Category: Local News

How Fall River’s sparse news ecosystem is responding to the tragic Gabriel House fire

The tragic fire in Fall River, Massachusetts, which claimed the lives of nine residents at an assisted living facility, is a significant news story not just locally but nationally. Broadcast networks and The New York Times have all weighed in with coverage.

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But the story is also playing out in a community whose own news ecosystem is shaky. The Boston Globe and local television news have made it their top story, but what about Fall River-based news organizations? Northeastern journalism student Alexa Coultoff took a look at how Fall River gets its news and wrote up her findings for our What Works project on local journalism earlier this year. She also appeared on our podcast.

What she found was that the legacy paper, The Herald News, had been hollowed out by its corporate chain owner, Gannett, and that perhaps the most reliable source of coverage was produced by the public access cable channel, hosted by Bristol Community College.

Yet the fire is getting solid coverage at the local level. Despite its small staff, The Herald News has published multiple stories. Today’s front page is taken up entirely by the fire, with reports on the firefighters union’s concerns about staffing, how local hospitals responded, and how survivors are coping. Inside there’s a sidebar on who owns the assisted living facility, known as Gabriel House.

A digital news organization called the Fall River Reporter, which Alexa described as a breaking news service for the city and a number of other communities, has had some coverage as well, with stories by former Herald News reporter Jo Goode and local journalist Ken Paiva as well as from State House News Service.

The public access outlet, Fall River Community Media, has posted quite a bit of information on its Facebook page, including the video of a news conference by Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon and updates from the city, the United Way and the firefighters union.

The fire at Gabriel House is a community tragedy, and the way these stories are told is a reflection of civic health and engagement. Despite lacking the resources of the Boston-based media, Fall River’s information providers are giving a voice to officials and residents rather than relying on outsiders to tell their story.

More: Fall River has an independent radio station, WSAR, which broadcasts at AM 1480 and 95.9 FM. The website carries some links to coverage from other outlets, but the station has also broadcast segments on the fire.

Taking a closer look at the numbers behind a major new study of the local news crisis

Click on the map for the interactive version.

For the past 16 years I’ve been reporting on the decline of local news and on efforts to offset it. But though it’s simple enough to spout anecdotes, it can be more challenging to come up with hard numbers, though some have tried.

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The latest attempt dropped last week: a comprehensive study by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack, the latter a platform that connects journalists and public relations professionals. I’ve been looking over some of the findings this week, and what’s interesting is that it’s based entirely on data from millions of articles published during the first three months of this year. That means it’s not dependent on the vagaries of counting news outlets by hand, but it also means the researchers had to pile assumption upon assumption and then hope they got it right. I think they did for the most part.

Continue reading “Taking a closer look at the numbers behind a major new study of the local news crisis”

The New Bedford Light and The Boston Globe file lawsuits to pry loose public records

Downtown New Bedford, Mass. 2008 public domain photo by Marc N. Belanger.

The New Bedford Light and The Boston Globe are both suing the city of New Bedford in an attempt to pry loose public records. The Light seeks records pertaining to funds the city awarded that it received through the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, as well as the city’s contract with a consultant that it hired following the Globe’s Spotlight series on the police department’s dubious reliance on confidential informants. The Globe’s suit also pertains to the Spotlight series.

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The Light’s story about the lawsuits notes that this is the first time since the nonprofit’s founding in 2021 that it has sued the city. Executive editor Karen Bordeleau is quoted as saying:

The role of journalism in a democracy ensures that elected officials serve the public’s interest and the best way to accomplish this is through public records. Unfortunately this administration has refused multiple times to turn over public documents that would shed light on its decision to award ARPA grant money to high risk projects or to release the cost of a police consultant’s review of departmental conduct.

Indeed, suing for public records is an extreme step taken only after other avenues of appeal have been exhausted. The Globe is also suing the cities of Boston, Worcester and Springfield as well as Massachusetts State Police.

The Light’s and the Globe’s lawsuits are both pending in Bristol County Superior Court.

Why Hearst’s acquisition in Dallas is good news; plus, a Vt. paper goes nonprofit, and a N.H. paper folds

Dallas Morning News headquarters. Photo (cc) 2018 by Shaggylawn65.

This morning I want to share some good news about local news — and from a legacy newspaper company, no less. The Hearst newspaper chain has acquired The Dallas Morning News, adding to its constellation of Texas newspapers including the Houston Chronicle, the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express-News.

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Hearst is a privately held chain and, though corporate chain ownership is always problematic, the company has shown that it’s committed to strong regional and statewide news. We discussed Hearst’s strategy in Connecticut in our book, “What Works in Community News,” where Hearst has a cluster of newspapers that includes the New Haven Register, the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport, the Times-Union of Albany, New York (OK, not quite Connecticut), and the digital-only CT Insider. Hyperlocal is left to smaller outlets and digital startups.

Readers with long memories may recall that DallasNews Corp. at one time was known as Belo, and that it owned The Providence Journal. Rick Edmonds, who analyzes the news business for Poynter, reports that the Texas transaction was worth some $75 million, writing:

Staff reductions on the business side can be expected as those Dallas Morning News functions are consolidated with the rest of Hearst, but except for production, I would expect the newsroom to remain nearly intact.  The Morning News’s story on the deal said that it has 157 news employees.

Ken Doctor, a former newspaper industry analyst who now runs local news digital startups in Santa Cruz, California and Eugene, Oregon, had a positive take on the news.

 “To have a state like Texas with one owner for those four markets is really something,” he said. “Hearst has held on to their newspaper business and is reinvesting.  That’s really contrarian and a good sign for the industry. And they do great journalism.”

The deal ends 140 years of local ownership for the Morning News, which is a shame. Hearst publishes 28 dailies and 50 weeklies. But for the paper to wind up in the hands of a decent publisher rather than a cost-cutting behemoth like Gannett or Alden Global Capital is certainly good news for the News’ staff and the people they serve.

Nonprofit acquires Vt. weekly

A for-profit weekly newspaper in southern Vermont is going nonprofit. The Deerfield Valley News, founded in 1966, is being acquired by The Commons, a venerable nonprofit newspaper based in Brattleboro.

“We’ve never had the resources for more finely grained news coverage like gavel-to-gavel coverage of municipal government news, and The Deerfield Valley News will continue to perform that critical role, as it has, week after week, for years and years. That won’t change,” said Commons editor-in-chief Jeff Potter in a statement. The Valley News writes:

Randy and Vicki Capitani, owners of The Deerfield Valley News for nearly 35 years, have announced the sale of their venerable weekly print newspaper to Vermont Independent Media, publisher of the The Commons.

The sale was completed on June 27, bringing The Deerfield Valley News under the umbrella of Vermont Independent Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news corporation. The Deerfield Valley News will be a nonprofit sister publication of The Commons, an independent newspaper covering Brattleboro, the Connecticut River Valley, and southern Vermont.

Vermont Independent Media and its board of directors plan to maintain the The Deerfield Valley News as a paid-circulation newspaper serving the Deerfield Valley, and current subscriptions will be honored under the new management.  The newspaper will continue to operate out of its Wilmington location, and editorial staff and other key personnel will remain in their roles.

N.H. paper shuts down. Again.

Sadly, another newspaper serving New Hampshire is shutting down. The Claremont Eagle Times ceased publishing several weeks ago, Steve Taylor writes in The Valley News. (That Valley News is based in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, and is not to be confused with The Deerfield Valley News.)

According to Taylor, the Eagle Times has struggled since its founding in 1950. Indeed, the news of its closing rang a bell, and sure enough, the paper closed for the first time in 2009. I guess at some point it was revived. When I took note of the first shutdown, there was another news outlet in town called Your Claremont Press. That no longer seems to be in existence, either.

The shutdown came not long after the staff walked out because their paychecks bounced. By the end, the once-daily print paper was coming out three days a week. Its website had reportedly not been updated since June 15, and it currently appears to be down.

Katherine Ann Rowlands on how she acquired The Mendocino Voice and took it nonprofit

Katherine Ann Rowlands. 2017 photo by Cali Godley.

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Katherine Ann Rowlands, who runs the Bay City News Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that publishes journalism for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area at LocalNewsMatters.org and The Mendocino Voice. And by the way, this is our last podcast until September.

The Bay City News Foundation acquired The Mendocino Voice and took it nonprofit a little more than a year ago. I reported on the Voice for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and was visiting in March 2020 when … well, you know what happened next. At that time, co-founders Kate Maxwell and Adrian Fernandez Baumann were hoping to turn the nominally for-profit operation into a cooperatively owned venture, but COVID sidetracked those plans. Maxwell and Baumann have since moved on, and Rowlands has some pointed observations about why there have been no successful examples of local-news co-ops.

Rowlands also is owner and publisher of Bay City News, a regional news wire supplying original journalism for the whole media ecosystem in her area, from TV to start-up digital outlets.

The first-ever COVID news conference in Mendocino County, Calif., on March 5, 2020. Mendocino Voice co-founder Adrian Fernandez Baumann is shooting video and co-founder Kate Maxwell, seated, wearing blue and off to the right, is taking notes. Photo (cc) 2020 by Dan Kennedy.

I’ve got a Quick Take about the New England Muzzle Awards. Since 1998 I’ve been writing an annual Fourth of July roundup of outrages against free speech and freedom of expression in New England during the previous year, first for the late, lamented Boston Phoenix, later for GBH News and now for my blog, Media Nation. This is the 27th annual edition.

Ellen reports on the death of Nancy Cassutt, a newsroom leader at Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media’s “Marketplace.” Nancy was a driving force in helping Mukhtar Ibrahim get Sahan Journal off the ground.

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

Stacy Feldman tells us how her Boulder nonprofit responded to a recent antisemitic attack

Three journalists from the Boulder Reporting Lab at a news conference held by Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn hours after a recent antisemitic terrorist attack. Founder and publisher Stacy Feldman, arms folded, is wearing a green cap. Next to her, wearing a striped blue shirt, is reporter Brooke Stephenson. Senior reporter John Herrick is wearing a tan T-shirt and holding a notebook. Photo courtesy of Stacy Feldman.

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Stacy Feldman, founder and publisher of the Boulder Reporting Lab, a nonprofit newsroom covering Boulder, Colorado. She launched the Lab in late 2021 to fill critical gaps in news coverage in a state where newspapers have been gobbled up by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund. Alden is known for gutting papers, not growing them.

Stacy was co-founder and executive editor of Inside Climate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom focused on the climate crisis. She developed her plans for the Boulder Reporting Lab during a fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her newsroom has provided crucial reporting on the recent antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder.

I’ve got a Quick Take later on a huge threat to one of the most important cogs in the regional news ecosystem — public radio and television, which face huge cuts after the Republican-led House voted recently to cancel $1.1 billion in funding over the next two years that it had previously approved. Now the measure moves to the Senate, which has to take a vote on it by mid-July. Regardless of what happens, this is the closest public media has ever come to an extinction-level event.

Ellen’s Quick Take is on local news coverage of the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband. Minnesota news consumers have a lot of great media options, and these newsrooms stepped up big-time to cover this crisis.

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

How Sahan Journal is using AI to streamline its operations; plus, more on search, and screening pitches

Cynthia Tu of Sahan Journal. Photo (cc) 2025 by Lev Gringauz / MinnPost

Like it or not (and my own feelings are mixed), artificial intelligence is being used by news organizations, and there’s no turning back. The big question is how.

The worst possible use of AI is to write stories, especially without sufficient human intervention to make sure that what’s being spit out is accurate. Somewhat more defensible is using it to write headlines, summaries and social-media posts — again, with actual editors checking it over. The most promising, though, is using it to streamline certain internal operations that no one has the time to do.

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That’s what’s happening at Sahan Journal, a 6-year-old digital nonprofit that covers immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota. It’s one of the projects that Ellen Clegg profile in our book, “What Works in Community News.” And according to Lev Gringauz of MinnPost (one of the original nonprofit news pioneers), the Journal has embarked on a project to streamline some of its news and business functions with AI. (I learned about Gringauz’s story in Nieman Lab, where it was republished.)

Bolstered with $220,000 in grant money from the American Journalism Project and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, the Journal has employed AI to help with such tasks as processing financial data of the state’s charter schools, generating story summaries for Instagram, and adding audio to some articles.

The real value, though, has come in bolstering the revenue side, as the Journal has experimented with using AI to retool its media kit and to understand its audience better, such as “pulling up how much of Sahan Journal’s audience cares about public transportation.”

“We’re less enthusiastic, more skeptical, about using AI to generate editorial content,” Cynthia Tu, the Journal’s data journalist and AI specialist, told Gringauz. Even on internal tasks, though, AI has proved to be a less than reliable partner, hallucinating data despite Tu explicitly giving it commands not to scour the broader internet.

And as Gringauz observes, OpenAI is bleeding money. How much of a commitment makes sense given that Sahan Journal may be building systems on top of a platform that may cease to exist at some point?

Two other AI-related notes:

➤ Quality matters. In his newsletter Second Rough Draft, Richard J. Tofel has some useful thoughts on the panic over Google’s AI search engine, which has been described as representing an existential threat to news organizations since it will deprive them of click-throughs to their websites.

Tofel writes that clickbait will be harmed more than high-quality journalism, noting that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been hurt less than HuffPost, Business Insider and The Washington Post. “If there is one overriding lesson of publishing in the digital age,” Tofel writes, “it remains that distinctive content remains the most unassailable, the least vulnerable.”

Though Tofel doesn’t say so, I think there’s a lesson for local news publishers as well: hyperlocal journalism should be far less affected by AI search than national outlets, especially for those organizations that emphasize building a relationship with their communities.

➤ Here’s the pitch. Caleb Okereke, a Ph.D. student at Northeastern, is using AI to screen pitches for his digital publication Minority Africa. He writes that “we are receiving 10x more pitches than we did in our early days after launch,” adding: “With a lean editorial team, we faced a challenge familiar to many digital publications: how do you maintain depth, fairness, and attention when the volume scales but the staff doesn’t?”

He and his colleagues have built a customized tool called Iraka (which means “voice” in the Rutooro language) and put it to the test. As he writes, it’s far from perfect, though it’s getting better.

“As of now, editors are using Iraka individually to provide a first-pass on submissions, testing its utility alongside regular human review,” Okereke reports. “Every pitch is still manually read, and no editorial decisions are made solely based on the model’s output. This staged integration allows us to observe how the tool fits into existing workflows without disrupting the editorial process.”

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

Melissa Hortman in a 2021 public domain photo

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.”

The Worcester Guardian lands a $100,000 grant, its largest one-time gift to date

Union Station in Worcester, Mass. Photo (cc) 2014 by Jason Ouellet & Chelsea Creekmore.

The Worcester Guardian, a 2-year-old digital nonprofit serving New England’s second-largest city, has some big news. The Cliff & Susan Rucker Charitable Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to the news project.

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.

Northeastern’s Rahul Bhargava talks about his innovative approach to making sense of data

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.

Ellen has a Quick Take on a recent visit to Santa Barbara, California, and the efforts to revive a legacy paper, the Santa Barbara News-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.

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.