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Newspack: The year ahead
As we look to 2025, local journalism is at another inflection point, with fresh political, financial, and technological challenges looming. Press freedom is under assault. Audience attention is fragmenting. Trust in the media continues to erode. And the emergence of AI looms as a threat to even the most capable and forward looking organizations. Yet there is…
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Newspack names first Entrepreneur in Residence
I am pleased to announce that Scott Klein, who has played a key role in the development of several prominent news startups, will be joining Newspack as its first Entrepreneur in Residence. The position, funded with support from the Knight Foundation, is designed to help newsrooms around the country cover the U.S. elections by deploying…
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Newspack nets $5 million as part of Knight Foundation investment in local news
Newspack is among the recipients of a $15 million investment in local news that was announced by the Knight Foundation today. Newspack will receive $5 million to onboard and support hundreds of small and mid-sized news publishers on the platform, while our partners at BlueLena will receive an additional $2.25 million. The grants will be administered by the Local Independent Online…
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The Big Picture: Where Local Journalism Now Stands
The past few years have seen positive trends in local media-including increased diversity inside and atop newsrooms, significant revenue gains across the nonprofit sector and the creation of smart shared infrastructure-but the journalism business is far from out of the woods. Jim Brady, VP of Journalism for the Knight Foundation explored the current state of…
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Newspack marks its 200th launch: Reflections on the value of shared services for the future of news
The Better Government Association of Chicago and Signal Cleveland are separated by 100 years of history yet share remarkably similar missions. Founded in 1923 to promote voter participation, BGA is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative force that teams with other Chicago newsrooms to shed light on government activities and hold public officials to account. Signal is one of a…
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Poynter: How Newspack is working to crack the code on local news
Despite the pall that hangs over much of the news industry these days, there are real bright spots, even in smaller local markets where the effects of a now two-decade-long economic disruption have landed hard. As Poynter’s Rick Edmonds noted back in May, the local news digital startup scene is surging and looks significantly more promising…
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Addressing the crisis in local news
Efforts to address the crisis in local journalism have accelerated in recent years, but not fast enough to arrest a more than decade-long decline in news gathering capacity that many view as a profound threat to democracy. Google, Facebook, and Knight have committed close to $1 billion to the problem in just the last few…
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Facebook and Google: Help Out or Pay Up
First published on NiemanLab as part of their 2018 predictions for journalism. “Either Facebook and Google are platforms, in which case they need to manage their infrastructure in a way that allows independent journalism to thrive. Or they are publishers, in which case they need to provide direct financial support for the journalism their platforms…