National Trust for Local News is taking nonprofit newspaper journalism rural; more acquisitions are in the works

This is the author's latest Sustaining Rural Journalism column for Publishers' Auxiliary, the monthly newspaper of the National Newspaper Association.

By Al Cross
Director emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism, University of Kentucky

Nonprofit newspaper journalism, until now largely a feature of urban areas, is going rural – especially if the National Trust for Local News keeps up what it’s doing and plans to do.

“By December, we will be the fifth largest independent newspaper operator in the country,” among those that are not publicly traded or owned by hedge funds, the trust’s chief portfolio officer, Ross McDuffie, told the New England Newspaper and Press Association conference Oct. 19.

The trust recently bought 22 newspapers in Maine, most of them rural weeklies, and two years ago bought 24 papers along Colorado’s Front Range. McDuffie said in an interview that the trust plans to announce acquisitions in Georgia next month. The Knight Foundation recently gave the trust $5 million to create a newsroom in Macon, where McDuffie was publisher of the Macon Telegraph.

The trust says it is exploring opportunities in Kentucky, Montana and New Mexico, and wants to create 10 independent, state-level conservancies serving 475 counties and 20 million people in the next five years, with a goal of having one in every state. It says its fundamental purpose is to “keep local news in local hands.”

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Ross McDuffie

At the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America in July, McDuffie said state-level nonprofits are “the most sustainable path forward for rural newsrooms.”

He told NENPA’s online meeting, “Our vision is to build and operate a federation of nonprofit subsidiaries that can sustain high-quality community journalism in small communities across the nation,” and to see that “established trusted news organizations thrive and remain grounded in the communities they serve.”

The trust gets its money to buy newspapers from donors, ranging from local individuals to major foundations. Those listed on its website include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations; in August the publication Semafor reported that OSF and Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, who is not listed on the trust’s website, “played a central role” in the Maine purchase. The trust denied that OSF committed money for the purchase, and OSF said its grants to the trust “have not included money for specific projects.”

The trust wouldn’t comment on Wyss (who earlier tried to buy Tribune Co.) and said it would tell more about the funders when its Maine advisory board was constituted in September. Asked Oct. 24 when that was going to happen, McDuffie said the board will make that decision and its membership still hasn’t been finalized, but “There is a real desire to have that constituted by the end of the year.”

The trust is still raising startup money in Maine. McDuffie told NENPA that the trust has raised $18.1 million for a two-year, $22 million “transformation” plan that includes unifying three operating businesses and expanding commercial printing, because “We believe in print and its longevity and its ability to serve an audience.”

He said the trust wants to “rejuvenate” its community newspapers, most of which are weeklies; “significantly boost” household penetration; and raise funds from “a very large and curious audience” in Maine. But one of his PowerPoint slides said the goal is to operate “as a sustainable news enterprise that does not require ongoing general support from philanthropy.”

As with for-profit enterprises, bigger is better, McDuffie said: “As we scale rapidly, we are uncovering more opportunities to leverage efficiencies of scale . . . that were only previously available to large media conglomerates or corporations,” such as buying power for paper, employee benefits, digital transformation and attracting talent.

He said the trust has raised $30 million across geographical, ideological, generational and programmatic lines that usually separate philanthropies, and “Funders are having a consistent and palpable reaction to our narrative within the first few minutes of hearing our story.”

Much of the philanthropy for local journalism has gone to startups, mostly online, but they are almost entirely based in urban areas, and McDuffie and others believe philanthropists need to look at funding the purchase of legacy newspapers to prevent the creation of news deserts in rural areas.

“With sufficient capital and expertise, conserving and transforming existing news sources IS an efficient way to strengthen democracy and support that civic and social fabric of small towns and rural communities,” he told NENPA, emphasizing the verb.

“These communities need reinvestment in the newsgathering teams that have spent decades of building trust and credibility,” he continued. “The creation of these state-level conservancies amalgamate legacy ownership into one operating model and unlock efficiencies of scale while keeping quality local news as the North Star of decision-making, as opposed to what’s happening at other larger, conglomerate, corporate media, where profits or shareholder value are typically the nexus of decision-making. It’s a difference of motivation.”

He said the need is greatest in the Southeast, where the trust estimates that 23 million people are at risk of losing their only local news provider. That’s more than half its estimate of 45 million in 1,424 counties – 45 percent of the nation’s counties. The estimates are based on counties with median household income below the national average.

The trust figures that in every state in the Southeast (including both Virginias), more than half of counties are at risk of becoming permanent news deserts. It estimates that is also the case in Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Nevada.

To the NENPA attendees, McDuffie rattled off the impact of news deserts, as established by research: higher taxes and borrowing costs, more government employees, decreased visibility of government decision-making, and more corruption and misuse of public funds.

And there’s a more fundamental threat. “There’s no democracy that can function without a shared understanding of what’s true and what’s not,” McDuffie said, in one of the pithier versions of that warning I have heard.

In an era of misinformation, including disinformation by political interests who want to control narratives to serve their own interests, news consumers will be skeptical of out-of-state outfits that use billionaires’ money to buy their local newspapers. So the trust will need a broad range of in-state funders, and boards that will help insulate the funders from the newsrooms.

McDuffie says its news outlets follow the transparency guidelines of the Institute for Nonprofit News, requiring website publication of donors of $5,000 or more, and the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. He said funders know the trust’s editorial-independence and non-interference polices, and “Our local newsroom staff are the only people who will decide what stories to pursue, the timing of those stories, and their content.”

In a distrustful information environment, the trust’s newsrooms may have to prove that every day. But if they do, the nonprofit option is a promising long-term path for sustaining rural journalism.

Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Democracy depends on newspapers, and the big threat is outside metro areas, newspaper chain executive warns

Bill Ketter with his Wells Key award from SPJ and fellow CNHI
executives Matt Gray, left, and Jim Zachary (Photo by Al Cross)

By Al Cross

Director emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism, University of Kentucky

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The future of democracy depends on newspapers, and “The greatest threat to democracy is in the small towns and cities of America,” the top news executive of one of the country's largest newspaper chains said Saturday in accepting the Society of Professional Journalists’ top award.

William Ketter, CNHI’s senior vice president for news, was awarded the Wells Key for service to SPJ, of which he has been a member for 62 years, since he was a student at the University of North Dakota.

“Newspapers and democracy go hand in glove,” said Ketter, who guided the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune of Massachusetts to the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting and was president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1995.

“Democracy is dying. It is absolutely dying,” Ketter declared, saying that school boards and local governments are being taken over by “far right” activists, largely unchallenged. He said many local newspapers, weakened by the loss of advertising and circulation, can’t handle “some of the anti-press attitudes that are being fostered in America.”

Ketter decried the efforts of local governments to get state legislatures to weaken laws that require local governments and other entities to run paid public-notice advertisements in local papers. “Those notices are what help small-town newspapers, and in small cities, survive,” because they can no longer depend on retail advertising, Ketter said, noting that in some places, governments have stopped placing the ads in newspapers whose coverage they don’t like.

“It’s not just about newspapers, it’s about democracy,” Ketter said. “The two are tied together.”

Ketter said he was glad to see the SPJ Foundation exploring an effort to see how it might funnel contributions to community news media or otherwise help them. He is on the foundation's board.

Like other speakers at SPJ’s annual awards banquet, Ketter said he was inspired by others who were recognized, including the late Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter who was murdered – allegedly by a public official he was investigating. The official is now on trial. Outgoing SPJ President Claire Regan said it was “the first time in modern American history that a sitting public official was charged with the murder of a journalist over news coverage.”

Pulitzer winner Dana Priest of the University of Maryland and The Washington Post, one of the newest SPJ fellows, said “I can’t tell you how inspired I have been to be here,” away from “the East Coast media bubble. . . . You guys are heroes because you keep government on their toes.”

National Trust for Local News officer says nonprofits best hope for rural news; reports on survey of rural publishers

State-level nonprofits or "conservancies" are "the most sustainable path forward for rural newsrooms," the chief portfolio officer of the National Trust for Local News said Friday at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America.

Ross McDuffie

Ross McDuffie spoke four days before the Trust announced creation of its second such conservancy by buying most of the newspapersowned by the owner of most newspapers in Maine, the second most rural state by population. Two years ago it bought 24 rural and suburban papers in Colorado, and it says it is working to make similar purchases in other states.

McDuffie said that a nonprofit umbrella organization "creates the scale without trivializing the localness that makes these organizations special and essential to the communities that they serve. . . .You unlock efficiencies of scale while keeping quality local news as its North Star, as opposed to what happens most often at these publicly traded corporate media houses where the North Star is profit or shareholder value."

McDuffie's remarks came with his report on a survey of 39 rural newspaper publishers that found 10 of them did not expect to be in operation five years from now, while only one expressed concern that their newspaper would close in the next 12 months.

The survey was conducted online June 6-23 among a random sample drawn from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues' database of rural newspapers. Institute Director Al Cross noted that the 39 were "people who are willing to respond to a survey," and McDuffie said they "are likely going to be more optimistic and and wanting to share that in a survey."

The survey found that 15% of the publishers' newspapers had no digital presence at all, and "over half had fewer than 500 digital paying subscribers," McDuffie said. "These results point to a lot of work that's needed, but I'm an optimistic guy, and I see a lot of room for optimism here. . . . There's lots of room for growth in revenue diversification right there."

While rural newspapers still survive mainly on display advertising, and increasingly public-notice ads, "We cannot sit idly and push off and kick the can down the road on building our digital future because we have those revenue streams," McDuffie said. "Now we have to take advantage of them and the profit that they do generate, even if it is minimal, and recognize that as runway to help future-proof organizations."

McDuffie said the survey showed that "These publishers are very dedicated to their communities and have spent years and decades cultivating the trust of those communities and the readers in those communities. Their challenge now is finding opportunities to collaborate at scale beyond the sharing of just content, or maybe revenue sharing and agreements on ad sales. Operational efficiencies are very, very hard to come by for this group."

At the same time, he added, "These smaller news organizations are fertile ground for product innovation, because we can experiment with purpose at minimal cost. We can do that at small scale. And we can fail. And that that be okay, right? We an fail forward, I think, is the way to look at it. and we can try different things quickly. And at minimal cost."

McDuffie, a former executive with Lee Enterprises and the McClatchy Co., said there is more potential in existing publications than "ground-up restarts," which most rural communities are unlikely to support. "These communities need reinvestment in the newsgathering teams that have spent decades, and in many cases centuries, building trust and community and and credibility in those communities," he said.

He said their success will depend not only on "the communities they serve," but "also the greater philanthropic community," from which the Trust gets its money to buy newspapers. "We've got to find alternative sources for funding and transformation," he said. "There also has to be access to subject-matter expertise . . . without adding additional burden to the expense line."

And where will rural newspapers, which already find it difficult to find qualified staff, attract talent even if they have philanthropic money to do it? "The combination of lower cost of living can make rural newsrooms great training grounds for new reporters, as long as those reporters see an opportunity to hone their skills and experiment with new tech and with innovation and local news," McDuffie said.

"I don't think that these reporters are are choosing to not work in rural news organizations because they just have some, you know, some adverse relationship with rural America. I think that what they want to see is, they're gonna join an organization where they can learn where they can experiment with new things where they can push the limits, maybe a little bit where they can put together an email newsletter strategy and be a part of that growth. We have a story to tell for young journalistic talent in rural newsrooms, but we have to be really aggressive in telling it and going after top talent."

Apply by Aug. 6 for 4-day statehouse reporting seminar in Madison, with travel and almost all other expenses covered

"The most consequential political issues of our time are being decided in statehouses across the country. For journalists on the front lines, the stakes have never been higher, as partisan positions have only hardened with a new presidential election cycle looming in 2024," says the National Press Foundation, which will hold a four-day training conference in Madison, Wisconsin, Sept. 18-21.

The foundation will cover airfare, ground transportation, hotel costs and most meals. Competitive applications for this free training are due Aug. 6. APPLY HERE.

NPF says it "has assembled a team of expert speakers and instructors to help guide journalists through the thicket that is the legislative process, where hard-ball politics makes the job of accountability and the search for the truth even tougher."

NPF adds, "The training will be held from 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 18 to 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21. Attendance is mandatory for all sessions, and editors must commit to freeing their reporters from daily news obligations during the conference. . . . We greatly value diversity in all our programs and particularly seek applications from local and nonprofit news organizations, journalists covering communities that have been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic; Black, Indigenous and other journalists of color; and those who do public-interest reporting in and about news deserts."

News-media news: Future Journalists of America in Oregon; Community Newspaper Week in Nebraska; a job posting . . .

Senior Adri Jolie: “FJA has given me the opportunity

to become a better journalist and to find self-expression

while self-reflecting on the type of media I consume.” 

High-school students in central Oregon have completed their first year in the Future Journalists of America program hosted by The Bulletin in Bend and created by the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism, a nonprofit founded by EO Media Group, the newspaper's parent company. "The nonprofit’s mission is to stem the decline in Oregon journalism through innovative programming and advocacy," the Bulletin's Jody Lawrence-Turner reports. The teens "learned how to practice quality journalism in rural and metro newsrooms," and gained media literacy through lessons provided by The News Literacy Project, "and designed and launched a digital publication where they’ve published dozens of stories and podcasts," the Bulletin reports. "The two-year program not only inspires youth to pursue a career in journalism, it’s also a path to increasing newsroom diversity and sharing skills for sustaining a digital publication. It demonstrates journalism is evolving to adapt to the digital age, not dying, and there are multiple paths to a career in journalism." The three graduating seniors in the program will study journalism in college. Of the 16 active in the program, four were students of color.

This is Community Newspaper Week in Nebraska, and the McCook Gazette took the opportunity to remind its readers why local journalism is important: "Newspapers provide small communities with a dedicated source of local news, promote community engagement and unity, preserve local history, support local businesses, and ensure that information reaches all residents. Their role in keeping communities informed, connected, and empowered cannot be overstated."

The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying (PRESS) Act has been reintroduced in Congress, CNN reports: "The legislation, which passed the House last year but did not get a vote in the Senate, would safeguard journalists in two important ways. First, it would prevent the government from compelling reporters from being forced to disclose their sources. Second, it would ensure that important data held by a third party, such as a phone or internet company, cannot be seized without notice and providing the ability to challenge the move in court."

Foothills Forum, the foundation that supports reporting at the Rappahannock News in northern Virginia, is seeking a full-time general-assignment reporter, "which will be a significant addition to their current small group of part-time contributors," News Publisher Dennis Brack tells The Rural Blog. Click here for the job posting. Here's a profile of the weekly's new editor.

News-media roundup: Unionized Gannett staffers walk out to protest CEO; company gets competition in New Mexico

Employes at 24 of the 50 unionized newsrooms of Gannett Co. will walk out Monday (and maybe also Tuesday in some cases) to protest how the company is handling its business, The Washington Post reports.

In a northwest New Mexico market where Gannett has cut back its Farmington Daily Times, the owners of the Durango Herald in southwest Colorado have started the Tri-City Record, a five-day-a-week free publication, Editor & Publisher reports. 

Writing for E&P, veteran marketer Bob Sillick lays out "membership models that create value for readers" of newspapers.

Sarabeth Berman, CEO of the American Journalism Project, discussses with the Observer how to generate philanthropic support for local journalism. John Palfrey, presiddnet of the MacArthur Foundation, says "there are hundreds of promising new and re-energized philanthropic investment opportunities in the field of journalism."

The school committee in Amherst, Mass., is looking for a new superintendent after the student newspaper at Amherst Regional High School, The Graphic, reported accusations that counselors at the school had mistreated LGBTQ+ students, WBUR reports.

Gordon Wolf, longtime editor of the Denison Bulletin-Review in western Iowa, lost his job in a Lee Enterprises cutback. Now he's with the recioal Hispanic paper, the Carroll Times Herald reports. 

"Strengthening rural journalism will save small towns, and our democracy," writes Willliam McKenzie, senior editorial adviser at the George W. Bush Institute, and contributing columnist and former staffer at the Dallas Morning News. He says "These public and private sector efforts would help:

• Congress should consider tax laws that make it easier for struggling newspapers to become nonprofit publications.
• Lawmakers could allow subscribers to deduct their subscriptions from their taxes, just as taxpayers can do for contributions to public broadcasting operations.
• Rural papers could share back-office operations, perhaps with a larger news outlet, thereby allowing the smaller community papers to focus more of their resources on reporting.
• Nonprofit funders could help create more collaboratives like the Nebraska Journalism Trust that allow news to be shared across local communities."

Football documentary latest effort by 'This Place', a series of reports about what unites and divides a rural Va. county

Screenshot; for the 7:45 documentary, click here.

A video documentary about the local high school's football season is the latest installment in an innovative series of reports by one of Virginia's smallest rural newspapers, bolstered by a local foundation that raises and provides money for special reporting projects.

"How 8-man Football United Rappahannock County" tells how going to a smaller team and a smaller league "provided a giant lift to the school and helped unite the community around a single cause, the Rappahannock News reports. "The team went 6-5 in the Panthers’ best-ever football season, despite a disappointing ending last week with a 52-6 loss to Virginia Episcopal School in the first round playoffs. But the season’s Hollywood-movie highlight came Oct. 14 at RCHS’ Homecoming contest against Chincoteague — with a last-second, come-from-behind 36-33 win before a record crowd at Panther Stadium."

The 7-minute, 45-second documentary was financed by Foothills Forum, the foundation that raises as much as $200,000 for journalism in the county of about 7,400 people. It is part of “This Place,” a series that explores “”what divides us — and unites us — in Rappahannock County,” the News explains. “'This Place' is grounded in months of research by a team of Rappahannock News reporters and Foothills Forum volunteers who conducted interviews with dozens of county residents of diverse political, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, most of whom said there has been an increase in divisiveness and conflict in recent years.

“This documentary was made by the Rappahannock-based team of award-winning photographer Luke Christopher and editor-composer Roger Piantadosi, a former Rappahannock News editor. Other videos in the series include the Cancer Is Messy event at Eldon Farms benefiting families who endure childhood cancer, and the Amissville parade and carnival that returned in August after a two-year pandemic-pause.”

Save small-town papers for community identity, not just for democracy, Report for America's Steven Waldman says

The "general national crisis" in local journalism "is as severe if not more severe in small-town America," Report for America President Steven Waldman, a longtime student of local journalism, said at last weekend's convention of the Society of Professional Journalists in Washington, D.C.

Speaking at a session on preserving local journalism, Waldman said 90 percent of "news deserts" are in counties with populations of less than 50,000, with 85 to 90% of those having only one newspaper. What he didn't say, but knows, is that many of those newspapers are struggling to fulfill their role as servants of local democracy. He said local papers are important not just for accountability reporting, but for "the nature of community itself," creating community identity and helping community members know each other.

Steven Waldman

Waldman told the audience of student and professional journalists that there has "long been a sense that community journalism is where you cut your teeth" and qualify to move up, but "I've kind of flipped on that . . . Community journalism, given what's going on in our country right now, is almost as important as accountability journalism."

Waldman said about a quarter of the last class of Report for America reporters were in rural areas. He said "small-town media is facing particular challenges right now" because it can't get the extraterritorial audience that national and large regional papers can, and "There has to be a role for the nonprofit sector and philanthropy" in rural news media -- and a role for government.

Waldman heads the Rebuild Local News Coalition, which favors a refundable tax credit for newsroom payrolls, which would probably be "the largest government support for local news in our history," rivaling the postal subsidy that has helped newspapers since the founding of the republic. He said the idea came very close to passing Congress this year.

Highlighted at the same session was the Rappahannock News, a weekly in rural Northern Virginia that has benefited from the proximity of Washington and Foothills Forum, a local foundation that has funded in-depth reporting by raising up to $200,000 a year. Andy Alexander, a Cox Newspapers retiree who heads the foundation, said many people don't realize what narrow margins rural papers have: "You're being published, so you must be all right; it's very close to the line."

Alexander said the paper and the foundation have more stories than people to do them, so they are training citizens to be reporters. "There are a lot of people out there who can cover news on the margins," he said.

Waldman said the future of local news rests on a three-legged stool: changes in public policy, increases in philanthropic support, and improvement of the local news product. As we have said since the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, "People aren't going to pay good money for bad journalism." --Al Cross, director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

International Day of Democracy is Thursday, Sept. 15; social-media effort and Twitter Spaces events start today

Updated with new information Sept. 12.

The International Day of Democracy, started by the United Nations in 2007, is Thursday, Sept. 15. It may never have been more timely, and journalists at all levels in all countries have a stake in it. So do their audiences, which probably need a reminder of that.

Several journalism organizations have organized a U.S.-specific observance, which will start with a Twitter Spaces event at 2 p.m. ET Monday, Sept. 12: "How grassroots journalism can strengthen democracy." Another will be held on Democracy Day: "How newsrooms are carving out beats dedicated to democracy." For an introductory one-hour video with opening remarks by Jay Rosen of New York University (who explains why covering democracy is like covering no other beat) and Michael Bolden of the American Press Institute, click here.

The Kettering Foundation, which asks "What does it take to make democracy work as it should?" and focuses public deliberation as part of democracy, says it will mount a social-media campaign to direct attention to the International Day of Democracy starting Monday, Sept. 12.

"We want to flood social media," Kettering says. "Participation is easy. Simply take a piece of paper and write in large print your answer to the prompt: #DemocracyIs ______________. And feel free to write your answer in your language of choice. Then, take a selfie and post it! When you post, remember to use the hashtags: #DemocracyIs and #KetteringFoundation."

Here are links to Kettering on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram and a video:

#DemocracyIs from Kettering Foundation on Vimeo.

Rural news outlets need help from colleges and universities and local funders, Center for Community News director says

"Leveraging resources from colleges and universities" is one way that rural communities can sustain local journalism that supports local democracy, says the director of a new center that is trying to track down all available examples of such partnerships and help them be succesful.

Richard Watts

Richard Watts of the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont has been helping local newspapers for three years by training citizens to report for them. “More importantly, they're getting more young people involved in newspapers, and that value is inestimable,” Tim Calabro, editor and publisher of The White River Valley Herald, a weekly in Randolph, Vt., told Buck Ryan, a University of Kentucky journalism professor.

Ryan's report for The Rural Blog includes a Q-and-A with Watts, beginning with the question about sustainability of rural journalism, which was the focus of the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America held by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes TRB.

In addition to help from academics and their students, Watts said rural news outlets also need to "diversify their revenue streams, train citizen reporters and encourage local ownership." Citing Watts's success at getting a $200,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Ryan asked him what he could share about building "profitable partnerships."

First, "Go where the money is in local foundations. and look for companies that have an interest in seeing local news continue," Watts said. He said an electric utility and the Vermont Humanities Council gave his Community News Service $10,000 each to cover energy and the arts, respectively. "They don’t tell us what to write, just to write more" on those topics, he said.

"An organization focused on Lake Champlain gave us funding to seed more stories about the lake region," Watts added. "Our biggest success, however, has come from individual donors who care about local news, democracy and involving young people. Together we have raised more than $200,000 in the last few years to support community news from individuals." For Ryan's full report, with details about from Watts about working with student and citizen journalists, go here.

Weekly newspaper in Iowa wouldn't have survived without gifts, including small ones, Pulitzer-winning editor says

Art Cullen (Photo by Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio)

The Storm Lake Times Pilot of northwest Iowa is freshy robust, having bought its in-town competitor and a weekly in the next county, thanks to a big gift from a California philanthropist. But the Storm Lake Times would have died without smaller, earlier, gifts, Pulitzer Prize-winning Editor Art Cullen told Iowa Public Radio last week.

"This newspaper war was killing both newspapers," Cullen told Ben Kiefer. "We were losing gobs of money. Something had to change." Cullen and his brother John had both gone off the payroll after going on Social Security. With other papers they formed a foundation that helped keep them afloat. "We couldn't have done this without philanthropy, and we couldn't do the journalism we're doing," Art said. "We wouldn't exist. We would have closed last year. And I bet the [Storm Lake] Pilot-Tribune was pretty close to it; I don't know."

One of the givers to the foundation was John Tu, a Taiwanese American billionaire who had donated after hearing Art on Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" show on NPR. Art reached out to him when another newspaper owner said he was willing to buy some local papers, including the Cullens' competitor, and sell it and another to the Cullens. "We said, 'Sure, but we don't have any money.' We're broke, and we couldn't even make a downstroke," Art recalled. "So, I emailed this person who'd given us money. He was a California technology guy. His name was John, too, and he pledged to support us. And if he hadn't done that, we couldn't have bought these newspapers. … We wanted to make sure that our employees had health insurance, and that they were paid a decent wage. Those are the only things he cares about. He just wants to make sure that Storm Lake has a strong newspaper. And it's just incredible. It's like he's an angel. He's never been to Iowa, I don't think, but he really cares about democracy.

"We couldn't have done this without philanthropy, and we couldn't do the journalism we're doing. We wouldn't exist. We would have closed last year. And I bet the Pilot-Tribune was pretty close to it, I don't know. But we wouldn't be here if it weren't for the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, which is a nonprofit foundation to support independent, family-owned newspapers in Iowa. And, uh, so we really need philanthropy, I think, for the next five years until we can build these digital products that can sustain themselves."

Five-star restaurant and boutique hotel dominates a rural Virginia town, even the county, and it plans to get bigger

The new Patty O's replaced a local cafe. "A contractor floated the idea of saving money by installing painted Styrofoam beams," Tim Carrington reports. The idea was "waved away derisively" by the owner. (Luke Christopher, Foothills Forum)

About 225 people work at The Inn at Little Washington, a boutique hotel with a five-star restaurant in the county seat of Rappahannock County, Virginia, which was created before Washington, D.C., which lies 90 miles to the west and provides much of the enterprise's business. IT's the county's largest private employer, and it wants to get even bigger and "translate its dazzling culinary success to a broadened hospitality and retail enterprise," Tim Carrington reports for the Rappahannock News and the Foothills Forum, a local philanthropy that bolsters the weekly newspaper's coverage.

Rappahannock County (Wikipedia map)

The story is not just a news feature. Carrington writes, "In a county marked by divisive fights over new structures and new ideas, the Inn’s inventions might be expected to ignite the next culture war. In the 1990s, some local residents railed against the Inn’s postcard-perfect renovations and its parade of glitzy visitors. And the more recent displacement of the humble Country Cafe to make room for the upscale Patty O’s stirred resentful notes on the county’s RappNet listserv. But Washington residents have become accustomed to living in a company town, aware that the Inn generates as much as $600,000 in meals and lodging taxes for Washington’s coffers. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that another 10 rooms would harvest an additional $100,000 in taxes for the town."

That's a lot of money for a town of only 130 people. The inn owns 25 structures in Washington, and has only 23 rooms, most of which cost over $1,000 a night. It wants to add as many as 10, plus an event space, pool, fitness center and spa, and maybe cottages "for guests seeking regular access with few maintenance burdens," Carrington reports. "A meal for two at the Inn – after a bottle of wine and payment of state and county taxes – tops $600."

The proprietor and chef is Patrick O'Connell, 76. Carrington writes, "A recent documentary features O’Connell about to sample an offering from a nervous sous-chef seeking approval; the fork poised mid-air, a smiling O’Connell says, 'It’s either art or it’s garbage.'" The restaurant is the world's longest-tenured Forbes Travel Guide five-star eatery, one of 14 Michelin Star restaurants in the U.S. and the only one on the East Coast outside New York City. The hotel is the longest-tenured American Automobile Association 5 Diamond Award winner for combined accommodation and restaurant.

Journalists who chronicled rural America by prop plane will tell the stories of towns transformed through local innovation

Deborah and Jim Fallows

Journalists Jim and Deborah Fallows spent five years writing about small towns and their newspapers for The Atlantic, parlaying their their travels via a small plane into a best-selling 2018 book and an HBO documentary. Last year the husband and wife founded the Our Towns Civic Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to sharing the stories of community innovators who are driving positive change at the local level.

Our Towns is partnering with nonprofit Community Heart & Soul to share stories of renewal in small cities and towns across the nation, and your town could be one of them. CH&S facilitates community growth through training and supporting a network of coaches who help residents identify what they love most about their town, what future they want for it, and how to achieve it.

More than 100 small cities and towns nationwide are using this model, and CH&S is currently offering $10,000 seed grants to qualifying communities (pop. 2,500 to 30,000) that want to start the process too. The grants require a $10,000 cash match from the participating community or a partnering organization. Learn more about the seed grants here.

The Fallowses lauded CH&S in a press release announcing the partnership: "The Community Heart & Soul process is both distinctive and replicable. It guides the way for residents to listen to the stories they tell each other about their towns, to reach common community goals, and to transform those goals into actions for change that can be measured and sustained."

CH&S Executive Director Mark Sherman, in turn, said the organization is "thrilled" with the partnership: "Storytelling is an integral part of the Community Heart & Soul process, and the Fallowses and their Our Towns team are masterful storytellers. I can think of no two people I would rather have help us spread the word about CH&S than Jim and Deb Fallows."

Weekly editor in Tennessee follows through on his public promise to report on drug addiction, and does it prominently

Bradley Martin

Rural weekly editor Brad Martin of Centerville, Tenn., is following through on his commitment to report on the crippling impact of drug addiction in his Tennessee county, holding up an uncomfortable mirror to his community on a topic that most rural newspapers pigeonhole as crime news.

Drug overdose deaths in Hickman County nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020, Martin recently reported in an above-the-fold story in the Hickman County Times. In addition to a sensitive, in-depth treatment of the phenomenon, he also showed the increasing danger of fentanyl by running a huge chart with an annual breakdown of what caused all county overdoses from 2017 to 2020.

On the opinion page, Martin's "From the porch" column reported that a local drug detective had heard this chilling scenario, not confirmed locally: "Fentanyl parties, 'where six or seven people get together,' with the lethal drug along with some Narcan and what he described as a 'designated driver.' That’s the person who does not partake but is prepared to apply Narcan 'to bring someone in the group back after an overdose'."

Hickman County (Wikipedia map)

That may be a myth, but the drug epidemic is fact, and Martin's column encourages readers to attend tonight's meeting of a local foundation "where addiction is front and center." He recalls how the county favorably responded to a rash of suicides in 2003. "I don’t think drug addiction is quite the same thing, but when a community comes together (witness: floods), things have been known to improve," he writes. "We have nothing to lose, and I must reiterate here that our absent friend, Superman, still is not expected to show up and save us."

Martin has been writing stories and columns on the topic since at least last December. In late January, he told readers that he intended to report on an aspect of drug addiction once a month this year. to download pages with his latest work on the topic, click here.

Grant funds Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, a reporting network based at Missouri School of Journalism

The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water desk website has this map of the basin.

The Mississippi River basin, which covers almost half the continental United States, will be the focus of "a collaborative network of journalists focused on increasing coverage of agriculture, water and environmental issues," based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk is funded with a three-year, $1.4 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation, which a university news release calls "a leading funder of environmental journalism in the United States."

By partnering with Report for America, the network will put 10 journalists in newsrooms in the region to cover issues such as pollution, flooding, land use and climate change, with training and mentorship from the journalism school, along with experts from the Society of Environmental Journalists. The journalists will also be supported by five veteran journalists from the region who will serve as advisers and collaborators.

Content will be delivered to regional and national audiences. The journalism school will hire an editorial director and associate director to help run the program. Sara Shipley Hiles, an associate professor, is executive director of the project. Earnest Perry, associate dean for graduate studies and research, and Ryan Famuliner, associate professor and news director at KBIA-FM, are advisers.

The network will be "a signature program of the School of Journalism’s emerging Center for Science Communication, which will include the development of student courses in immersive, multi-platform storytelling," the release says. David Kurpius, dean of the journalism school, said, “In our service to the public, it is important that journalists are able to help translate these very complex ecological issues to the communities we serve.”

Applications are being accepted from newsrooms for the 10 Report for America positions. Applications for the five veteran journalist positions will open in August.

Feature article lauds Institute for Rural Journalism

Al Cross speaks to Latin American journalists visiting Bardstown,
Kentucky, in 2019. (Photo by Forrest Berkshire, Kentucky Standard)

A new feature article from the University of Kentucky provides a lovely retrospective on, and overview of, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

UK co-founded IRJCI in 2004 with Al Smith, longtime friend and mentor of political reporter Al Cross who became director and started The Rural Blog shortly thereafter. "Hampered by socioeconomic conditions and population decline, local newspapers in Central Appalachia had been weakened," Akhira Umar reports for UKNow. "Cross saw the need for reliable journalism that provided leadership on local issues. Shortly after its inception, Cross broadened the reach of The Rural Blog to rural journalists across the nation, who were feeling the same pressures as those in Eastern Kentucky."

"I can’t overstate the value of the IRJCI and the impact it has on rural newspapers and rural journalists,” Kentucky Press Association President Sharon Burton told Umar. Burton, of Columbia, Kentucky, is the publisher of the Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride, a statewide agricultural newspaper. "I’ve attended seminars; I’ve picked up the phone because I needed sound advice from a trusted friend; I’ve learned of news topics of interest to my community — all through the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. When rural journalists are invited to the table, it reminds us that what we do is just as important as providing national or state news coverage."

The story also highlights IRJCI's other publications. Kentucky Health News, launched in 2011 with funding from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, "has been an invaluable source of information to the entire state throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. This publication focuses on health issues in a state that is one of the nation’s least healthy," Umar reports.

In 2008 Cross began the Midway Messenger, a mostly online newsroom for nearby Midway, Kentucky, run entirely by journalism students. "It’s hard to overstate the importance of The Midway Messenger to our community,” Midway Mayor Grayson Vandegrift told Umar. "While we get good coverage from The Woodford Sun, The Midway Messenger has become our paper of record. I can tell anecdotally that more people in Midway are getting their local news from the Messenger than from the Sun."

"Having led the IRJCI from its inception, Cross has ensured a solid foundation for the benefit of rural communities across the nation and for a healthier Kentucky," Umar writes. "Although he does plan to reduce his numerous responsibilities in his phased retirement starting in the 2021-2022 academic year, his effect on rural journalism through the IRJCI will be his legacy."

As Biden picks people for rural policy positions, some say he needs an overseer for rural issues, and for good politics

The Biden administration "is facing growing pressure to appoint a rural envoy within the White House to oversee a national strategy to uplift rural communities facing severe health and economic challenges," Liz Crampton reports for Politico. "Members of Congress and advocates are making the case that the problems plaguing rural regions exacerbated by the pandemic run so deep that a coordinated federal response is critical."

The center of attention for the moment is the Department of Agriculture, where longtime Biden friend Tom Vilsack will return as secretary, the job he held for eight years under Barack Obama. Vilsack gave his first interview as secretary-designee to Art Cullen of the Storm Lake Times in his home state of Iowa, and listed eight areas "that need significant work or even historic work: Covid-19 relief, equity and inclusion, climate and regenerative agriculture, rural economic development, nutrition security and assistance, open and competitive market, USDA employee morale, and Forest Service management in an era of climate-driven wildfires."

Justin Maxson

The administration has already signaled that the Rural Development branch of USDA will be run differently, by picking to run it Justin Maxson, who has been executive director of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., and before that head of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (now the Mountain Association) in Berea. Ky. Under Maxson, the Babcock foundation ran a large rural grant program for Vilsack late in the Obama administration.

"The Rural Development branch of USDA has long been neglected by both Republican and Democratic administrations, as it’s been consistently underfunded and understaffed," Crampton writes.

Perhaps even more important appointments are Katharine Ferguson as Vilsack's chief of staff and Stefanie Feldman as a senior adviser to Susan Rice, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Ferguson is associate director of the Aspen Institute's Community Strategies Group and director of the Council of State Governments' Regional and Rural Development Initiatives, and Feldman was policy director for Biden's campaign, deputy director of domestic and economic policy for him as vice president, and is a board member of the Center for Rural Strategies, where she was a college intern. She is a native of Georgia.

Democrats see rural action as essential for both policy and politics. “There has got to be definitive investments that are innovative or this administration will have no future in a rural vote,” said Charles Fluharty, founder of the Rural Policy Research Institute, which studies demographic trends and policy impacts on rural communities.

“I certainly think there has to be a big emphasis on developing rural America,” former Kentucky governor Steve Beshear told Crampton. “It has to come from the White House.” He added, “It is past time that the rural areas of this country be targeted for not only economic development, but for health care, for broadband access, for all of the things that will lift this whole country up.”

Crampton writes, "Democratic lawmakers say that embarking on a rural strategy is an immediate way for President Joe Biden to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, whose leadership they argue failed rural Americans, most clearly with the pandemic that has disproportionately impacted rural areas. Biden's platform lays out many ambitious goals for rural regions, such as having the agriculture industry play a key part in fighting climate change, which his advisers believe translates into paying farmers for improving the environment as well as generating more "green" jobs.

Program to train future community newspaper owners picks first five fellows for its new online master's degree program

Left to right: Andrew Weiler, Tony Baranowski, Miles Layton, Becky Pallack and Crystal Good.

NewStart, a program that aims to find, train and support buyers for community newspapers, has given fellowships to five journalists for a new one-year online master's degree program at West Virginia University's Reed College of Media, according to a WVU press release.

Jim Iovino, director

"Current events and economic conditions have created an environment conducive for learning and growing as a media entrepreneur," said NewStart director Jim Iovino. "There is still a great need for credible local news outlets in this country, and the coming year will likely see a lot of innovation in the media industry."

The degree is in media solutions and innovation. "This new online master’s program examines new business models during this time of forced innovation, and the NewStart fellows are diverse in geography and professional experience, allowing for a rich educational atmosphere," Iovino said.

The inaugural NewStart fellows are:

• Tony Baranowski, local media director for the daily Times Citizen in Iowa Falls, Iowa.
• Crystal Good, founder and CEO of Mixxed Media in Charleston, W.Va.
• Miles Layton, editor of the Perquimans Weekly in Hertford, N.C.
• Becky Pallack, product manager at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.
• Andrew Weiler, an entrepreneur and digital media producer from Wahkiakum County, Washington.

NewStart is a partnership of WVU and the West Virginia Press Association, which was prompted by older members who want to sell their weekly newspapers but can't find buyers. The Knight Foundation funded the fellowships; applications are still open for the degree program.

Freelancers, a Cherokee and an Ozarker, win $100,000 for journalism about Native Americans and a migrant's journey

Rebecca Nagle, left, and Nancy Corteau

Freelance journalists Rebecca Nagle and Darcy Courteau are the recipients of the 2020 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which includes an unrestricted cash prize of $100,000. It is awarded by the Heising-Simons Foundation, which said in a press release, "This is one of the largest dollar amounts given for a journalism award in the United States."

"The prize is awarded for excellence in long-form, narrative, or deep reporting about under-represented and/or misrepresented groups in the United States," the release says. "It recognizes journalism’s ability to foster understanding and aims to support freelance journalists." The foundation says it works "to advance sustainable solutions in climate and clean energy, enable groundbreaking research in science, enhance the education of our youngest learners, and support human rights for all people."

Nagle’s journalism includes the Crooked Media podcast, “This Land,” which explores Native American rights. Courteau’s work includes a June 2019 feature in The Atlantic, “Mireya’s Third Crossing,” about an undocumented immigrant’s harrowing journeys across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Nagle is a writer, audio journalist and advocate, based in Tahlequah, Okla. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she frequently writes about Native American issues. Courteau is a writer and photo essayist based in Washington, D.C. and the Arkansas Ozarks. "Among her enduring subjects are the outsider communities she has made home," the release says.

The prize winners are selected from confidential nominations invited from more than 100 journalism leaders around the country, the release says, by 10 journalists from organizations including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, NPR, Vice News, The Oxford American, Columbia University and Arizona State University.

Local foundation buying only newspaper in wealthy D.C.-area county to save it after investors' $2 million falls short

Fauquier County, Virginia (Wikipedia)

"In a last-ditch effort to save the county’s only newspaper, the owners of The Fauquier Times essentially have agreed to give the weekly to a journalism foundation," Don Del Rosso reports for Fauquier Now, an online news site in the Virginia county, which is in the Washington, D.C., metro area and is "one of the fastest-growing and highest-income counties" in the U.S., Wikipedia says.

The Times, The Prince William Times, some specialty magazines and Piedmont Media websites are being sold for $1,000 to the Piedmont Journalism Foundation, headed by Boisfeuillet “Bo” Jones Jr., former publisher and CEO of The Washington Post.

The nonprofit status will allow the newspapers to accept tax-deductible contributions, said Landon Butler, "who helped manage Piedmont Media and headed its board," Del Rosso reports. The foundation’s other board members are attorney Georgia Herbert of The Plains, a Fauquier town, and Jessica Tuchman Matthews, former head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The foundation will support the company and local journalism, explained Mr. Jones, noting it funded and provided at no cost to Piedmont Media in-depth stories on rural broadband and the opioid crisis," Del Rosso writes. "The foundation also shared the opioid-crisis series with Fauquier Now."

Piedmont Media's 45 stockholders had bought the papers from Peter Arundel and put about $2 million into the company over the last three years, "according to sources," Del Rosso reports. "Warrenton resident Les Cheek, who bought 15 shares at $1,000 apiece, got the news in a phone call last Thursday from Piedmont Media LLC board member Trevor Potter," who summarized a memo that said “the headwinds for print journalism are very strong in a negative direction,” Cheek said. “And, that basically the investors and managers had basically exhausted their capacity to raise any more funds for the paper in its current business model.”