Dan and Ellen talk with Tim Coco , president and general manager of Public Media of New England. Coco is known for his work as a journalist and advertising executive. He oversees day-to-day operations at the low-power FM station WHAV , which can be found at 97.9 on the radio dial if you happen to be in the Haverhill area. The station also streams at WHAV.net. WHAV was launched in 1947 by the Haverhill Gazette newspaper under the auspices of a publisher who was distantly related to the Taylor fam...
Jul 20, 2022•33 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast Dan and Ellen talk with Steve Waldman , the president and co-founder of Report for America , a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered communities. Steve came up with the concept in 2014 and joined forces with The Ground Truth Project to launch RFA in 2017. In the projects we're reporting on for this podcast and for our book, "What Works: The Future of Local News," we've run across a number of RFA corps members. They usually have a couple o...
Jul 13, 2022•44 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast Dan and Ellen talk with John Garrett , who, along with his wife, Jennifer, started the monthly Community Impact Newspaper in 2005 in Texas. They had three full-time employees and covered two towns in Texas, Round Rock and Pflugerville. Community Impact expanded into Arizona and Tennessee, and by 2018, Forbes reported, the Garretts had 220 employees and annual revenue of $27 million. They have an online presence, of course, but they also believe in print: their newspapers are distributed by mail ...
Jul 06, 2022•41 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast Dan and Ellen talk with Mike Deehan , a savvy Boston journalist who is part of the new Axios Boston newsletter. Mike's colleague at Axios Boston, Steph Solis , was scheduled to join the discussion but was out reporting on reaction to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Deehan and Solis have been reporting on Massachusetts news and politics for a number of years. Mike was formerly digital content editor for State House News Service , editor of Massterlist , and worked for the Do...
Jun 29, 2022•37 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast Ellen and Dan talk with Hanna Raskin , founder and editor of The Food Section, a Substack newsletter devoted to covering restaurants and trends in food across the South. Before starting her Substack last year, Hanna was food editor and critic for eight years at the family-owned Charleston Post & Courier in South Carolina. Hanna also covered food for alternative weeklies, including the Mountain XPress in Asheville, North Carolina, and Seattle Weekly . Dan offers a Quick Take on The Baltimore Bann...
Jun 22, 2022•35 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast Dan and Ellen talk with their colleague at Northeastern University, Dr. Meredith Clark. Dr. Clark is an associate professor in the School of Journalism & the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern. Before arriving at Northeastern, she was a faculty fellow at Data & Society , an independent nonprofit research organization based in New York that examines some of the questions being raised by the massive increase in the use of data in all aspects of society. Dr. Clark's research is on ...
Jun 15, 2022•51 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast Dan and Ellen talk with Steve Rosenberg , editor of the Jewish Journal in Massachusetts, and Linda Matchan , who was named associate editor in February. Both Steve and Linda had long and productive careers at The Boston Globe. Steve worked for 15 years as a staff writer and columnist, writing about cities and towns north of Boston. He was also editor of the Jewish Advocate. Linda worked at the Globe for 36 years. During her extensive career, she did a little bit of everything, from investigative...
Jun 08, 2022•39 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast Dan and Ellen talk with Professor Otis Sanford , who is something of a journalistic legend in Memphis. As a general assignment reporter at The Commercial Appeal in 1977, Sanford covered the death of Elvis Presley . He also covered courts, county government and politics before being promoted into management. After stints at the Pittsburgh Press and Detroit Free Press, Sanford returned to The Commercial Appeal. In 2002 he was named managing editor and in 2007 he became editorial page editor. As op...
Jun 02, 2022•42 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast Kara Meyberg Guzman is CEO and co-founder of Santa Cruz Local in California. Before the Local, she was managing editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She left her job at the Sentinel, which is owned by Alden Global Capital's Media News Group, in 2018, citing differences with the company's management. Kara connected with another former Sentinel reporter, Stephen Baxter , and the two of them hatched a plan for the Local. They focus on public policy issues that affect the whole county, like housing, d...
May 25, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this Encore Edition of What Works, freelance investigative journalist Julie Reynolds talks about her singular pursuit of the truth about Alden Global Capital, the secretive New York hedge fund that has gobbled up newspapers across the country, stripping assets and firing reporters. Reynolds connects the dots from Alden to Cerberus Capital Management , the "shadow bank" that backed Alden's recent takeover of Tribune Publishing. Dan explores pink slime news sites, and Ellen reports on some good...
May 18, 2022•30 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Jonathan Dotan is founding director of The Starling Lab for Data Integrity at Stanford University. The lab focuses on tools to help historians, legal experts and journalists protect images, text and other data from bad actors who want to manipulate that data to create deep fakes or expunge it altogether. He has founded and led a number of digital startups, he worked at the Motion Picture Association of America, and he was a writer and producer for the HBO series "Silicon Valley." While he was wo...
May 11, 2022•43 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Kristen Hare is a journalist, media watcher and faculty member at Poynter Institute in Florida. Kristen not only documents trends in our beleaguered industry, but she also teaches local journalists the critical skills they need to cover their communities effectively. Before joining Poynter's faculty, she spent eight years covering local news for Poynter's website. In addition to all of this, she also spent two years with the Peace Corps in Guyana, in South America. At Poynter, she writes a weekl...
May 03, 2022•46 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Mike Shapiro is the founder and CEO of TAPinto, a network of more than 85 online local news sites in New Jersey, New York and Florida. Shapiro launched TAPInto in 2008. Back then it was called TheAlternativePress.com and the goal was to build a network of hyperlocal news sites covering New Jersey towns. His core idea is relatively simple. Would-be editors and publishers are actually franchisees. They pay a fee to buy into a turnkey operation that gives them access to technology and marketing res...
Apr 27, 2022•48 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Ed Miller is co-founder and editor of the weekly Provincetown Independent . Founded in October 2019, the weekly competes with Gannett’s Provincetown Banner . The Independent covers Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet and Eastham and Miller explains why he believes that a print-centric strategy is essential on the tip of the Cape. The Independent is a hybrid organization — a for-profit public benefit corporation that works in tandem with a nonprofit that Ed and co-founder and publisher Teresa Parker h...
Apr 20, 2022•52 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast This week, co-hosts Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy run down a number of news stories, including a major deal in New Jersey: The nonprofit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media (CNJLM) acquired 14 weekly newspapers serving some 50 municipalities. The papers are owned by the New Jersey Hills Media Group. The deal is similar to one announced last year when Colorado Community Media sold its 24 weekly and monthly newspapers in a complex deal involving several nonprofit organizations. The difference is ...
Apr 13, 2022•36 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Em Cassel is editor and co-owner of The Racket , a reader-funded website covering politics, music, arts and culture in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. (She was also a student in Dan's digital journalism course at Northeastern University .) Em made a name for herself as food editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief of City Pages in the Twin Cities. She was the first woman editor in the 41-year history of that publication. City Pages, which was bought by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2015, was s...
Apr 05, 2022•40 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Jody Brannon, director of the Center for Journalism & Liberty at the Open Markets Institute , started her career in print in her native Seattle. Never one to shy from a challenge (she's an avid skiier and beamed in from the snowy mountains of Idaho), she transitioned to digital relatively early on in the revolution. She has had leadership or consulting roles at washingtonpost.com , usatoday.com , msn.com , as well as the tech universe. She served on the board of the Online News Association for 1...
Mar 31, 2022•32 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Chris Krewson is the executive director of Local Independent Online News Publishers, better known as LION Publishers . The national nonprofit aims at supporting local journalism entrepreneurs and has some 400 members. LION tapped Chris as its leader in 2019, and he brings significant digital experience to the job. In fact, he's had many prior lives. He was the top editor at Billy Penn , a mobile-first local start-up in Philadelphia launched by the legendary Jim Brady that’s now part of public ra...
Mar 21, 2022•47 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Pam Johnston , general manager for news with GBH, has a deep background in local television in Boston at WLVI, and earlier at local stations in Raleigh, North Carolina and Portland, Maine. At GBH, which is a public media company, she has a broad portfolio. She is responsible for news operations across all platforms, including radio, television and digital. She also supervises two NPR programs, GBH's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Pam joined GBH in 2012 as director of audience develop...
Mar 16, 2022•41 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Lex Weaver is editor-in-chief of The Scope at Northeastern University. The Scope is a digital magazine focused on telling stories of justice, hope and resilience in Greater Boston, with an emphasis on communities of color. Their mission: practicing journalism as an act of service. They work to amplify the voices of those overlooked by traditional media. Dan looks at The Boston Globe as it turns 150, and Ellen reports on a California bill aimed at funding local public interest journalism....
Mar 08, 2022•51 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Ken Doctor , a former Knight Ridder executive and longtime media analyst, recently rejoined the ranks of working journalists. He's the founder and CEO of Lookout Local , a digital local news site in Santa Cruz, California. Ken hopes that Lookout Local can provide a model of what works in the local news ecosystem. He says he wants to change the conversation....
Mar 02, 2022•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Babz Rawls Ivy is host and co-producer of LoveBabz LoveTALK on WNHH LP radio in New Haven. But that doesn't begin to describe her. So let's add a few more words: Force of nature. Wise presence. Storyteller. WNHH is a low-power FM community station launched seven years ago by the New Haven Independent , a pioneering online nonprofit news site. Paul Bass , founder and editor of the Independent, wanted to bring powerful local voices onto the airwaves. Babz Rawls Ivy brings truth-telling to a whole ...
Feb 23, 2022•30 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Lincoln Millstein played a critical role in launching The Boston Globe's free digital site, boston.com . Boston.com began as a portal, and carried Globe journalism but also curated other news sites and community blogs. It had a separate staff, and the office was in downtown Boston, not in the old Dorchester plant. Lincoln went on to be executive vice president at New York Times Digital, then moved on to the Hearst Corporation, where he held a number of different roles. When Lincoln retired as se...
Feb 16, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Inés San Martín and John Allen join the What Works podcast to discuss the founding of Crux , a digital site that covers all things Catholic, and the "corporate resurrection" that took place three days after The Boston Globe shut it down. Crux quickly partnered with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization, and now is a hybrid business model combining nonprofit support, crowd-funding and advertising. Ellen shares an update on a high-impact investigative project by Sahan Journal , ...
Feb 08, 2022•47 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Callie Crossley is a multitalented broadcast journalist and producer. She hosts Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and shares radio essays each Monday on GBH's Morning Edition. She hosts Basic Black , which covers news events that have an impact on communities of color. Her work on "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years" won numerous awards. She shares her views on the thinning out of local news outlets and offers a bit of advice for next-generation journalists....
Feb 01, 2022•42 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Myojung Chung and John Wihbey , colleagues from Northeastern University's School of Journalism, share the findings from their new working paper , published by Northeastern's Ethics Institute . They and their colleagues examined attitudes about the regulation of social media in four countries: the U.K., Mexico, South Korea and the U.S. With Facebook (or Meta) under fire for its role in amplifying disinformation and hate speech, their research has implications for how the platforms might be regula...
Jan 24, 2022•39 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Jaida Grey Eagle is a photojournalist working for the Sahan Journal in Minneapolis through Report For America . She is Oglala Lakota and was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and raised in Minneapolis. Her photography has been published in a wide range of publications, and featured on a billboard on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. She is also a co-producer of "Sisters Rising," a documentary film about six Native American women reclaiming person and tribal sovereignty in the face of sexu...
Jan 18, 2022•31 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Joshua Darr, a professor at Louisiana State University, is right in the What Works sweet spot: His research delves into the divisive partisan rhetoric that infuses our national political debate and whether communities with a vibrant local news source experience less polarization. Dan and Ellen talk with Joshua about his research, as well as the Trusting News project report on how local and regional news organizations can do a better job of connecting with conservative audiences. Dan offers a qui...
Jan 10, 2022•23 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Phil Balboni is a legendary figure in broadcast journalism, as well as the founder, president and CEO of GlobalPost, a highly acclaimed international news site. His list of awards is lengthy, and includes the Peabody, Murrow and Emmy. His latest venture is DailyChatter, a nonpartisan newsletter that covers international news. The Columbia School of Journalism recently announced that it was creating an endowed professorship in his honor. In this podcast, Phil talks about his passion for local new...
Jan 04, 2022•29 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Damon Kiesow is a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where he holds the Knight Chair in Digital Editing and Producing. But Dan and Ellen first met Damon about 10 years ago when he was at The Boston Globe, developing mobile products for Boston.com and BostonGlobe.com . He focuses on something called human-centered design: how readers interact with a print newspaper versus a digital site. Dan and Ellen also look at a collaborative effort to fight corruption in South Caro...
Dec 22, 2021•25 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 
