Local News & Information

The new public square is not centred on a stable set of shared sources; instead it is structured by a small number of competing, for-profit platform companies bundling a bewildering array of stuff for different people in different ways through various ranking and recommendation algorithms.

Audiences and advertisers seem to prefer this new reality, i... See more

The contract isn’t coming apart because people can’t access journalism, but because they increasingly don’t. People still want reliable, relevant information from sources independent of those in power in business and government. In fact, mountains of research suggest that people appreciate the ideal aspirations of journalism, and want news that hel... See more

This new form of local journalism has some common characteristics:

• Provides news and information through accessible products that address information gaps.


• Organizes and trains community members, building inclusive pipelines for involvement in journalism and media as civic engagement.


• Relies on stakeholder engagement and audience feedback loops to lea

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This research looks at the influence of three commonly cited features on the success of digital local news outlets: the background of the publisher, experimentation with different revenue streams, and the wealth of the surrounding community. Of the three, only the wealth of the community is statistically correlated with “success” (which we define a... See more

UW Madison professor of journalism, Sue Robinson, recently publishedHow Journalists Engage: A Theory of Trust Building, Identities, and Care . In it, she names the new roles and skill sets that those working in journalism need to invest in so that information can be used and trusted. They include:

• Relationship Builder


• Community Collaborator


• Community

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Local journalism, no matter what form it’s in, truly does contribute to the fabric of a community. You’re not going to find too many large market sources of news reporting on your local city council or the high school basketball scores. Things like that might sound silly to a lot of people but truly are important to small communities... Keeps us ti... See more