Rhema Bland is the first permanent director of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting at the University of North Carolina school of journalism. She's a veteran journalist who has reported and produced for CBS, the Florida Times-Union, WJCT and the New York Daily News. The society's mission is essential to the future of the industry: to "increase the ranks, retention and profile of reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting."

Penelope (Penny) Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, arguably launched a movement with her path-breaking research on "news deserts" and the forces undermining community newspapers across the nation. Abernathy, a former executive with The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, was also Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina from 2008 to 2020. She talks about why this is a pivotal moment for community journalism, about her forthcoming research and about why her journalism students are still bullish on speaking truth to power at the local level. 

Art Cullen, editor of the twice-weekly Storm Lake Times in rural Buena Vista County, Iowa, tells the story of his fight for survival at a time when local papers across the country are cutting back and shutting down. The paper is the subject of a vivid documentary, "Storm Lake," that will be broadcast on most PBS stations on Monday, Nov. 15, at 10 p.m., including GBH-2 in Boston. 

Chris Lovett, longtime news director and anchor of the Boston Neighborhood Network News local cable access show, reflects on his career in community journalism, on camera and off. A Dorchester native, he's interviewed local activists, politicos and neighborhood stalwarts. And he's not done with journalism yet, so stay tuned.

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 news for newspaper readers in the town that inspired Frostbite Falls, home to Rocky and Bullwinkle.

In their first episode of the What Works podcast, Dan Kennedy of Northeastern University and veteran journalist Ellen Clegg discuss the crisis in community journalism, as well as promising initiatives aimed at solving it. Kennedy interviews Massachusetts Representative Lori Ehrlich, a Marblehead Democrat who has co-sponsored legislation to create a commission to assess the state of local journalism in the Commonwealth. As Ehrlich has said, the "lack of local news coverage is a fundamental threat to our democracy and civic society."