A Harvard Business School professor found that when local news outlets shut down, corporate corruption goes up. Violations at local public companies rose 1.1 percent and financial penalties by 15 percent. Toxic emissions escalated to almost 20 percent after a newspaper ceased publication. (NiemanLab, January 3, 2022, by Ann Marie Lipinski)
Congress is considering measures to help news organizations. The measures provide tax credits for 50 percent of newsroom employees’ salary or up to $25,000 per employee in year one and up to $15,000 from years two through five. There are incentives to hire and retain reporters. Over 2,000 newspapers closed in the last 20 years and 100 since the start of the pandemic. (Poynter, April 8, 2022, by Dean Ridings)
Gannet announced that three suburban Boston weeklies will no longer publish print editions. The weeklies in Newton
Waltham and Watertown will either close down or merge in the shift to digital and regional coverage of local news. (Boston Globe, April 8, 2022, by Jon Chesto)
A public benefit corporation is buying 14 weekly suburban newspapers in New Jersey. While a public benefit corporation aims for a profit, it also considers the needs of society in its operations. (Media Nation, April 8, 2022, by Dan Kennedy)
A study in New Media & Society revealed that when corporate media take over local news outlets there is a decease in local content and less coverage of communities outside the city core. (NiemanLab, April 20, 2022, by Shraddha Chakradhar)
American seniors are stepping up to take places in newsrooms as the pandemic and lagging ad revenue has made it difficult for news outlets to retain staff. Report for America has been instrumental in placing seniors in newsrooms to cover under-reported issues. (AARP, April 5, 2022, by Jon Marcus)
Some retired reporters are even working for free doing serious investigative reporting. In North Carolina they established The Asheville Watchdog with a staff from big time news outlets. (Columbia Journalism Review, February 11, 2022, by Lauren Harris)
Quartz announced it is dumping its paywall. The paywall was limiting its influence in restricting the numbers of readers on its site. A leader in international business reporting, the company plans to start a free section on its site, “Guide to Making Business Better.” (Press Gazette, April 14, 2022, by Bron Maher)
In a surprising development, Amethyst J. Davis founded the Harvey World Herald to provide news for Harvey, Illinois, a town of 20,000, predominantly Black and Latino. Davis surveyed the community on what they wanted covered and on January 30 launched a weekly and website. (NiemanLab, March 16, 2022, by Shraddha Chakradhar)
A Detroit nonprofit news organization is joining with Detour Detroit to strengthen its ability to cover local issues. Outlier has been working to train people to actually bring information from public meetings to the public. (NiemanLab, March 15, 2022, by Laura Hazard Owen)
Rupert Murdock successfully worked the Australian parliament to pass a law requiring Facebook and Google to pay news organizations for content that appears on the platform’s pages. The resulting windfall estimated at over $150 million has allowed newspapers to retain reporting staff and extend coverage to under served parts of the country. Other countries passed similar laws or are considering them. Legislation in the U.S. Congress is stalled. (Columbia Journalism Review, March 9, 2022, by Bill Grueskin)
Nonprofit news enterprises funded by national foundations and institutions have sprung up in the U.S., notably, Cleveland’s Testify project covering criminal justice. The Testify project is using court records to investigate why 75 percent of incarcerated people in Cuyahoga County are Black. (Columbia Journalism Review, February 18, 2022, by Lauren Harris)