Dan and Ellen talk with John Mooney, the founder of NJ Spotlight News, a digital nonprofit that's part of NJ PBS, the state's public broadcasting network. Mooney, who covered education for The Star-Ledger in Newark, took a buyout in 2008, put together a business plan, and launched their site in 2010 under the auspices of the nonprofit Community Foundation of New Jersey.

 While Spotlight was making a mark journalistically, it wasn't breaking even, and its sponsor, the Community Foundation, was getting impatient. After extensive talks, Mooney affiliated with NJ PBS. The name changed to NJ Spotlight News, and the merger means true collaboration between the newsrooms. Both the broadcast and digital sides take part in news meetings. (In a previous podcast, Northeastern University professor and TV journalist Mike Beaudet discussed his initiative aimed at reinventing TV news for a vertical video age.) 

As Dan wrote in "What Works in Community News," the story of NJ PBS and NJ Spotlight News suggests that public broadcasting can play a role in bolstering coverage of regional and statewide news. It's a question of bringing together two different newsroom cultures. There’s also a Yo-Yo Ma angle!

Ellen has a Quick Take about the death of John Thornton, a venture capitalist who helped launch The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit newsroom in Austin, in 2009. He also was a founder of the American Journalism Project, which supports local digital newsrooms around the country. Thornton, who had struggled with mental health issues, took his own life. He was 59.

Dan has a Quick Take about our webinar on “The Ethics of Nonprofit News,” which was held the evening of April 3. Panelists gave great advice about what board members and donors need to know, and the video can be found on the website, whatworks.news. 

Dan and Ellen talk with Neil Brown, a longtime journalist who is the president of the Poynter Institute. For listeners who might not know, the Poynter Institute is a nonprofit based in St. Petersburg, Florida, that is devoted to teaching best practices in journalism. It is named for Nelson Poynter, the bow-tie-wearing legend who led the St. Petersburg Times to national recognition. The paper is now known as the Tampa Bay Times.

Poynter is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Dan has a Quick Take on President Trump’s bouncing tariffs. They’re on, they’re off, they’re on, they’re off. But his gyrations are having real consequences. In central New York State, Trump’s threats have killed a daily newspaper — and not just any paper. The Cortland Standard, one of the oldest family-owned papers in the country, folded in mid-March, as Trump’s proposed 25% tariff on Canadian newsprint proved to be the last straw.

Ellen's Quick Take comes from a tip from Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times who is a distinguished professor of the practice here at Northeastern.

Jeff Morrison, a journalist who is a member of the Iowa Writers' Collaborative, has compiled an incredible timeline of the decline of newspapers in Iowa. A highlight: The Storm Lake Times Pilot, a twice-weekly print paper featured in our book, "What Works in Community News," is dropping a print edition and going weekly.

Dan talks with Marta Hill, an extraordinary young journalist who he got to know during her time at Northeastern. Marta is currently a graduate student in the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program at New York University, where she’s also the editor-in-chief of Scienceline. In that role, she works with her peers at NYU to produce what she describes as “an accessible, down-to-earth science publication.” Marta is originally from Minneapolis, which makes it almost a tragedy that Ellen, a fellow transplant from the Twin Cities, couldn't be here. (Ellen will be back for our next podcast).

At Northeastern, Marta served in various capacities at The Huntington News, our independent student newspaper, including a one-year stint as editor-in-chief. She was also in Dan's media ethics and diversity class in the fall of 2023. Whenever Dan teaches ethics, a week gets devoted to talking about the harassment that journalists face both online and in real life. It’s a problem that’s been getting worse in recent years, and it’s something that young reporters in particular really have to think about before deciding whether to go into journalism full-time.

Marta decided she wanted to explore the issue of harassment and student journalism more deeply in the form of an honors project, and Dan was her adviser. She wrote a wide-ranging reported article, and a shorter version of that article was recently published by Nieman Reports, part of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. Her article, titled “J-schools Must Better Prepare Students for Handling Harassment,” lays out some concrete steps that journalism educators can take so that their students are not caught off guard when they encounter harassment at their student news outlet or on the job. 

Dan has a Quick Take on a new nonprofit initiative to bring more and better news to Tulsa, Oklahoma, a thriving metro area with nearly 700,000 people in the city and surrounding county. The area is currently served by the Tulsa World, a daily paper that’s part of the Lee Enterprises chain, which, like most corporate newspaper owners, has a reputation for aggressive cost-cutting. The new nonprofit, the Tulsa News Initiative, is built around a venerable Black newspaper, but there’s more to it than that. 

Dan and Ellen talk with Mike Beaudet, longtime investigative reporter for WCVB-TV and a multimedia professor at Northeastern's school of journalism. Mike has won many awards for his hard-hitting investigations and leads a project aimed at reinventing television news. On March 21 - 22, he'll lead a conference at Northeastern called "Reinvent: A Video Innovation Summit." 

Mike's students are producing content for everything from Instagram, YouTube to TikTok.

Dan has a Quick Take about the National Trust for Local News. Co-founder Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro exited the nonprofit suddenly last month. That came amid reports that the Portland Press Herald and other papers that the Trust owns in the state of Maine might soon announce budget cuts. Now comes more bad news. Colorado Community Media, a group of 24 weekly and monthly papers in the Denver suburbs, is closing two papers and is losing money. Those papers were the National Trust’s first acquisition. The Trust’s mission was to buy papers that were in danger of falling into the clutches of corporate chain ownership. It’s a worthy goal, but the Trust has obviously hit some significant obstacles.

Ellen has a Quick Take on the fact that Harvard University is shutting down Harvard Public Health, the digital home to stellar longform journalism about public health. At a time when the very facts of science are challenged on social media every day, this is disheartening news.

Dan and Ellen talk with Erica Heilman, who produces a podcast called Rumble Strip. Heilman's shows air monthly on Vermont Public and other NPR stations, as well as the BBC. Rumble Strip can also be found on all the usual podcast platforms.

Her episodes range in length from a few minutes to, well, as long as they need to be! As Chelsea Edgar wrote in a profile in Seven Days Vermont, "She wants to make meandering, kaleidoscopic stories about the stuff of ordinary Vermont life."

In 2020, Heilman produced a memorable pandemic miniseries, "Our Show." It featured listener-submitted recordings of life in lockdown, and it was the Atlantic's No. 1 podcast of the year. In November 2021 she produced "Finn and the Bell," the textured story of a Walden teenager who died by suicide. It won a Peabody, the highest award in broadcasting.

Dan has a Quick Take about tools for local news organizations dealing with various forms of harassment. The Institute for Nonprofit News, a leading organization for hyperlocal journalism, has put together some resources. Ellen has an update on Suki Dardarian, the retiring editor and senior vice president of the Minnesota Star Tribune. She has been named the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year by the National Press Club.

Dan and Ellen talk with Matt DeRienzo, the new director of SciLine. SciLine was founded seven years ago to make it easier for reporters to get in touch with scientists on deadline and to dig into research. And facts. The program is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 150-year-old organization that publishes the widely respected journal Science.

Most recently, Matt has been serving as temporary executive editor of Lookout Santa Cruz, the digital daily that won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2024.

He joins SciLine at an important time. The Trump Administration has suspended communications by government agencies that oversee science. Yet many newsrooms aren't equipped to cover this because they have cut back on science coverage, if they do any at all. SciLine helps reporters find expert sources and gives them the tools to interpret cutting-edge research. Matt has a staff of 14 and the organization seems poised for growth.

Dab has a Quick Take that hits close to home. By the time this podcast is up, a brand-new digital-only for-profit news outlet called Gotta Know Medford should be publishing. It’s the first time the city of 60,000 has had a dedicated local news outlet in three years, after it was abandoned by Gannett.

Ellen's Quick Take involves big changes in Maine. In Bangor, the Daily News, a family-owned paper, is cutting back on staff-written editorials and opening the pages up to new voices. Separately, at the National Trust for Local News, which acquired a slew of Maine papers in 2023, the CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, is stepping down. 

Today we're talking with Alison Bethel, chief content officer and editor-in-chief for State Affairs. State Affairs is a digital-first media company that is focused on covering state governments throughout the country. 

She was vice president of corps excellence at Report for America. She was also executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists, where she was only the second woman and the first person of color to serve in that capacity in 110 years.

Dan has a Quick Take on a harrowing situation in Grand Junction, Colorado. A young Colorado television reporter was reportedly chased by a taxi driver who then attempted to choke him. The driver also reportedly yelled “This is Trump’s America now!”

Ellen has a Quick Take on an app called WatchDuty that is providing lifesaving information to people in Los Angeles who are threatened by wildfires.

Dan and Ellen talk with Bill and Linda Forry, co-publishers of the award-winning Reporter Newspapers in Boston. Bill serves as editor, and Linda focuses on business development and strategic partnerships.

The Reporter Newspapers include the weekly Dorchester Reporter as well as Boston Irish and BostonHaitian.com. The publications and their websites are part of a media business owned and operated by the Forry family since 1973.

The Forrys were recently in the news. The Reporter is one of 205 news organizations in the U.S. to win an inaugural Press Forward grant to expand coverage of Boston’s underserved communities. Dan has a Quick Take on public radio. Put bluntly, public radio is in trouble, and not just NPR, which may be our leading source of reliable free news, but also public radio stations across the country. An important recent essay in Nieman Reports argues that the way forward for public radio stations may be to double down on local news. 

Ellen's Quick Take is on the NiemanLab predictions for the media industry in 2025. Every year, NiemanLab asks a select group of people what they think is coming in the next 12 months. Sam Mintz, the editor of Brookline.News, a digital outlet Ellen helped launch, is one of the prognosticators.

Ellen and Dan talk with Jeffrey Schwaner, executive editor of Cardinal News, a nonprofit digital news outlet covering Southwest Virginia. It also covers something called Southside Virginia, which is an area south of the James River, near Richmond. Since we're taping this in Boston, we'll ask him to explain their coverage area in more detail.

Jeff joined Cardinal News in September after nine years as a storytelling and watchdog coach — including five years as editor — of Gannett’s two Virginia newsrooms, the News Leader in Staunton and The Progress-Index in Petersburg. 

Dan has a Quick Take that explores a key question: Does a lack of local news correlate with support for Donald Trump? A new study by the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School finds that it does, although the writers caution that correlation is not causation. 

Ellen's Quick Take is on a mysterious website that popped up in Oregon after a 147-year-old paper called the Ashland Tidings folded. Called the Daily Tidings, it recently published story after story by a reporter named Joe Minihane, who supposedly skiied, hiked and ate his way through Southern Oregon. Except Minihane is based in the UK and doesn't know how his byline got hijacked. The stories are made up, perhaps by AI.

Dan and Ellen talk with Scott Brodbeck, founder and CEO of Local News Now.

Many of the news entrepreneurs on this podcast lead nonprofits. Local News Now is a for-profit. Scott owns and operates local news websites in three big Northern Virginia suburbs: Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax County.

Dan has a Quick Take about a corporate newspaper owner that is making a big bet on growth at a major metropolitan newspaper. In Georgia, Cox Enterprises is making a $150 million bet that it can transform The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If Cox is successful, it might serve as a model for other corporate newspaper owners.

Ellen has a Quick Take about a piece in the New Yorker by a writer named Nathan Heller. At first glance, it doesn't seem to relate to local news. In fact, the title is pretty wonky: The Republican Victory and the Ambience of Information. But Heller has some smart observations about how information travels in a viral age.