“Grouchy and Helpful Since 2024”

By Alice Dreger

I’m pleased to announce Local News Blues now has an Editorial Board, a bad-ass bunch of local news producers who, pressed to come up with a motto for what we’re doing here, agreed that we could go with “Grouchy and Helpful Since 2024.”

At the end of this post, I’ll explain why we shifted to this approach. For now, let me introduce the team by way of having asked each to share something they are proud of in their local news work – in part because I know their points of pride will reflect a lot of what you’re doing at your own operation, and we love reminding you that you’re not alone.

Emily Sachar (above) is the founder, editor-in-chief, and CEO of The Daily Catch, a nonprofit, nonpartisan online newspaper serving the Hudson Valley towns of Red Hook and Rhinebeck, New York. For the record, Emily is the least grouchy and most helpful of all of us.

Emily wrote to me about a month ago to share some news about having had a recent positive impact in her community, and this is what gave me the idea of asking our new Ed Board members to share similar takes.

“The Daily Catch in May got a tip from a frustrated parent that her child had been turned away for Pre-K this fall,” Emily explained by way of background. “The reason: Yet again, the applicant pool was considerably larger than the 30 spots the Red Hook district had decided to offer.

“The district has argued that since they use a lottery to select the kids, the system is ‘fair.’ Without betraying our personal feelings or editorializing on the matter, the facts and our reportage revealed the economic inequity of the lottery and revealed that the cost to rectify the situation was minuscule — $69,000 in a $62.8-million budget.

“Last week, the district announced that, following our reporting, they would add a third Pre-K class this fall. We are incredibly proud to have been able, through our work, to create spaces for 15 4-year-olds to get a leg up on an education that well-regarded national studies say is so crucial.”

Read the accountability reporting here, and read the update here.

Regina Clarkin (above) also hails from the Hudson Valley. She’s the co-founder, editor and publisher of The Peekskill Herald. 

She shared with us a recent story they ran “that resonated with lots of readers. Many people in the community were traumatized by the violent death of social worker Maria Coto, and I was determined to not have Maria be only remembered as a victim. It took a lot of patience to get permission to interview her co-workers but it paid off.” 

Regina added, “Writing about relevant news topics is something we do, but if we don't fundraise, we're dead in the water. This story illustrates one way to fundraise (we brought in $20K on this one evening event). We didn't hire an event planner (that was me) and through the generosity of so many people we were able to pull this off. It was a massive amount of coordination and work but it sent a signal to the big dollars in the community (who were all in attendance) that we're serious about what we do and we need their investment if we're going to stay around.” 

Go, Peekskill Herald! 

Jason Cole (above), publisher of the Excelsior Citizen, is presently the only for-profit publisher on our Ed Board, but we want more, so consider participating if you’re in that category! 

Jason was late to our last editorial board meeting because he was dealing with breaking news about a possible serial killer in their small town of Excelsior Springs, Missouri (population around 10,000). In fact, Jason’s immediate situation led us to pivot to a group discussion on how he might handle sharing a gruesome report from authorities.

Jason writes, “I don't have one standout piece I've done that I'm proud of. I'm more proud that we've kept this thing afloat for three years now and that we can consistently put out a weekly newsletter and cover breaking news. I'm proud that we've become our community's #1 source of news and info. I'm proud that we're making enough revenue to pay ourselves a little and also hire a couple of people.”

Jason’s comment reminds me to remind you that, as you seek financial support – whether it be from advertisers, donors, grantors, or investors – make sure you help them understand how what you’re doing brings two great effects: you bring news that would otherwise not be delivered and you create jobs that would otherwise not exist.

“The other Jason” on our Ed Board, Jason Pramas (above), may already be well known to you through his work founding and leading ANNO, the Alliance of Nonprofit News Outlets, the breakout group that functions as an incubator for a lot of the ideas we bring you here at Local News Blues. Jason is also executive director of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ) and executive director of the Somerville Media Fund.

“As a columnist,” Jason writes, “I was particularly proud of some series I wrote in 2018 and 2019 (and earlier in one case) for which I won a couple of national awards. In all cases, I was writing my column ‘Apparent Horizon’ for Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and syndicating to DigBoston (a commercial alt weekly that my BINJ partners and I ran separately) and other publications nationwide.”

The series included investigative work on big industry, including on GE’s attempts to get a lucrative deal in Boston, Vertex pharma’s PR chicanery, Amazon’s attempted Boston boondoggle, and the Merrimack Valley gas explosions disaster. Jason names as “a bonus favorite” this story about a backroom courthouse deal.

Also hailing from the Northeast is Bernardo Motta (above), a former lawyer, consultant and journalist from Brazil. He is an associate professor and the founding director of the transformative journalism program Communities of Hope Civic Media at Rhode Island’s Roger Williams University (RWU).

Articulating a feeling common to our Ed Board members, Bernardo responded to my ask with this: “I am generally critical and not proud of anything I do, so it is a hard ask.”

Still, he shared with us work from his prior life in Florida running the Neighborhood News Bureau, “a hyper-local news platform showcasing the work of senior-level undergraduate students in the Neighborhood News Bureau community journalism program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.”

Bernardo pointed to NNB's Black History portal and related special projects, explaining, “I worked with community members and students (both at USFSP and local K-12 students) to put it together to commemorate both the 150 years of Black History in St. Petersburg and the 50^th Anniversary of The Weekly Challenger, the local Black-owned newspaper and our main partner. It has tons of resources, from full documentaries to materials for school curricula and more.

“My roles were to research, create, plan, organize, manage programs, projects and partnerships, produce, design, photograph, write, code, edit content, audio, videos, and do a lot of behind-the-scenes work and, of course, teach all of these to all students and community members.” (Sound familiar in terms of the number of roles you have to play at your shop?) “Looking back, it's no wonder I have severe burnout and a broken brain.”

Corinne Colbert (above) is co-founder and editor in chief at the Athens County Independent, a hyper-local digital outlet focused on a largely rural county in southeast Ohio, part of central Appalachia. It was just named a finalist for “Startup of the Year” in the 2024 INN Nonprofit News Awards. 

The Independent was founded in 2022 by four women, including Dani Kington, who took second place in the 2024 Ohio SPJ Awards for Best News Story for her reporting on injection wells in Athens County.

“I’m proud of our focus on in-depth, accessible coverage — Dani’s work is a perfect example of that,” Corinne wrote in response to my question about points of pride.

She also cited the Independent’s focus on local government, such as co-founder Keri Johnson’s coverage of Nelsonville City Council. “The city government is plagued with infighting that’s led to a revolving door of city managers and council members and court battles,” Corinne said. “Readers tell us that Keri’s coverage has helped them understand a constantly changing situation.”

In addition to editing, Corinne sometimes reports, creates data visualizations for the Independent’s stories, and writes editorials in the frank and funny voice she’s shared on LNB. 

Finally, the Ed Board member who pushed me to start Local News Blues and the helpful grouch  I call when I don’t understand something ongoing in journalistic politics: Amos Gelb (above), founder and Publisher of American Witness.

“While there are individual stories I am proud of from my team,” Amos writes, “what I am most proud of is what my team does on a daily basis on our two sites, DC Witness and Baltimore Witness. While so many critics attack criminal justice reporting and offer plenty of advice on what people need to do to change it, neither they nor anyone else does actually change anything. We have. 

“We have reinvented criminal justice journalism, covering every hearing of every case equally at each step. We currently only cover homicides and non-fatal shootings. But we do not use ‘editorial judgment’ to claim the god-like authority to decide whose life is worth reporting on. We report on every case and every life equally and we gather data. 

“Our data, given to all candidates, was a deciding factor in the last state's attorney election in Baltimore. We created a first of its kind push-notification system to keep people informed – for the first time – of what is happening in cases they want to follow. And that is having real impact. Fully 78% of users told us the notifications made them feel more engaged, while 74% said it made them feel safer. And most shockingly, 64% said it made them more likely to vote.”

So why have we switched to an Editorial Board approach?

In the main, this move is just reflecting what’s already been happening; in this work I’ve been relying on a network of smart news publishers to bring our readers news and perspectives that matter. This new approach formalizes it, officially recognizing that this is a team effort.

The specific impetus for the change came when, about a month ago, I took a full-time job as the inaugural managing editor for Heterodox Academy (HxA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in higher ed, issues I was working on since before I started my own local news op, East Lansing Info, in 2014. (What runs through all my work is an interest in promoting nonpartisan, fact-based, meaningful engagement.) 

My bosses at HxA have okayed my continuing to work as publisher and lead editor of Local News Blues so long as I make clear my work here does not represent the views of HxA. But that full-time job is obviously going to cut into my time doing reporting and writing for Local News Blues, which is another reason we’re going with the Editorial Board – to have these folks as more regular contributors. 

They are all awesome – but keep in mind, if you’re a local news producer or recently retired as one, you can contribute your perspective, too.

Any questions, please just be in touch. Thank you! 

Alice Dreger is a journalist, historian, and the publisher of Local News Blues. She founded East Lansing Info, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news service, and ran the operation for about 10 years. (She is presently managing editor for Heterodox Academy, but the views presented here do not represent that organization.) Read more at the Local News Blues’ contributors page.