dashan.
On the new “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Carlene Hempel and Harrison Zuritsky. Our colleague Carlene, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, 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.
Click on image to access the digital magazine.
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 Ph.D. from Northeastern. She started her career reporting for The Middlesex News in Framingham, Massachusetts, now the MetroWest Daily News, and The Boston Globe. She then moved to North Carolina, where she worked for MSNBC and The News & Observer of Raleigh.
I’ve got a Quick Take from Maine. Reade Brower, 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, the nonprofit that now owns the Press Herald and several other Maine papers. Brower’s also followed through on a plan to open a café at one of his weeklies, the Midcoast Villager, in a unique effort to boost civic engagement.
Ellen weighs in on a new study of local news by Professor Joshua Darr of Syracuse University, a friend of the pod. 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.
The Portland Press Herald’s offices and printing facilities in South Portland, Maine. Photo (cc) 2018 by Molladams.
The National Trust for Local News, which is dealing with a leadership transition (see the last item) and business woes, got some good news recently. Three weekly papers in Maine have reached an agreement to be printed at the Trust’s presses in South Portland.
According to a story by Cyndi Wood in The Ellsworth American, whose presses will cease operations, the papers will include not just the American but also the Mount Desert Islander and the Midcoast Villager, which is based in Camden. All three papers are owned by Reade Brower, and therein lies an interesting tale.
Ellen Clegg and I are thrilled to announce that our book, “What Works in Community News,” has been longlisted for a Mass Book Award by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. We’re one of 12 in the nonfiction category. Winners will be announced this fall.
