It’s refreshing to see a new book about the news media with a title whose first two words are “what works”—not what’s broken about the modern news economy, how hyper partisanship in news is driving us apart, or the myriad other ways to obsess over all that’s wrong with news ever since Walter Cronkite was eclipsed by Steve Jobs.
“What Works in Community News,” by Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy, covers (in the words of its subtitle) “Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate.” Clegg spent more than 30 years at the Boston Globe and also has been deputy director of communications at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She’s also cofounder of a nonprofit news startup in Brookline, Massachusetts. This year she was honored with a Yankee Quill Award, an annual recognition of contributions to the betterment of journalism in a six-state region.
Kennedy is a journalism professor at Northeastern University and longtime TV commentator who has published two previous books on the changing media landscape.
Veteran editor and media columnist Margaret Sullivan provides the book its prominent cover blurb; she’s the author of what would be the more expected framing of a pulse check for modern news: “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy.”
I like the idea that it’s long since time to tout the opportunity in crisis. The nine chapters of “What Works in Community News” roam the country to survey a wide variety of neighborhoods, business models, newly minted partnerships, fresh startups, and legacy publishers all getting more creative in a bid to maintain civic connections and a common set of facts. All efforts are independent local operations in Minnesota, Massachusetts, Colorado, California, Connecticut, Texas, etc.
And Iowa. One chapter features the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation (WIJF) and one of our grantees, the Storm Lake Times Pilot. I’ve been part of the volunteer team of WIJF since it launched in the depths of the pandemic as a fairly unique model leveraging a regional nonprofit to rally philanthropy and help independent local newsrooms (including for-profit newsrooms) innovate a path to long-term sustainability. The WIJF territory of rural America arguably represents some of the most challenging news deserts to replenish.
“Committed local ownership,” Clegg and Kennedy write in their Iowa chapter, “combined with focused community coverage, seems to contribute to the long-term resilience of local news organizations—although, to be sure, those ingredients are only part of the overall strategy to stay in the black.”
I asked the authors what they learned in the process of reporting and writing their book. Their first reaction: There’s “no one solution to any of this.”
The introduction of their book goes out of its way to declare itself an “anti-manifesto” lacking grand pronouncements. They raise as many questions as they answer—something I’ve always considered to be a hallmark of the most thoughtful journalism.
“We believe that any approach can work depending on the dedication and experience of those who are on the ground, putting in long hours to serve their communities,” Clegg and Kennedy write.
In other words, basic journalism principles still apply in terms of the countless hours of rigorous shoe-leather reporting required to produce the best results.
This sentence from their book also stood out: “A healthy local news ecosystem is vital to community life, whose very existence is in danger as our culture becomes increasingly nationalized.”
Evaluate the nutrition of your own modern media diet and I wager you’ll recognize how easy it has become to get swept up in the latest national outrage vs. consistent and detailed coverage of local issues where you and your neighbors could wage significant influence given the right information and inspiration.
“It’s beginning to dawn on people what they’re missing,” Clegg said.
The authors also invited me last month to join them for an episode (No. 77) of their related podcast, “What Works: The Future of Local News.”
Commitment through comprehensive coverage
I couldn’t help but think of this new book when reading some of the latest words from John Cullen, president of the Storm Lake Times Pilot. He penned a wonderful column earlier this month to mark two years since his family newspaper bought out their hometown rival and also purchased the weekly publication 21 miles away in Cherokee. (The family newsroom includes publisher/editor Art Cullen, also an Iowa Writers Collaborative member.)
“The growth in readership is a result of our commitment to local journalism through comprehensive coverage,” Cullen wrote. “Over the past year we added three reporters, giving us six people on our news staff, who are out and about covering the news that matters to our readers. That’s way more than any other news organization for a community this size in the state.”
The Times Pilot also qualifies as the oldest continuously operating business in Buena Vista County—154 years and counting, Cullen wrote, predating even the establishment of the city of Storm Lake.
If communities the scale of Storm Lake can sustain a trusted news source from the era of the telegraph into the era of artificial intelligence, I take that as a positive harbinger for American main streets and democracy.
Under the theme that there’s no one solution for how to sustain a news source in today’s economy: My fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member Dave Busiek last week wrote of a significant milestone recently achieved by States Newsroom, the national nonprofit that owns Iowa Capital Dispatch. The news network dedicated to statehouse coverage just added bureaus in North Dakota and Utah, rounding out its presence in all 50 state capitals.
Last week I received an unsolicited call from a friend across the country looking for advice on a volunteer effort to save yet another community news source.
It’s beginning to dawn on people what they’re missing.
When I began my journalism career in the ‘90s I anticipated I would take on ever-more-ambitious projects as part of lifelong learning. I just didn’t anticipate that those projects would involve preserving the very foundations of the local news economy that too many took for granted for too long.
In accepting her recent Yankee Quill Award, Clegg delivered remarks that acknowledged the harsh reality facing newsrooms: “The business of fact-based reporting that holds power to account faces existential challenges. You know them well: digital disruption, the collapse of print advertising, the rise of platforms built on algorithms of anger.”
But she also delivered her dose of measured optimism: “This wave of innovation isn’t temporary. It’s part of our future. I’m proud to be here today with journalists who are sustaining local news and providing the essential information that is so necessary to participatory democracy.”
It’s beginning to dawn on people what they’re missing. We need all the experiments and examples possible to get to what works for the next generation of local news.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative roster
The Iowa Writers Collaborative has grown to include nearly 50 members and a Letters From Iowans column. Subscribe to the main account for a convenient way to be notified each Sunday about most posts by most members. You can support individual members according to your unique interests by becoming a paid subscriber to any newsletter. We are also proud to be affiliated with Iowa Capital Dispatch, where some of our content is regularly republished.
Thank you for this column, Kyle.