Event to save local news planned for May
Since 2015, more than 3,000 community news outlets have disappeared from the U.S. media landscape, creating sprawling news deserts. This study by the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University, projects further loss of local news creating a crisis of information in the coming years.
Determined to do its part to help stop this decline, the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism will focus this year’s Kiplinger Fellowship on “Saving Local News: A Practical Guide.” The fellowship, set to take place on campus, May 11-14, will host 32 fellows representing 17 states and four nations.
Victor Parkins, Publisher of the Chester County Independent, has been selected as one of the fellows.
“I am honored to have been chosen as a fellow and look forward to exploring new opportunities that can help our industry remain sustainable for the years to come,” Parkins said. “Newspapers like ours are very important to the communities we serve but we’re facing unprecedented challenges that are very concerning for our future.”
The fellows represent news leadership at small community publications, medium to large market TV newsrooms and a few niche publications.
Speakers for the fellowship will include experts from The Knight Foundation, Rebuild Local News, The American Press Institute, the Institute for Rural Journalism, the Local News Initiative, Press Forward and the Institute for Non-Profit News. Also featured will be news executives from local news groups in Michigan and Virginia. Ohio University faculty will also be involved.
“While this fellowship has a decidedly U.S. contingent, the loss of local news is a global issue,” Kiplinger’s Executive Director Kevin Z. Smith, said. “With each passing year, the struggles to maintain local news presence in many regions is overwhelming. Where we’ve seen local news outlets collapse, we’ve also seen a rise in people being disenfranchised from their local government, voting diminishes, political crimes rise, accountability is lost and these news vacuums lead to widespread misinformation.”
During the fellowship participants will discuss issues such as picking the best news model, making news decisions, fundraising, staffing, advertising, marketing and branding, subscriptions, using artificial intelligence and profit versus nonprofit models.
“It’s a shame what is happening to local news right now, so I’m so happy to see an organization as credible as the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism take up the cause,” OU Scripps School of Journalism Director Hans Meyers said. “I worked in local news for nearly a decade before going to graduate school, and I saw firsthand how important what local news organizations cover is. I’m confident these fellows at the instructors Kiplinger have found will present real, actionable solutions to the crisis and underscore the indispensable need for journalist to cover the communities in which they live.”
