8 rural-related stories win Sigma Delta Chi awards, including reports on ICE, inequalities, firefighters, environment, etc.

Illustration from ProPublica story about Hurricane Helene and Yancey County, North Carolina

Eight rural-related stories were among winners of Sigma Delta Chi Awards for 2025, announced Thursday night by the Society of Professional Journalists (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) and the SPJ Foundation.

Investigate TV+, a unit of Gray Television, and KFF Health News won the award for broadcast coverage of inequalities in society with a package of three stories called "Dead Zone," explaining that millions of Americans "live sicker, shorter lives in hundreds of rural counties where doctor shortages are the worst and poor internet connections mean little or no access to telehealth services."

The award for public-service radio reporting in small markets went to North Country Public Radio of upstate New York for its report on the ICE raid on a dairy farm, which led to the release of a motherf and three children who were in a detention center awating deportation. "This issue is one that's forcing dairy farmers to sell their herds," the judges wrote. Here's the summary of the coverage and reaction.

Jennifer Berry Hawes, Cassandra Garibay and Mollie Simon of ProPublica won for "Helene's Unheard Warnings" in the category of non-deadline reporting in a publication with a print circulation of more than 40,000 or an online-only piublication. Their package of stories spotlighted the lack of evacuation orders, the hurricane's devastation and survival stories in Yancey County, North Carolina.

Hannah Dreier of The New York Times won the Public Service in Journalism award for her stories on the suffering of firefighters sent into fires by the U.S. Forest Service without warnings of toxic smoke and gases, and with a ban on wearing masks.

Dave Biscobing of KNXV in Phoenix won the large-market TV feature reporting award for his investigation of the sheriff in Prescott, Ariz., pop. 46,000, and "one man’s fight to prove self-defense against a top small-town fire official," as the report describes it.

The award for TV feature in small markets went to Kevin Kelly of KLRT in Little Rock for his story about a family in Vilonia, Ark., who saw their home and classic-car collection devastated by a tornado that killed nine people and injured dozens more in the town of 4,500. They restored the four cars a second time.  

Elise Plunk of the Louisiana Illuminator, Eva Tesfaye of WWNO in New Orleans and Chas Sisk of the Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk won an award for a story on how an accidental delta taught scientists how to rebuilt wetlands. They won in the category for science or environment reporting in a publication with a print circulation up to 40,000 or an affiliated website.

The broadcast award in that category also went to a Louisiana story, "The True Cost of Fertilizer,"
by Garrett Hazelwood and Eric Schmid of "Sea Change" at WRKF in Baton Rouge and WWNO, with support from the Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk, based at the University of Missouri.

The awards program also included announcement of the top Mark of Excellence Award for College Journalism, which went to a rural story: "Broadband’s broken promise: How federal failures and funding fights keep Native and Black farmers offline," done by Melissa Dai of Northwestern University during her summer internship with Investgate Midwest. The story had won the MOE award for investigative reporting, then was judged to be the top piece of college journalism in 2025.

Nominations sought for the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism by June 15

Tom and Pat Gish

Each year the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues presents the national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, named for the couple who exemplified those qualities as publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for 52 years.

Nominations for the Gish Award may be made at any time, but the deadline for new nominations to be considered for this year's award is Monday, June 15. The winner will receive the award at an event in Lexington, Ky., on Oct. 22.

To make a nomination, please send a detailed letter explaining how the nominee shows the kind of courage, tenacity and integrity that Tom and Pat Gish demonstrated at their weekly newspaper in the Central Appalachian coalfield. They withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them. Tom died in 2008 and Pat in 2014. Their son, Ben, is the editor and publisher of the Eagle and serves on the award selection committee.

Additional documentation may be submitted after the nomination, and may be requested or required. Send your nominating letter, initial documentation and any questions to Institute Director Benjy Hamm at benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of the Gishes and other previous winners. Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High Family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas; in 2024 to Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas; and in 2025 to Lisa Stayton and The Mountain Citizen of Inez, Kentucky.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, is focused on helping sustain journalism in rural communities in the United States through information, expertise, training, outreach and other programs.

June 1 is deadline for nominations for the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism

Al Smith

The Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky seek nominations for the Al Smith Award by Monday, June 1. This honor is given annually for public service through community journalism over a lifetime by a native or resident of Kentucky, or someone who has spent a significant portion of his or her career in the state.

The award is named for its first recipient: Albert P. Smith Jr., who owned weekly newspapers in Kentucky and Tennessee and was the founding host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky” and the main co-founder of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. He was chairman emeritus of its national advisory board when he died in 2021.

The award is based on news coverage and editorial leadership that serve community needs. Preference is given to journalists in smaller markets, to recognize restrictions that market size can place on the ability to provide outstanding public service through journalism. If a publisher or station owner is nominated, the judges may consider his or her civic service and the successful management of conflicts that can arise between journalistic, managerial, ownership, and civic roles.

Past winners of the Al Smith Award have been Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader; Bobbie Foust, a longtime fixture in West Kentucky journalism; Ben Gish and Sam Adams of The Mountain Eagle; Chris and Allison Evans of The Crittenden Press; WKMS News at Murray State University; Becky Barnes of the Cynthiana Democrat; David Thompson of the Kentucky Press Association; Stevie Lowery of The Lebanon Enterprise; Ryan Craig of the Todd County Standard and his late uncle Larry Craig of the Green River Republican; Sharon Burton of the Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride; the late Carl West of The State Journal; Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery of the Daily Yonder; John Nelson and the late Max Heath of Landmark Community Newspapers, Jennifer P. Brown of Hoptown Chronicle; and Smith. More details can be found here. 

The award will be presented at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner Oct. 22 at The Campbell House in Lexington. Nominations, supporting letters and sufficient documentation should be sent by Monday, June 1 to:

Al Smith Award SPJ Bluegrass Chapter 
123 West Todd Street 
Frankfort KY 40601-2825

Nominations may also be sent electronically to al.cross@uky.edu. For more information about Al Smith and the award see www.ruraljournalism.org or call Bluegrass SPJ Secretary Al Cross at 502-682-2848.

AI giants ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok all 'pilfer' stories from Canadian news outlets, a new audit finds

AI companies chose not to attribute their source materials.
(Photo by Markus Winkler, Unsplash)

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok all hijack Canadian news stories to use in their databases without adding legal attributions to stories pilfered from authors or arranging for copyright payment to publishers, according to an AI audit by Canadian researchers at McGill University, reports Brier Dudley, Free Press editor for The Seattle Times.

Professors Taylor Owen and Aengus Bridgman at McGill "tested four major AI models to see how much they knew about current news stories in Canada and how much credit they give to outlets that originally reported the stories," Dudley explains. The audit proved that tested AI models were "quite knowledgeable about current news stories. But in queries involving web searches, they provided no source attribution in 82% of the responses."

Owen and Bridgman write, "They have [taken and used content] without compensation, without attribution, and without any obligation to sustain the infrastructure they are drawing from. The result is a system that accelerates the economic decline of the journalism it relies on.”

The lack of attribution by AI companies is intentional. "When asked about a story from a specific outlet, the responses named the source 74% to 97% of the time," Dudley adds. "That indicates the companies are technically capable of naming sources but are making a 'design choice' not to, the audit states."

AI's pilfered stories let people get news without visiting the publisher's site or paying for a subscription. Dudley writes, "AI companies get the subscription and advertising revenue, instead of news sites that paid to report, edit and publish the stories."

Through the Online News Act, Canada now requires tech behemoths like Google and Meta that profit from using news sources to compensate publishers. With the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, the U.S. tried to pass protections similar to those adopted in Canada, but the bill faded in Congress in 2023. 

Dudley writes, "It’s past time for a new version of the JCPA, addressing how AI companies are changing the way people get information and preventing them from suffocating the local news industry. . . . To help get the ball rolling, I encourage academics in the U.S. to connect with Owen and Bridgman, who are willing to share their models, and produce similar audits here."

Report for America seeks service-minded journalists and photographers: Application deadline is Feb. 16

Report for America, the national service program that places early-career and experienced journalists and photographers in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities, is accepting applications for new corps members.

The application deadline is Feb. 16, with references due by Feb. 23. The upcoming program start date is July 13. Apply here.

If you are passionate about service-minded journalism, you might be a good fit for one of RFA's 70 journalism positions open in newsrooms of all types, including digital startups, daily and weekly newspapers, and radio and TV stations. An interactive database of their openings, newsrooms and reporting beats is found here.

Report for America is a two-year program, with an optional third year. Their members are part of a national movement to strengthen communities and democracy through truthful, fair local journalism.

Answers to commonly asked questions can be found by reading FAQs. Contact the Report for America recruitment team at recruitment@reportforamerica.org. 

Research shows that government transparency decreases without newspapers

Photo by Ashni, Unsplash

A study comparing freedom of information requests in relation to news deserts showed that governments were less transparent in states that had fewer newspapers, Gretchen A. Peck reported for Editor & Publisher.

“These initial studies show that newspapers make a difference. They hold governments accountable, especially to budgets,” David Cuillier, study researcher and former newspaper editor, said in an interview with Peck. “Local governments are more likely to be careful with our tax dollars and less wasteful. Engagement improves. Voting turnout improves. … Newspapers matter in saving democracy.”

Cuillier also expressed his worries about restrictions on journalism in the current political environment.

He cited the removal of access to White House visitor logs, websites and data, and other files and information pertaining to department activities. Cuillier also mentioned the administration’s “battle” against journalists through financial, legal and prohibitive means.

“There are huge things going on right now that we haven’t seen before, starting with the president not releasing his tax returns, unlike all other presidents,” Cuillier said. “The list goes on and on.”

Journalists can apply by Dec. 7 to attend program on "Saving Local News: A Practical Guide"

Kiplinger Fellows 
(Photo from Kiplinger website)

Journalists can apply for a 2026 Kiplinger Fellowship by Dec. 7 to join journalists from across the United States and around the world for a week of learning with top industry leaders and professionals.

The focus of the Kiplinger Fellowship will be on "Saving Local News: A Practical Guide" and will be held at the Scripps College of Communication on the Ohio University campus in Athens, Ohio, May 11-14, 2026.

The Kiplinger Fellowship is a program that trains journalists to tackle critical issues that impact the industry. Fellowships provide lodging, most meals, free training and include a travel stipend.

The Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky and the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism will be helping with the program as well. 

Application instructions are found here. Click here to apply.

Journalists at rural Alaska newspapers quit over abrupt corporate edits to Kirk story that upset a state politician

Photo by Mark Sabbatini, Juneau Independent

Four journalists resigned from newspapers in rural Alaska after the publications’ corporate owner made "significant edits to an article about Charlie Kirk’s death, appearing to yield to pressure from a Republican state lawmaker who had criticized the coverage," reports Neil Vigdor of The New York Times.

The journalists who worked for The Homer News, The Peninsula Clarion and The Juneau Empire, were all employed by Alabama-based Carpenter Media. The news staff issued a joint resignation letter, noting that they had not been consulted about the edits, and that without editorial independence, the company's integrity as a news source was compromised.

The story at issue "chronicled a Sept. 17 vigil in Homer, Alaska, for Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder and a right-wing ally of President Trump’s who was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University," Vigdor writes. In its second paragraph, the story "described Kirk as a a 'Christian-Nationalist icon' and defender of 'often racist and controversial views.'"

One of the vigil's organizers, Sarah Vance, a Republican state representative, took issue with the description of Kirk and wrote to the paper's corporate owners and "suggested that advertisers were planning to boycott the publications," Vigdor adds. The story then disappeared from online, only to reappear with numerous edits a few hours later.

In a statement, Carpenter Media Group said it altered the story because it did not meet company standards. Gregory Knight, an aide to Vance, "provided a statement from Vance saying that she did not expect her complaint to contribute to the resignations," Vigdor reports.

Reporter Bill Estep wins Al Smith Award for community journalism, recognizing 40 years of Appalachian stories

Bill Estep

Bill Estep, who chronicled the stories of Appalachian Kentucky and its communities for more than 40 years, is the 2025 winner of the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by a Kentuckian, given by the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky.

Estep retired this summer from the Lexington Herald-Leader, which he joined in 1985 after working at the Tri-City News in Cumberland and the Commonwealth-Journal in his hometown of Somerset. He spent most of his career covering Appalachian Kentucky, but was also a projects reporter and Frankfort Bureau chief. He worked on the Herald-Leader series “Cheating Our Children,” which helped lead to the Kentucky Education Reform Act; “Prescription for Pain,” which led to stronger anti-drug efforts in Appalachian Kentucky; and “Fifty Years of Night,” a 2012 look at the region in the 50 years since Harry M. Caudill published "Night Comes to the Cumberlands." 

The Herald-Leader’s Linda Blackford, who worked with Estep and John Cheves on the “Night” series, noted “Bill’s kind, patient, laconic way of asking questions, and truly listening to the answers. Thousands of Kentuckians trusted him with those stories because they recognized he was one of them.” His work also won praise from Gov. Andy Beshear, who said “Bill dedicated his storied career to lifting up the voices of his neighbors.” State Senate President Robert Stivers of Manchester praised his fair, factual reporting and said, “I consider him the Walter Cronkite of Kentucky.”

The Al Smith Award is named for the late Albert P. Smith Jr., who was the driving force for creation of the Institute for Rural Journalism, headed its advisory board and was its chair emeritus until his death in 2021. He published newspapers in Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, was founding producer and host of KET’s “Comment on Kentucky,” and federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. He was the first winner of the award in 2011.

SPJ Bluegrass Chapter Secretary Al Cross said many journalists might not think a reporter for a metropolitan newspaper could be a community journalist, but Estep was. “Community journalism has been called ‘relationship journalism,’ in which you rely on closer ties to subjects and sources than the typical practitioner of metropolitan journalism,” said Cross, who was founding director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and a regional and political reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. “You may not be a resident of their communities, but you want to be seen as a friendly neighbor, or at least a friendly acquaintance. You care about them, their communities, and their reactions to your reporting, writing and presentation in much the same way as their local community journalists do – if you are doing the job right. Bill is the best I’ve ever known at that.”

Institute Director Benjy Hamm said, "For decades, Bill Estep incorporated the best qualities of a community journalist into his work at the Herald-Leader. His powerful reporting has changed laws, lives and communities – all for the better."

“He’s been the voice for a community of communities that is often overlooked or even ignored nationally,” said Peter Baniak, former executive editor of the Herald-Leader. “He’s told stories that matter for an entire region and its people, and he’s told them with great care, empathy and honesty that news coverage – especially national news coverage – of the region often lacks. Time and again over the course of 40 years, his thoughtful, fearless on-the ground reporting in this region has made a difference and led to change. And his care, compassion and passion in doing his job has earned the trust of both readers and the people he’s covered, regardless of their politics or position in life.”

Herald-Leader Editor Rick Green, a former editor of the Courier-Journal, said of Estep, “He was a journalistic treasure, someone who knew the heartbeat of the commonwealth didn't emanate from the large cities of Lexington or Louisville.”

Estep, 65, still lives in his native Pulaski County. He is a 1982 journalism graduate of Western Kentucky University. When he retired, he said that he had seen many changes in journalism, but “What hasn’t changed is the mission. I see that as finding good stories, helping people understand what’s happening in their world, including what their government is doing for and to them, and holding power accountable — and doing all of it fairly, accurately and thoroughly.”

Estep will be honored at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner Nov. 13 at The Campbell House in Lexington. He will be joined by Lisa Stayton of Inez, owner and co-publisher of The Mountain Citizen, the 2025 winner of the Institute’s national Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism, along with winners of chapter scholarships. The keynote speaker will be Dee Davis, president of the Whitesburg-based Center for Rural Strategies.

Besides Smith, previous winners of the Smith Award, and their affiliations at the time, are:

2012: Jennifer P. Brown, Kentucky New Era; and Max Heath, Landmark Community Newspapers
2013: John Nelson, Danville Advocate-Messenger
2014: Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery, The Daily Yonder 
2015: Carl West, The (Frankfort) State Journal 
2016: Sharon Burton, Adair County Community Voice and The Farmer’s Pride 
2017: Ryan Craig, Todd County Standard, and the late Larry Craig, Green River Republican 
2018: Stevie Lowery, The Lebanon Enterprise 
2019: David Thompson, Kentucky Press Association 
2020: Becky Barnes, The Cynthiana Democrat 
2021: WKMS News, Murray State University 
2022: Chris and Allison Evans, The Crittenden Press 
2023: Ben Gish and Sam Adams, The Mountain Eagle 
2024: Bobbie Foust, The Lake News, Calvert City 

The Mountain Citizen of Inez, Ky., wins the 2025 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism

A scrappy little newspaper that has fought for more than 30 years for clean water and open government in its Appalachian county is the winner of the 2025 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism.

The Mountain Citizen is a weekly paper serving the 11,000 people of Martin County, 231 square miles along Kentucky’s northeastern border with West Virginia. For decades, the Citizen has been the key watchdog on the local water district, which has long had problems providing clean and adequate supply, and on coal companies and local government.

Tap water in Martin County often runs brown, and the Citizen’s efforts prompted state Public Service Commission investigations of the Martin County Water District in 2002, 2006 and 2016. This year, the paper revealed that a state agency had failed to correctly calculate Martin County’s scores in a water-funding competition for poor and underserved counties, and that in 2018 the county’s water was some of the most corrosive in the nation, more so than in Flint, Michigan, in 2015.

“The Mountain Citizen has spent decades overcoming obstacles and opposition to inform its community about serious problems with its water supply and other important issues,” said Benjy Hamm, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism. “Its work represents the best of rural journalism and everything the Gish Award was established to honor – courage, integrity and tenacity.”

In recounting the paper’s water work, owner Lisa Stayton wrote, “When you live here and see your neighbors carrying bottled water into their kitchens, you understand this is about survival. And you worry because you know that many of your neighbors can’t afford to buy bottled water and are drinking tap water that you wouldn’t drink yourself.”

The paper’s water reporting began in 1993, when it revealed that a coal company had so badly cracked the bed of a creek that it had to put a plastic liner in the creek to keep its water out of an underground mine. The paper reported several coal-slurry spills, then got an important scoop in 2000 when it obtained and published maps of a defunct mine that was the conduit for a massive spill from a surface-mine pond, which polluted streams and valleys with an estimated 250 million tons of waste.

When the Citizen forgot to renew its corporate charter in 2000, its corporate name was legally claimed by the water district’s board chairman, who had been the subject of critical reporting by the newspaper. The paper kept using its name, defying a court order, and was fined for contempt of court, but after two years the state Court of Appeals threw out the charge and the fine.

Though the paper’s future was in jeopardy, then-Editor Gary Ball, a former coal miner, continued its strong stances. When the state attorney general’s office announced it would have investigators in the field for the 2002 general election, he told the Lexington Herald-Leader that they were “paper tigers” who were six weeks late, since the groundwork for vote fraud is laid well before an election.

In 2003, the Citizen reported that the county schools spent nearly $250,000 on travel over four years, including airfare for spouses of board members, prompting the schools to refuse complimentary copies that the newspaper had sent to all classrooms. In 2012, the paper challenged the school board’s private discussion of the superintendent’s contract and was upheld by a binding opinion from the state attorney general. In the same year the attorney general ruled the paper was entitled to child-abuse records withheld by the state.

The Citizen was founded in 1990 as a consolidation of the Martin County Mercury and The Martin Countian, a newspaper that had won national attention for the crusading reporting and editorial stances of owner-publisher Homer Marcum. The Citizen took similar approaches; when the school system was no longer required to publish the names and salaries of teachers, the paper did that on its own. It withstood competition from other newspapers and by 2001 was the county’s sole paper.

The award is named for Tom and Pat Gish, who published The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky, for more than 50 years. Their son and successor, Ben Gish, is on the award selection committee. “I read The Mountain Citizen regularly (we trade subscriptions),” he wrote. “They do a really good job.”

Stayton and the Citizen will receive the Gish Award Nov. 13 in Lexington, Ky., at the annual Al Smith Awards Dinner of the Institute for Rural Journalism. The dinner will also include presentation of the Al Smith Award for public service through community journalism by Kentuckians to Bill Estep, who recently retired from the Lexington Herald-Leader after chronicling the stories of Appalachian Kentucky for more than 40 years.

 

The keynote speaker will be Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies.

Other Gish Award winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian Record in the Texas panhandle; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and late publishers of The Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia, Miss.; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian for her work at The Times-Tribune in Corbin, Ky., and Jacksonville Daily Progress in Texas; Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La.; Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in North Carolina; the late Landon Wills of the McLean County News in Kentucky; the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in northern New Mexico; Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in northwestern Missouri; the Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times-Pilot in northwest Iowa; and Les Zaitz of the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon.

In 2019, the award went to three reporters whose outstanding careers revealed much about the coal industry in Central Appalachia: Howard Berkes, retired from NPR; Ken Ward Jr., then with the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and his mentor at the Gazette, the late Paul Nyden. In 2020 the award went to the late Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror; in 2021 to the Thompson-High family of The News Reporter and the Border Belt Independent in Whiteville, N.C.; in 2022 to Ellen Kreth and the Madison County Record of Huntsville, Ark.; in 2023 to Craig Garnett of the Uvalde Leader-News in Texas; and in 2024 to Eric Meyer and the Marion County Record in Kansas.

A stop in Rock County, Minnesota, reignites memories of a dynamic war-time reporter that comes with a twist

Al Cross

During a trip to the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors conference, Al Cross stopped to pay tribute to the late Al McIntosh, a World War II reporter and local newspaper publisher. The trip yielded some surprising connections.

Luverne, Minnesota, is in Rock County, the southwest corner of Minnesota, just east of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. When I saw Sioux Falls consumed one day’s itinerary of the annual conference of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, which recently elected me to its board of directors, I planned a side trip to Luverne – for reasons that started out esoteric but turned out to be quite meaningful.

I was interested in Luverne and its newspaper because Ken Burns and Tom Hanks had told me a lot about them – in Burns’ 2007 documentary “The War,” about the American home front during World War II. Burns focused on four towns: Mobile, Ala., Waterbury, Conn.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Luverne, a county-seat town of 5,000 on the Rock River (the one in the Missouri River basin).

The unexpected star of the documentary, at least for me, was Al McIntosh. He was editor of the Rock County Star Herald before, during and after the war. He chronicled the home front in such compelling detail that Burns said his team’s discovery of the newspaper’s carefully stored bound volumes (dating to 1873) was “in some ways . . . the single greatest archival find that we have ever made.” Hanks, who voiced McIntosh’s writings for the documentary, was so taken by them that he pushed Burns to use more of them, and Burns did.

“He had this task of explaining the unexplainable to his fellow neighbors,” Burns said. “He did so magnificently, and wrote as beautifully as any editor I’ve ever come across."

Al McIntosh at his desk (PBS website photo)

McIntosh started his war journalism even before the U.S. entered the fight, with a piece about a woman who had survived the blitz of London and was visiting her brother in Rock County: “She has had her best friends killed. Looking out at the peaceful countryside from the Thompson porch, she said it was hard to believe the rest of the world was at war.” That was in the first written quotation of the show, which introduced McIntosh as a North Dakotan who “had turned down big-city jobs to run his own small-town paper. He would soon find himself trying to explain the unexplainable to his new neighbors.” 

When the documentary premiered on PBS, I wrote a short story for The Rural Blog, a publication of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism, which I ran at the time. As I watched the show and heard Hanks read McIntosh’s evocative writings, I got choked up. Here, in what most Americans might call the middle of nowhere, a weekly newspaper editor was capturing the courage, loss, sacrifice, resolution, pathos and daily grind of being a small-town American in our most demanding war.

So, if I was going to Sioux Falls, I was going to Luverne, at least to pay my respects at the grave of Al McIntosh, who died in 1979. When I looked it up on Findagrave.com, a wonderful resource, I found something flabbergasting. McIntosh’s obituary, posted on the site, revealed that he was the author of an editorial column that formed the basis for the first speech I ever gave, in 1965, when I was 11 years old. 

Desperate for a topic for the 4-H speech contest, I saw the headline “I Am a Tired American” in one of the many newspapers that reprinted the editorial, originally titled “A Tired American Gets Angry.” A few weeks after I gave the speech, I became the official scorer for the local baseball leagues, which included writing them up for the weekly Clinton County News, where I got my first byline.

Al McIntosh’s editorial was a reactionary screed against a host of things that he thought were wrong with the country and its critics (mostly the latter), and young Al Cross parroted most of the complaints. My meager effort earned me third place in the contest, but the experience gave me enough confidence to enter and win the following year, then become a color commentator on baseball games, which led to me becoming a licensed radio announcer at the age of 13. (In those days you had to get a license, by passing a test.) I kept my hand in journalism, and edited and managed weekly papers before spending 26½ years as a reporter at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, the last 15½ as political writer and columnist, then 20 years at the University of Kentucky.

I still write occasional political columns for the Northern Kentucky Tribune and other news outlets. As a political observer, I see McIntosh’s most-published piece as a harbinger of today’s tribulation. “I am a tired American,” he wrote, “choked up to here on this business of trying to intimidate our government by placard, picket line and sit-in by the hordes of the dirty unwashed who rush to man the barricades against the forces of order, law and decency.” 

But he also was “sickened by the slack-jawed bigots who wrap themselves in bedsheets in the dead of night and roam the countryside looking for innocent victims.” And he said he was “real tired of those who are trying to sell me the belief that America is not the greatest nation in all the world, a generous-hearted nation, a nation dedicated to trying to help the 'have nots' achieve some of the good things that our system of free enterprise brought about.”

In Al McIntosh’s day, it was not unusual for weekly editors to editorialize about state, national and international questions. Now most papers, even weeklies, are owned by chains, most of which think too much opinion is bad for business. Even many independent papers shy away from publishing letters and columns about President Donald Trump, for fear of having to play referee in a mudball contest. So we don’t read much in weekly papers about national protest campaigns, racial issues, foreign aid and the like.

McIntosh has had some fine successors, including Michelle Erpenbach, who runs a major nonprofit in Sioux Falls, and Lori Sorenson, a Rock County native who has been at the family-owned paper for 33 years. She told me that she delves into national issues from time to time.

“Where appropriate and if it has bearing on our readers in Rock County, I will use our opinion page to voice concern about national issues,” Sorenson said in an email. “Rock County is a very RED and very religious county, and many are eagerly lapping up the disinformation that circulates on social media. I have written more than one editorial encouraging readers to be judicious about their ‘news’ sources and to remember that we are ‘community first’ despite occasional disagreements about national issues.”

Good for her. If we are to overcome the partisan and cultural divides that are bedeviling this country, I think it will most likely start in small towns like Luverne, where people know each other as neighbors and are still mostly willing to listen to each other, and agree to disagree.

Local newspapers have long been one of the best forums for a community to have a conversation with itself, but in many small towns, papers no longer play a leading civic role, for a host of reasons: they have failed to maintain circulation and household penetration, have owners who don’t want to make anyone mad, have smaller staffs with less time and talent for commentary, or they may even lack a local editor because the chain owner runs several papers as a group. All this has added to a shortage of local news, while news media and social media are dominated by national news, opinion and misinformation.

Every county in America deserves to have a news outlet that can help its audience be better citizens of their state and nation, not just their locality. Our nation would be a lot better off if we had lot more editor-publishers like Al McIntosh. May his example never be forgotten. 

Al Cross lives in Frankfort and Albany, Kentucky, and is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, BlueSky and @ruralj. The Minnesota Newspaper Association presents the Al McIntosh Award to those who dedicate themselves to their communities through their reporting, editorials and columns. 

A new study shows the 'surprising breadth of student reporting' in the United States

College students are working to keep American journalism connected and relevant in the communities they serve. A recent study by the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont used "FCC data, original research and outreach to stations to map the extraordinary overlap between America’s colleges and its public media outlets," reports CNN. Their research shows the "surprising breadth and scope of college student journalism at public media organizations." A few research highlights include:

• 88% of public media organizations provide opportunities for college students to help cover their community (282 of 319 NPR and/or PBS affiliates.)
• 59% of public media organizations provide intensive, regular and ongoing opportunities for college students (188 of 319 stations.)
• Some public media organizations (41 of 319) make teaching students their core mission.
• Students at these public media organizations serve rural, suburban and urban audiences, many in news deserts. Public radio signals reach over 95% of Americans.
• 50% of all public media organizations are licensed to a college or university (161 of 319 stations.)

Yellow circles indicate some level of student reporting. Grey circles indicate little or no student reporting. Eighty-eight percent of NPR stations provide opportunities for college students.

Study researchers suggest that "even more student journalists could contribute to public media organizations through deeper news/academic partnerships involving both internships and in-class production."

Jeremy Gulban is serious about saving local newspapers. 'It’s kind of crazy,' but he's trying to find a way.

Jeremy Gulban

Jeremy Gulban is a man on a mission to save at least 92 community newspapers from shuttering their doors. While he's out in the trenches facing tariffs, polarized audiences and stiff competition, "Gulban is discovering in ways large and small just how hard it is to revive America’s ailing local news outlets," reports Katherine Sayre of The Wall Street Journal. "Americans are increasingly distrustful of print media, podcasts are ascendant as go-to news sources and even finding human reporters to hire has proven tough."

Over the past five years, Gulban has purchased dozens of small newspapers through his company, CherryRoad Media. "Today, the top 30 or so of Gulban’s newspapers are profitable, about 30 post mediocre results and about 30 are losing money. The company had $30 million in revenue last year and wasn’t profitable overall," Sayre writes. "Gulban needs between 15% and 20% of households in his communities to subscribe to be economically viable. . . . Across the company, about 8% of households subscribe now, but that ranges from 2% to 69%, depending on the paper."

Gulban began his foray into print news because he felt "that big tech companies like Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google had too much control over the flow of information and commerce for local businesses," Sayre explains. Gulban told her, "If we made the rational business decision, we would take our best-performing markets, say that’s what we’re going with. But that’s not what I want to do. I want to figure out how to make this work.”

Part of Gulban's plan was to hire dedicated reporters who interact with their community. "In some markets, Gulban can’t find reporters willing to do the job," Sayre adds. "The company searched for two years for a full-time reporter at its Crookston Daily Times in Minnesota, offering a salary of $40,000. The newspaper was shuttered in February."

Some people in small towns have reached out directly to Gulban for help. "Kitty Mayo and other residents in the area of Two Harbors, Minn., lobbied Gulban to start a newspaper there after the Lake County News-Chronicle closed in 2020," Sayre reports. "Gulban agreed. The Lake County Press launched in 2022. Mayo said she asked an editor at another CherryRoad newspaper about Gulban before she contacted him. The editor told her: 'This guy, he’s legit. He wants to save small newspapers. It’s kind of crazy. I don’t know if he can do it.'"

Opinion: AI doesn't make writing better. 'Letting a robot structure your argument. . .is dangerous.'

Photo by Robert Rieger, Connected Archives
via The New York Times

Nobody ever asks me about language. They ask the DeLillos and the Updikes and the Styrons, but they don’t ask popular novelists. Yet many of us proles also care about the language, in our humble way, and care passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper.
-- From On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Now ask yourself: Could artificial intelligence ever make that observation? What does a robot know about language? Very little, and yet, no matter who is writing, a robot is reworking words and removing human originality from the page. In her opinion essay for The New York Times, Margaret Renkl eschews AI as a better way to write. Edited portions of her essay are shared below.

"Letting a robot structure your argument, or flatten your style by removing the quirky elements, is dangerous. It’s a streamlined way to flatten the human mind, to homogenize human thought. We know who we are, at least in part, by finding the words — messy, imprecise, unexpected — to tell others, and ourselves, how we see the world. The world which no one else sees in exactly that way.

"Sure, there’s a difference between writing a poem and cleaning up a garbled email, between writing a love letter and a Google ad. For some tasks, employing an A.I. assistant might save time without levying a commensurate cost in humanity. Maybe. . . .I’m still not sure."

Sometimes the need for a perfect word can send a writer on a deep dive for the exact word a phrase or verse needs. Renkl shares, "I was outside. . . sitting with my thesis director, the poet James Dickey. I remember that particular meeting because of one ill-chosen word. In a poem that was otherwise finished, a single adjective was clearly wrong. We batted alternatives back and forth across the desk, but none was right.

"Hours later, the right word came to me, popping up out of the depths while my mind was occupied with something else. It was so apt. . . I opened the phone book, and looked up Mr. Dickey’s number. When he answered, I said, ‘Pale.’ The word is ‘pale.’. . .Mr. Dickey was overjoyed about that word, every bit as jubilant as I was. If only for a moment, the world made a kind of sense it hadn’t made before."

''No robot may harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm' reads Isaac Asimov’s first law of robotics. But what if the existence of robots itself is what robs us of our humanity? Is that not a way of bringing humans to harm?"

Great Backyard Bird Count goes through Feb.17; more than 7,900 species were identified in 2024

    Siberian Stonechat in Israel, left, Pied Cormorants in Australia, center, Adelie Penguin in Antarctica, right
(Photos by Parmil Kumar, Andy Gee and Steve B, Macaulay Library)

The global Great Backyard Bird Count is almost here. Spotters can begin counting and reporting all the birds they see or hear beginning on Friday, Feb. 14. Last year, more than 210 countries or subregions spotted approximately 7,920 of the world’s known bird species.

This year the count will run from Feb. 14 through Monday, Feb. 17 as the GBBC celebrates its 28th year of magnificent bird sights and sounds. During last year's count, GBBC participants shared 164,740 media uploads, including photos, videos, chirps, songs and squawks. Delightful images from around the world made up more than 159,967 submissions.

In 2024, the global community donned their bird goggles and rekindled their love of ornithology. The U.S. tallied 212,673 checklists and identified 676 species. India flew into second place, with 65,111 eBird submissions. Canada was third with 31,151 eBird checklists and 14,049 Merlin sightings.

This year promises to be as fun-filled and educational as bird watchers flock together with their tallies, photos and shared "rare finds." Participation is simple:

• Count birds on one or more days of the four-day event and report their sightings using Merlin Bird ID or eBird on mobile or computer.
• Anyone can take part in the count, from beginning bird watchers to experts, and you can participate from your backyard or anywhere in the world.
• Count birds you see or hear for 15 minutes or as long as you want.
• If you are a beginning bird admirer and new to bird identification, try using the Merlin Bird ID app to tell us what birds you are seeing or hearing.
• If you have participated in the count before and want to record the number of birds, try the eBird Mobile app or enter your bird list on the eBird website (desktop/laptop).
• Visit the official website for more information and check out the latest educational and promotional resources.
• On the program website, participants can explore real-time maps that show what others are reporting during and after the count.

Bots scrub local news created by other journalists to publish newsletters in 355 towns; one 'editor' oversees them all

Photo via Nieman Labs

Matthew Henderson might be the most productive "journalist" in the country. The busy publisher of Good Daily newsletters "operates in 47 states and 355 towns and cities across the U.S.," reports Andrew Deck of Nieman Labs. Henderson's newsletter empire is fueled by busy bots scrubbing local news created by real humans to create newsletters. The publication is emailed to unsuspecting residents who have no idea machines wrote their news by taking the real work at other publications.

Deck uses Good Day Fort Collins as an example. The newsletter "appears to be a standard local news round-up. One recent edition of the newsletter includes short blurbs and links to over a dozen stories about the mid-size Colorado city — a restaurant opening, a record-breaking snowfall," Deck writes. "It turns out Good Day Fort Collins is just one in a network of AI-generated newsletters. . . Not only do these hundreds of newsletters share the same exact seven testimonials, they also share the same branding. . . "

Newsletter recipients are unaware of "who" generated their news or how un-local its creation is. "Separate website domains and distinct newsletter names make it difficult to connect the dots. There is Good Day Rock Springs, Daily Bentonville, Today in Virginia Beach," Deck explains. "The newsletters do all name the same founder and editor: Matthew Henderson, who a serial internet startup founder and software engineer."

In an interview, "Henderson didn’t shy away from the fact that each newsletter is produced using near full automation," Deck reports. "These automated agents 'read the news' in every town where Good Daily operates, curate the most relevant stories, summarize them, edit and approve the copy, format it into a newsletter, and publish." Henderson told Deck, "“At a high level, [the system] operates much like an editorial team" -- except, of course, for the fact that his publications do no original reporting and only take from others doing the real work.  

Henderson touts his bot news as "boosting the work of struggling local news outlets," Deck writes. Henderson told him, "Local news providers appreciate our work promoting their best local content for free, and often seek out ways for us to promote even more of their content.”

The news outlets Henderson's AI brains are using don't share Henderson's "rosy" view. Rodney Gibbs, the head of audience and product at the National Trust for Local News, told Deck, "His claim is, frankly, horses---. The suggestion that he’s helping news deserts is absurd." Deck adds, "Gibbs points out that, in order to operate, AI newsletters rely on human labor at existing local news publishers."

Hillman Prizes honor reporting that leads to public policy changes; deadline to enter is Jan. 30

Since 1950, the Sidney Hillman Foundation has honored journalists who pursue investigative reporting and deep storytelling in service of the common good. (Hillman Foundation photo)

Journalists can enter a national contest that honors “the excellence in investigative journalism and commentary in service of the common good.”

The Hillman Prizes celebrate print, digital and broadcast reporting and commentary in the public interest that exposes injustice and leads to meaningful public policy change.

The deadline to enter is Jan. 30, and winners will receive a $5,000 honorarium at an event in New York City on May 13. There is no fee to enter.

The 2025 Hillman Prizes includes awards for:

• Newspaper Reporting (story/series/multimedia — may include photo, video, graphics)
• Magazine Reporting (longform; print/online)
• Broadcast Journalism (TV, radio, podcast; at least 20 minutes in total package length)
• Opinion and Analysis Journalism (commentary and analysis in any medium)

Entries must have been published or broadcast in 2024 and made widely available to a U.S audience. Submit nominated material and a cover letter here.

For more information, visit hillmanfoundation.org

Journalists grapple with Trump's threats toward the U.S. media. How can free speech and truth remain the priority?

Trump has made continuous threats against U.S. media leaving reporters apprehensive about his upcoming term.
(Adobe Stock Images)

News organizations and journalists are experiencing unease as President Donald Trump reenters the White House, and what that means for them.

During a speech after being named TIME magazine's Person of the Year, Trump referenced the media and "threatened to use the power of his incoming administration to stifle free speech... [and] has made it clear that he will use the apparatus of government to go after his critics," wrote Rob Tornoe for E&P Magazine.

“The media is tamed down a little bit. They like us much better now, I think… If they don’t, then we’ll just have to take them on again, and we don’t want to do that,” said Trump at the New York Stock Exchange.

Writers are aware that their words carry weight, but now there is increasing concern that strong opinions will drive away readers or lead to backlash. Tornoe wrote, “The impact has been felt especially hard by the nation’s editorial cartoonists, who continue to dwindle,” including Mike Luckovich, who has drawn political cartoons for three decades and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist.

Besides Trump's threats, the news industry is also struggling with decreasing digital advertising rates, notable algorithm changes at Google, increasing impacts from artificial intelligence (AI) on journalism, and a lack of trust in institutions like news organizations, according to Tornoe.

E&P wrote that in an interview, Luckovich said that while visiting the Pentagon over 20 years ago multiple generals told him that besides whether or not they liked his cartoons they would defend his right to make his point. Luckovich told Tornoe, “To me, that is what America was all about — and I hope it still is.”

AI news: Humans write the news only to have bots steal and repost it 'under stolen or assumed identities'

AI "reporters" plagiarize stories from real publications
written by humans. (Graphic by AI robot, Adobe Stock)

Artificial intelligence bots revived a closed small-town newspaper site using culled stories and stolen reporters' names. "The defunct Daily Tidings was alive and kicking, sending out fresh stories again," reports Danny Westneat of The Seattle Times. "The site’s masthead showed eight reporters — a ton for tiny Ashland, Oregon. . . . As Oregon Public Broadcasting revealed this past week in an investigation, the entire site now is reported and written by artificial intelligence bots, under stolen or assumed identities."

"One 'reporter' they tracked down actually lives in the United Kingdom and had no clue he was practicing journalism in southern Oregon," Westneat explains. "The site pumps out about five stories a day — most of them cribbed from real publications, such as Ashland News or The Oregonian, and rewritten by AI programs." The site boasts ads and videos from "big ad-streaming companies such as Google."

The Daily Tidings past owner "told OPB he looked into suing the AI operation — whoever or whatever it is," Westneat reports. "His lawyers though said it’s coming from outside the United States, likely China. It would be 'pursuing a phantom.'"

Ashland's robot news spot isn't unique. "Sites are popping up everywhere using AI bots to create the vague appearance of journalism, usually by rewriting or repurposing articles culled from the real local media," Westneat reports. "AI tools have been developed, such as one depressingly called Spin Rewriter, that can digest an article and convert it into 1,000 'human-quality' facsimile articles."

In Seattle, the "Hoodline" news site produces stories by bots. A former human Hoodline employee, who lost her job to AI, told Westneat, "Old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting has been replaced by fake people who’ve never set foot in any of the neighborhoods they write about — because they don’t have feet."

The editor of the Ashland News, Bert Etling, "says that in Ashland, the scam journalism has been mostly just annoying," Westneat reports. "It’s a plagiarism operation, so the real town news source, his Ashland News, isn’t at much risk of getting scooped. . . . But it isn’t helping that gnawing sense that nobody believes anything anymore."

Vilsack says legacy of his 12 years at USDA is new revenue sources that will help smaller farmers and small towns

Rural voters strongly rejected President Biden, but his administration has started programs that are already reversing the decline of rural America, says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a longtime politician who has given 12 years of his life to the job, more than anyone.

Vilsack summoned Jonathan Martin of Politico for an exit interview, and his frustration came through. “I think the challenge that we have in rural America is that we talk a lot about programs and not about vision,” he said when Martin asked what went wrong for Democrats in rural America.

“The vision is, you don’t have to get big or get out,” which has been a basis of federal agriculture policy since Richard Nixon was re-elected president in 1972, Vilsack said. “You can actually have diversity within your agriculture and in your national resource base in your rural economy and that can create enormous opportunity. And we’re investing in it.”

Vilsack cited “carbon market” payments for preventing greenhouse-gas emissions and other programs designed to help small and medium-sized farmers and boost local and regional food systems. But he said rural voters have yet to feel the impact of changes made under Biden.

“After 50 years of one approach, you can’t do this in a matter of a couple of years. You have to build the foundation. Now, the foundation has been built. The economic model is changed by virtue of the investments we’ve made in this administration. At least 10,000, probably more than that, investments have been made just in this department, in creating a different model so that small and mid-sized farming operations have an opportunity to stay in business.”

Vilsack served eight years under Barack Obama and four
under President Biden. (Associated Press photo by Carolyn Kaster)

Vilsack voiced frustration that the news media and others in Washington haven’t recognized the importance of those changes.

“Change is occurring,” he said. “It just hasn’t resonated with people like you. Or people in this city. You gotta understand the economics of this. You don’t. Nobody in your business understands it, which is the frustrating part for me. When you have a ‘get big or get out’ mentality, when you have an economy that is commodity-based, the big guys do really, really well,” but smaller producers may not.

He said 2022 was the best year ever for farm income, “but if you went out and talked to folks in rural places about that . . . that’s not how they would have seen it. It was a record year for a relatively small number of folks. So what happens, these folks are on knife’s edge, bad year comes, they have a hard time. Who is in a position to buy their farm? The larger farm or investment banks. . . . So you’ve got this model that we’ve had for 50 years that has slowly eroded economic opportunity in rural places.”

While debate about the Farm Bill is “all about reference prices” for crops, “The reference prices are about half a dozen commodities out of 100 some commodities,” Vilsack said. “We’ve created an opportunity in all 50 states, over 100 commodities. We’re paying farmers to do this. We’re giving premiums for what they’re growing and raising. It’s a brand-new concept. It’s really innovative. And it creates not only a better value for the farmer, it creates the ability to get that ecosystem market credit, to transform their waste into something more valuable.”

He added, “People out there are beginning to get it. I’ve had people come up and say, you know, for the first time, I see my kind of operation at USDA. For the first time, I see some change. I see some investment in small and mid-sized farming operations. You want to ask about legacy? That, to me, is the most important legacy.”

Vilsack said USDA “doesn’t get anywhere near the attention it deserves. Not for lack of trying, man. We tried.”

When Martin noted “the collapse of local and regional press, which would be a way to get your story out,” and cited a newspaper Vilsack knows well, the two-term Iowa governor interjected, “That’s bullshit. . . . The Des Moines Register is a shadow of what it was. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t cover what it should cover.”