Meta Ended Its Fact-Checking Program — What Practitioners Should Note
The January 2025 shift to community notes ends paid third-party partnerships in the U.S. and moves the verification burden somewhere new.
Owen Blackwood
Writing a Conflict-of-Interest Policy a Small Newsroom Will Actually Use
In a newsroom where the editor covers her own church's fundraiser, the policy that works lists real local entanglements, sets a disclosure habit, and names who decides — in two pages.
Rosa Marchetti
When a Local Newsroom Shuts Down, What Happens to Its Archive?
Digital archives die quietly — domains lapse, servers expire — and the community loses its memory; the institutions rescuing them run on standards, deposits, and paperwork done before the end.
William Elliott
What the Local News Desert Numbers Actually Show
Northwestern Medill's reporting puts the loss at roughly a third of American newspapers since 2005 — the transferable lesson is narrower than the eulogy.
Nathan Brooks
How NewsMatch Actually Multiplies Newsroom Donations
A look inside the mechanics of the annual matching-gift campaign that has become a core fundraising engine for nonprofit newsrooms.
Nathan BrooksAnalysis & Opinion
What a News Desert Actually Measures — and What It Misses
The county-level count is the best supply map local journalism has, and it was never built to tell you whether anyone is at the council meeting.
What FOIA's Nine Exemptions Actually Let an Agency Withhold
The exemptions are permissions, not commands. Here is what each one covers, how the foreseeable harm standard narrows them, and the deadlines and appeal routes that decide whether a request produces records.
How Press Forward's $500 Million Actually Reaches Newsrooms
The philanthropic coalition's pledge moves through three separate channels, and only two of its 44 local chapters were taking applications when this was reported.
How to Cover the Local Housing Market With Public Data Nobody Else Reads
Permits, assessments, deeds, and HUD datasets turn housing coverage from vibes into numbers — a monthly routine a one-reporter desk can run with a spreadsheet.
Innovation
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What Engaged Journalism Actually Asks of a Reporter's Week
William ElliottHow Solutions Journalism Changes the Assignment Sheet, Not Just the Story
Reporting on responses to problems uses the same evidence discipline as reporting the problems — what changes is the question the desk asks on Monday morning.
Nathan BrooksJournalism
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How to Build a Corrections Policy Readers Can Find
Rosa MarchettiWhere Attribution Ends and Plagiarism Begins — a Line Every Desk Can Draw
The line is the reporting: facts are shareable, the work that gathered them is not, and crediting the outlet that did the digging is both ethics and self-interest for small newsrooms.
Nathan BrooksLocal
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How Local Newsrooms Partner With Student Journalists Without Exploiting Either Side
Rosa MarchettiWhat It Actually Takes to Serve a Bilingual Community Well
Translation is the last and cheapest step: serving a bilingual community means hiring from it, verifying in both languages, and publishing where each audience already is.
Nathan BrooksMedia News
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What Actually Counts as a "News Desert"
Owen BlackwoodWhy Nonprofit Newsrooms Are Leaning Harder on Big Donors
Editorial StaffBusiness News
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California Puts $20 Million Into Local Journalism Grants, Matched by Google
Nathan BrooksState Governments Will Spend About $74 Million on Local News in 2026
Public funding for local journalism is spreading across U.S. states despite political setbacks — tax credits, grant programs, and notice reforms, arriving with independence questions attached.
Nathan BrooksPublic Media Org Finance
Explore the data · Source: Internal Revenue Service