Local News Day is April 9; it offers Americans opportunities to reconnect with the local news they trust

Thursday, April 9, is Local News Day across the USA.

Most Americans consider local media coverage to be their most important, trusted and reliable news source. On April 9, Local News Day will help millions of Americans in communities of all sizes reconnect with the local outlets they trust to provide coverage of recent events, hold leaders accountable and strengthen an overall sense of community. 

As part of the day, Rebuild Local News and the Online News Association will co-host “2026 State Policy Playbook for Newsrooms,” an online event for newsroom leaders and journalists offering a clear, practical overview of emerging policy models and guidance on how to engage policymakers effectively. Register here.

Local News Day also offers connection support and tools for nonprofit organizations and government offices that want to support their valued news resources. Local News Day will provide organizations with ready-to-use tools designed to engage communities and strengthen the trusted local news they rely on. Sign up by April 2.

Individuals looking to voice their support for the community strength local news provides can sign up for updates on Local News Day activities here. 

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."

Study: Gen Z journalists may be avoiding rural newsrooms

Some younger journalists worry that rural newsrooms
might be too conservative for them. (Adobe Stock photo)

Gen Z journalists may be steered away from rural newsrooms due to a lack of knowledge in jobs available, as well as concerns of salary, politics, social life and career advancement potential, according to a new study involving students in the United States and Canada.

To examine why students in their late teens to early 20s are not attracted to working in rural areas, journalism professor Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas and instructor Tyler Nagel of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology surveyed 183 of their local mass communication students to ask how they felt about the possibility of reporting in rural communities, writes Tandy Lau for E&P Magazine.

Shared below is a Q&A on why some students who were surveyed find reporting in rural areas to be unappealing and what newsrooms may be able to do to attract younger journalists.

Q: Why aren’t more journalist students aware of available jobs in rural areas?
A: Some journalism schools are only teaching their students about journalism at a national level and not providing the context of journalism at a rural level. Eighty percent of Kansas respondents said they had not been taught about rural journalism in their classes at all, so they didn’t know what jobs there are available.

Q: Why are students concerned about salary?
A: While rural newsrooms often have a lower cost of living, students still have financial concerns. The Kansas respondents said they face student debt while the Canadian respondents face a current housing crisis.

Q: Why might students be concerned about politics?
A: Kansas students, particularly those with diverse backgrounds, responded they fear not being welcomed in rural communities due to polarizing politics and rural areas leaning red.

Q: How can rural newsrooms combat concerns of a lack of social life and career advancement opportunities?
A: Communicating with young journalists still in school is key in opening rural opportunities for them. Modernizing job descriptions, communicating opportunities to grow into leadership roles, creating a network for young journalists to socialize, and incentivizing the possibility of taking over a rural paper are a few of the recommendations by Finneman and Nagel after conducting their study.

Newsrooms in Kentucky discuss using artificial intelligence in local reporting

Marlowe's opinion on using AI to help with reporting 
has changed. (Photo by Lily Burris, WKMS)

News organizations in Western Kentucky are looking for ways to use artificial intelligence to improve reporting without sacrificing audience trust. 

Journalists at WKDZ, which is a part of Edge Media Group along with stations in Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Princeton and Elkton, are "figuring out how to integrate the newer technology into their workflow," reports Lily Burris of WKMS in Murray, Kentucky.

Edge Media Group’s CEO and owner, Beth Mann, told Burris, "AI is a technology that's changing. … We discuss AI every single day, and it is part of our conversation and training in all of our weekly meetings.”

Mann isn't alone in her search for the proverbial where, when, how and why of AI implementation in community reporting. Chris Evans, publisher and editor of the Crittenden Press in Crittenden County, regularly uses AI to get his job done. Burris reports, "A series of Associated Press webinars about AI usage in journalism made Evans feel more comfortable with the tool and helped him establish his 'guardrails.'"

Alex Mahadevan, director of the AI Innovation Lab at the Poynter Institute, "advises newsrooms on the ethics of implementing AI," Burris writes. "He said the big question in journalism is how much AI-generated content audiences should see and how to disclose when it’s used to maintain trust with them."

Over time, some reporters have changed their minds about using AI. "Edward Marlowe, a reporter at WKDZ since mid-2021, said two years ago he would’ve told someone it was out of the question if they’d asked him about AI. … Now [he] uses it for certain tasks," Burris adds. 

Evans thinks that as smaller news outlets get used to AI alongside their audiences, it may help local news services stay afloat. "Cost is a major factor in why Evans believes smaller newspapers could benefit from AI, especially those that can’t afford another employee," Burris adds. 

Marfa, Texas, may be small, but it has a big newspaper success story

Co-owner Max Kabat keeps the cafe stocked with Big Bend 
Sentinel newspapers. (CBS video clip)

Like many rural newspapers in towns off the beaten path, The Big Bend Sentinel didn't make a lot of money. But that didn't make it any less important. The paper had been serving up local news for tiny Marfa, Texas, in far west Presidio County, for nearly a century. 

When the Sentinel's owners decided to sell the paper, they were lucky and smart. "Maisie Crow and Max Kabat had moved to Marfa from New York City in 2016 in search of community," reports Janet Shamlian of CBS News. "Then, in 2019, the paper's owners approached them about buying it. They said they had never considered it before." Kabat told her, "A newspaper found us. We didn't go and search out to find the newspaper."

Crow had worked with local news outlets as a documentary filmmaker, and both she and Kabat knew how unforgiving the newspaper business could be. Shamlian reports, "The couple knew it would be tough to keep the paper afloat without another source of revenue. That's when they became unlikely restaurateurs."

Location of Presidio County, TX
(Wikipedia map)

The couple opened a cafe to add revenue to support their newspaper's bottom line. Crow openly admits that the coffee shop is the biggest money maker. She told Shamlian, "I don't think it would surprise anyone that the large majority of the revenue comes from the coffee shop, the restaurant, and the home goods that we sell."

When Crow and Kabat took over the Sentinel, it had four employees. It now has nearly 20. Shamlian adds, "It's one of Marfa's biggest employers."

Despite its small size, the town is a tourist location, which helps the business, but it's the local support that keeps the paper going. Presidio County Attorney Blair Park told CBS News, "The other news outlets [are] not really concerned about what's going on in Marfa. So if it wasn't for this newspaper, we wouldn't be seeing our local, community news anywhere."

A vodcast and story about The Big Bend Sentinel appears in Editor & Publisher. Watch it here.

Analysis: Local newspapers survive or close for different reasons

Local news can help residents hold elected officials 
accountable. (Photo by J. Mone, AP via Converation CC)

Beginning around 2005, community newspapers across the U.S. faced unprecedented financial stresses, which over time forced more than a third to close. While their closures have left communities in vulnerable "news deserts," they aren't random. Instead, the reasons smaller newspapers often close fall into a recognizable pattern. In her piece for The Conversation, Abby Youran Qin "identifies key drivers − ranging from racial disparity to market forces − that determine which towns lose their papers and which ones beat the odds."

Although local papers exist to serve their communities, they still need profits to keep the doors open. That is why some neighborhoods still have a paper. Qin explains, "Local newspapers survive where affluent subscribers and deep-pocketed advertisers cluster. That means wealthy white suburbs keep their watchdogs, while low-income and diverse communities lose theirs."

When poorer neighborhoods lose their paper and their investigative reporters, residents become more vulnerable to social power abuse. Qin writes, "Poor and racially diverse communities often face the harshest policing and interact more with street-level bureaucrats than wealthier citizens. That makes them more vulnerable to government corruption and misconduct."

Community newspapers often fail to serve their entire audience in equal ways. For instance, if everyone who worked at a local paper was white, would black events and happenings be equally covered? Over time, a pattern of bias in some news organizations caused racially diverse neighborhoods to distrust, dislike and not subscribe to the local paper.

"Diverse neighborhoods get hit twice. First, their local papers inadequately represent them," Qin explains. "Then, when people understandably turn away, subscriptions drop, advertisers pull back and the outlets shut down, leaving whole communities without a voice."

The structure of "market-dependent journalism," has also caused community newspapers to close, even when an area's population is growing. "The catch lies in who is moving in: Population growth saves papers only when it comes with wealth," Qin writes. "The news gap experienced by fast-growing communities may persist where local journalism depends primarily on traditional advertising and subscription revenues rather than diversified revenue sources such as grants and philanthropic donations."

Smaller newspapers are more likely to survive together. "In an era of decline, my analyses reveal a counterintuitive truth: Your town’s paper actually has better odds when nearby communities keep theirs," Qin adds. "Resilient local journalism clusters together. . . .When regional businesses support multiple outlets, the entire news ecosystem becomes more sustainable."

Letting go of partisan slants can help a community paper survive. "It turns out that there’s no significant link between a county’s partisan makeup and its ability to keep newspapers," Qin writes. Large subscribing bases and corporate advertisers often keep bigger newspapers afloat. Party affiliation isn't what drives their revenue.

Choosing to push politics left or right doesn't serve a local paper's interests. Qin explains, "But local journalism’s survival hinges on practical factors such as money and market size. Saving local news isn’t a left vs. right debate − it’s a community issue that requires nonpartisan solutions."

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.'"

A small town saves its local newspaper with citizen-led fundraising and a 2-year search for a new owner

There's a new paper in town for La Conner, Wash.

When their small-town newspaper closed, the citizens of La Conner, Wash., didn't sit idly by and let their community become another "news desert." Instead, town activists "raised $70,000 and worked for two years to find someone to save it," reports Eric Wilkinson of KING-TV. Last week, the newly revived paper celebrated its "first day of delivery as the La Conner Community News, keeping a journalistic tradition that has connected townspeople for more than a century."

The newspaper's new owner, Kari Mar, said she bought the paper because she "saw an opportunity to make a difference at a time when facts and accuracy are critically important," Wilkinson writes. She told Wilkinson, "The pain of not having a local newspaper was pretty widely felt. There was no place to send an obituary. The town council didn't have a way to get the word out. Firefighters were having a fundraiser. They couldn't tell anybody about it. The need for the paper was palpable."

Small newspaper closures have become almost commonplace. Wilkinson reports, "Over the past 20 years, more than 3,200 newspapers have vanished, nationwide. Since 2004 Washington state has lost 20% of its local papers. . . . The situation is so dire, that a bill is being considered [in Washington] that would tax social media platforms and search engines to help fund the state's struggling newsrooms."

Meanwhile, folks in La Conner are celebrating a special win for local journalism. "The La Conner Community News already has more than 900 subscribers in a community of fewer than 1,000 people," Wilkinson writes. Mar told him, "We have almost everybody. . . .That's pretty good."