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.”
Congratulations to the new inductees to the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame — and especially Callie Crossley and Greg Moore.
Callie is an old friend from “Beat the Press” days on GBH-TV as well as a regular guest speaker in my opinion journalism class. She was also a guest on our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” to talk about her GBH Radio program, “Under the Radar with Callie Crossley,” and her radio essays.
I interviewed Greg, who I knew from his years at The Boston Globe, about the Denver media scene for our book, “What Works in Community News.” After leaving the Globe, Greg served as the longtime editor of The Denver Post, moving on in the face of devastating cuts imposed by the paper’s hedge-fund owner. He’s also been on our podcast.
Callie Crossley and me at a speaking event in Wayland in 2024.Greg Moore in Denver. Photo (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.
There was something about Houston Landing that never quite made sense.
It was a large digital startup in a city already served by the Houston Chronicle, whose corporate owner, Hearst, enjoys a reputation for strong journalism. It attracted a stunning amount of philanthropic funding — $20 million — before its launch two years ago, and somehow managed to burn through much of it. It was beset by tumult after its second CEO, veteran journalist Peter Bhatia, fired the Landing’s editor-in-chief, its top investigative reporter and, later, another top editor for reasons that have never been fully explained.
And on Tuesday, the Landing reached the end of the line, announcing that it would close because, despite “significant seed funding, it has been unable to build additional revenue streams to support ongoing operations.” The site will shut down in May, and 43 employees will lose their jobs.
Peter Bhatia
Bhatia agreed to come on our “What Works” podcast last June after he emailed me to complain about something I’d written. My co-host, Ellen Clegg, and I found him to be charming, as candid as he could be when talking about internal personnel matters, and dedicated to creating a first-rate news outlet.
When I asked him about competing with the Chronicle, he emphasized that he didn’t see that as the Landing’s mission.
“There is so much opportunity to do journalism here,” he said. “And the people who founded Houston Landing and who ultimately recruited me here wanted more journalism for this vast community. They wanted journalism that was hard-hitting and performed traditional watchdog and accountability roles, but also to create a new kind of journalism, if you will, that is accessible to traditionally undercovered communities, which make up such a huge percentage of the population here.”
As for the firings of editor-in-chief Mizanur Rahman, investigative reporter Alex Stuckey and editor John Tedesco, Bhatia said: “I came in here after things were established and in place, and I gave things a year to develop and go in the right direction. I have nothing but respect for the people that you mentioned. They are good human beings and fantastic journalists, but we were on a path that was not sustainable, and as the leader, I felt I had to make changes in order to get us in a position to be successful for the long term.”
In any case, the people Bhatia brought in, editor-in-chief Manny García and managing editor Angel Rodriguez, are well-regarded journalists. Unfortunately, they’re also now out of work.
Columbia Journalism Review editor Sewell Chan, who had an opportunity to watch Houston Landing up close during his own stint as editor of The Texas Tribune, has written a nuanced and perceptive take on what went wrong. “In hindsight, money was both a blessing and a curse for the Landing,” Chan writes, observing that the leadership team may have been tempted by that early bonanza to spend beyond its means.
“The Landing also suffered from a lack of focus,” Chan adds, explaining that it was never clear whether its mission was to cover the city or the broader region; whether it saw itself as a traditional news outlet holding the powerful to account or if, instead, it sought to empower the community by providing them with the tools to be their own storytellers, like Documenters or Outlier. Chan also delivers this verdict on Bhatia:
I’ve known Bhatia for close to thirty years. The son of an Indian father, he has been a pioneering Asian American newsroom leader and has the utmost integrity. However, Bhatia had not run a digital-only operation, hadn’t worked extensively in nonprofit fundraising, and didn’t know Houston well.
We are immensely proud of the work we’ve done and the impact we’ve made. Houston Landing has shown what’s possible when a news team commits itself to truth and transparency. Our stories highlighted voices that too often go unheard, sparked conversations that matter and helped inspire positive change throughout the city we love.
It’s a shame. Houston may not have been a news desert before the Landing landed, but more coverage is always better, and the focus on underrepresented communities that Bhatia talked about with Ellen and me will not be easy to replace.
It’s important, too, to recognize that what happened at the Landing says little about the nonprofit news movement in general. Chan quotes Michael Ouimette, chief investment officer of the American Journalism Project (one of the Landing’s funders), as saying that the closing is “not part of a broader trend,” and that nonprofit local news outlets remain on a growth trajectory.
Indeed, many of the nonprofits that Ellen and I track have proved to be remarkably resilient, with a few about to embark on their third decade. Unfortunately, Houston Landing will not join that charmed circle, and will instead close just a little more than two years after it was launched amid a wave of optimism.
Texas Tribune CEO Sonal Shah at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin last September.
Instability in the top ranks of The Texas Tribune continues, as Sonal Shah has announced that she’ll step down as CEO of the nonprofit in December. My What Works partner Ellen Clegg, who profiled the Tribune in our book, “What Works in Community News,” has all the details, writing:
Her impending departure marks yet another jolting transition for a news outlet that launched in November 2009 with a sweeping ambition: to prop up democracy by transforming news coverage throughout the Lone Star State. But nonprofit news sites, which are usually supported by a mix of revenue streams, are not immune to challenging market forces and workplace issues like layoffs and union drives.
The Tribune is among the largest and most respected digital nonprofits to be founded in the second wave of such projects, following such pioneers as Voice of San Diego, MinnPost and the New Haven Independent several years earlier. The site was launched by venture capitalist John Thornton and veteran journalist Evan Smith, and it appeared to be a rock of stability in a rather tumultuous environment.
But Smith moved on from the CEO’s position, and now Shah, citing family reasons, has announced her departure after less than three years. (Shah was a guest on our podcast last November.) Editor-in-chief Sewell Chan cycled through before taking the top job at the Columbia Journalism Review; he was replaced by Matthew Watkins, who’s been at the Tribune in 2015.
Thornton himself had moved on to co-found the American Journalism Project, which seeks to fund local news organizations across the country; he died late last month.
The turmoil at the Tribune could just be one of those things. Here’s hoping that the project can settle down, fix its business challenges and continue providing the Lone Star State with top-notch journalism. Its work is vitally important.
I want to call your attention to an outstanding deep dive into the news ecosystem of Fall River, Massachusetts. It was written for my Ethics and Diversity in the News Media class by Alexa Coultoff, a Northeastern junior who’s majoring in journalism and criminal justice. We’ve published it today at What Works, our website about the future of local news.
Research shows that communities lacking reliable local news were more likely to vote for Donald Trump last fall — not because they’re uninformed, but because the sort of blue-collar cities and rural areas that swung toward Trump are also more likely to be without a strong local news source. It’s correlation, not causation. But as Alexa writes, a stronger local news presence could help overcome the polarization that afflicts Fall River and, for that matter, the entire country.
What ethical minefields do the leaders of nonprofit news organizations need to watch for? What guidelines should board members and donors be aware of? Where are the bright lines — and where are the gray areas?
Three experts weighed in on those issues last Thursday evening at our What Works webinar on “The Ethics of Nonprofit News: What Board Members and Donors Need to Know.” What Works is part of Northeastern University’s School of Journalism and is affiliated with the Center for Transformative Media.
More than 50 people logged on to the event, which I moderated. Questions from the audience were fielded by Ellen Clegg, a faculty associate and the co-founder of Brookline.News. Ellen and I are the co-leaders of What Works, a project about the future of local news.
Poynter Institute president Neil Brown interviews Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” at Poynter’s 2024 Bowtie Ball last November. Roberts received the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Neil Brown, a longtime journalist who is the president of the Poynter Institute. For listeners who might not know, Poynter is a nonprofit based in St. Petersburg, Florida, that is devoted to teaching best practices in journalism. It is named for Nelson Poynter, the bow-tie-wearing legend who led the St. Petersburg Times to national recognition. The paper is now known as the Tampa Bay Times.
Poynter is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Last September, Poynter issued a report called “OnPoynt,” which attempted to place journalism’s ongoing economic crisis in context and give some hope for optimism. The goal was to offer “a forward-minded look at the state of journalism and the news industry that propels the story by considering trends related to creative product ideas, audience growth strategies and traction around revenue, artificial intelligence and innovation.” We talked with Neil about that report along with other topics.
Later on in the podcast, I’ve got 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 consequences. In central New York State, Trump’s threats have killed a daily newspaper — and not just any paper. The Cortland Standard, one of the oldest family-owned papers in the country, folded in mid-March, as Trump’s proposed 25% tariff on Canadian newsprint proved to be the last straw.
(Since we recorded this podcast, Trump has imposed tariffs that were far deeper and more damaging than many observers had expected. Newsprint, though, remains exempt.)
Ellen’s Quick Take comes from a tip from Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times who is now a distinguished professor of the practice here at Northeastern.
Jeff Morrison, a journalist who is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, has compiled an incredible timeline of the decline of newspapers in Iowa. A highlight: The Storm Lake Times Pilot, a twice-weekly print paper featured in our book, “What Works in Community News,” is dropping a print edition and going weekly.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, I talk with Marta Hill, an extraordinary young journalist who I 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 Scienceline. 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 my co-host, Ellen Clegg, a fellow transplant from the Twin Cities, couldn’t be with us. (Ellen will be back for our next podcast).
At Northeastern, Marta served in various capacities at The Huntington News, an independent student newspaper, including a one-year stint as editor-in-chief. She was also in my media ethics and diversity class in the fall of 2023. Whenever I teach ethics, a week gets devoted to talking about the harassment that journalists face both online and in real life. It’s a problem that’s been getting worse in recent years, and it’s something that young reporters in particular really have to think about before deciding whether to go into journalism full-time.
Marta decided she wanted to explore the issue of harassment and student journalism more deeply in the form of an honors project, and I was her adviser. She wrote a wide-ranging reported article, and a shorter version of that article was recently published by Nieman Reports, part of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. Her article, titled “J-schools Must Better Prepare Students for Handling Harassment,” lays out some concrete steps that journalism educators can take so that their students are not caught off guard when they encounter harassment at their student news outlet or on the job.
My Quick Take is on a nonprofit initiative to bring more and better news to Tulsa, Oklahoma, a thriving metro area with nearly 700,000 people in the city and surrounding county. The area is currently served by the Tulsa World, a daily paper that’s part of the Lee Enterprises chain, which, like most corporate newspaper owners, has a reputation for aggressive cost-cutting. The new nonprofit, the Tulsa News Initiative, is built around a venerable Black newspaper, but there’s more to it than that.
From left, Josh Stearns, Kara Meyberg Guzman and Joe Kriesberg
If you are a local nonprofit news publisher, editor, reporter, board member or donor, please mark this on your calendar: On Thursday, April 3, our What Works project will sponsor a free webinar titled “The Ethics of Nonprofit News: What Board Members and Donors Need to Know.” Issues will include conflicts of interest and understanding the boundaries between the news and fundraising sides of a community journalism organization.
• Josh Stearns, managing director of programs at the Democracy Fund, a longtime activist on issues related to media reform and equitable journalism. Stearns was most recently senior director of the Public Square Program at the Democracy Fund, where he led its journalism and technology grantmaking. He was previously director of journalism sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and, before that, press freedom director at Free Press. He currently serves on the board of Honolulu Civil Beat and the Democratizing Philanthropy Project and was a co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and First Draft News.
• Kara Meyberg Guzman, CEO and founder of Santa Cruz Local, a nonprofit news organization in California focused on communities not otherwise served by local media. Her passion is producing fair, accurate, reliable news that’s free and accessible to all residents, including those who will never be able to pay for it. She is also a board member of the Tiny News Collective, whose mission is to make journalism entrepreneurship more accessible, equitable and inclusive.
• Joe Kriesberg, CEO of the Massachusetts Institution for a New Commonwealth, or MassINC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to making Massachusetts a place of inclusive economic opportunity and civic vitality. In that capacity Kriesberg serves as publisher of CommonWealth Beacon, MassINC’s digital publication covering state politics and public policy. Kriesberg has decades of experience in nonprofit management and in working with news organizations.
I’ll be moderating the panel. I’m a professor in Northeastern’s School of Journalism and the co-author, with Ellen Clegg, of the book “What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate” (Beacon Press, 2024). Ellen and I also host a podcast and website on the future of local news, part of the School of Journalism, at whatworks.news.
Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, who co-founded the National Trust for Local News four years ago, is stepping down as the organization’s CEO. Dr. Hansen Shapiro’s announcement arrived in my inbox just a short time ago, and I have not had an opportunity to digest it. I may have more to say in the days and weeks ahead.
Eric Russell covers the story for the Portland Press Herald, which is one of the papers owned by the Trust.
I interviewed Hansen Shapiro for the book that Ellen Clegg and I wrote, “What Works in Community News,” to discuss the National Trust’s role in acquiring a group of weekly and monthly newspapers in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, back in 2021. Ellen and I also interviewed her for our podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News,” in 2022, and an excerpt is featured in our book.
I can also credit Hansen Shapiro with suggesting that we take a look at NJ Spotlight News, which represents the merger of a website that covers politics and public policy in New Jersey with NJ PBS, the state’s public television outlet. It turned out to be a terrific recommendation, and NJ Spotlight News anchors one of the chapters in our book.
More synchronicity: In 2023, the National Trust purchased the Portland Press Herald and a group of affiliated daily and weekly papers in Maine. Last fall, Ellen and I were the guests of the Maine Trust for a talk about our book that also served as a fundraiser for the Maine papers. In December, though, Lisa DeSisto — a professional friend of Ellen’s and mine — suddenly left as CEO and publisher of the Maine Trust. I suspect there may be more news to come on what’s going on in Maine.
Hansen Shapiro’s original idea for the National Trust was to acquire family-owned newspapers that were in danger of falling into the hands of a corporate chain or hedge fund. And she has succeeded, presiding over the purchase of papers in Colorado, Maine and Georgia. I wish her good luck as she ponders what’s next. Her full announcement follows:
A Founder’s Reflection: On Building and Becoming
When I stepped out of academia four years ago to co-found the National Trust for Local News, I was answering a call that felt bigger than myself. I believed then, as I believe now, in the profound importance of preserving and reimagining our nation’s local storytelling institutions. Like the Nature Conservancy’s work to protect our natural heritage, we set out to conserve and transform the vital institutions that help communities understand themselves and each other.
In these four years, we’ve built something extraordinary together. We’ve demonstrated that a new model of stewardship is possible — one that honors both preservation and innovation, tradition and transformation. We’ve shown that what unites us truly is stronger than what divides us, and that local journalism can be a powerful force for reweaving our civic fabric. The challenges ahead are real, but so too is the strength of what we’ve built together.
As I reflect on this journey, I recognize that the very principles that guided our work — trust in community wisdom, belief in the power of transformation, and faith in our shared stories — now guide me to make a transition. I have decided to step down as CEO and am working closely with the board to transition to new leadership.
This moment arrives not as an ending, but as evolution: the vision that called me to build now calls me to step back, trusting in the foundation we’ve laid and the wisdom of those who will carry it forward. What began as a mission to build has become a lesson in letting go, in trusting that what we’ve created together has its own wisdom and momentum.
I look to the horizon of local news and see the seeds we’ve planted taking root in ways we may not yet imagine. I envision our work flowering into a thousand expressions of community storytelling, each uniquely adapted to its place and people. I see newsrooms becoming not just repositories of information, but sacred spaces where community wisdom is gathered, preserved, and shared across generations. I believe the National Trust will continue to be a crucible where tradition and innovation meet, where storytelling finds new forms, and where the threads of community are constantly rewoven into ever-stronger fabric.
To our generous supporters who believed in this vision from its earliest days: Your faith in what was possible, your willingness to invest in new models, and your commitment to community storytelling have made everything possible. You understood that preserving local journalism requires both innovation and deep respect for tradition. May your courage in supporting new paths forward inspire others to join in this vital work.
To those who will carry this work forward: May you find joy in being stewards of these community treasures. May you have the courage to preserve what is precious and the wisdom to welcome necessary change. May you feel the support of all who have contributed to this mission, and may you trust in the profound importance of your work.
I step back with profound gratitude for how this journey has transformed me even as we’ve worked to transform the landscape of local news. The story of the National Trust continues, evolving as all good stories do. I look forward to watching and supporting its next chapter, knowing that the work of preserving and reimagining local journalism is more vital than ever.
Congratulations to the new inductees to the National Association of Black Journalists 
