Features

NC Local for March 31: Full-court press in Asheville, and the public wins

by

Check out the full NC Local newsletter from March 31, including Carolina Public Press joining a national project on trust in news, McClatchy layoffs, and a long list of links to free help and funding opportunities. Sign up to get NC Local in your inbox weekly.

By Eric Frederick, NC Local newsletter editor

When the Asheville City Council decided it would close the doors today for the first day of a two-day gathering, in a session to “strengthen alignment, teamwork and trust,” it didn’t reckon on another kind of alignment and teamwork — and a legal covenant of trust.

Local media reported on the plan to violate the state’s open meetings law, including Mountain Xpress Managing Editor Virginia Daffron, who wrote that “we take our watchdog role seriously” and that previous team-building exercises had illuminated “personal histories and philosophies that Council members and senior city staffers brought to their work.” Kate Martin of Carolina Public Press, Matt Bush of Blue Ridge Public Radio and Joel Burgess of the Asheville Citizen Times also reported on the issue.

Amanda Martin, general counsel to the NC Press Association, and Frayda Bluestein, professor in the UNC School of Government, advised that the gathering — at a public facility, with two facilitators paid with public money — was a meeting, subject to the law.

Read moreNC Local for March 31: Full-court press in Asheville, and the public wins

NC Local for March 17: Project Oasis and local news startup success

by

Check out the full NC Local newsletter from March 17, including links to coverage of online abuse of women in journalism (and resourcesfor combating such hostility), good work from WSOC-TV’s Joe Bruno, The N&O’s Andrew Carter, and The Daily Tar Heel, and some optimism about local news sustainability)

By Eric Frederick, NC Local newsletter editor

Project Oasis, which was launched a year ago, is live — and it’s a wellspring of help, information and insight for the local news business.

Oasis is a collaborative initiative to build a database of the more than 700 digital-dominant, independent local news outlets in the United States and Canada, to share insight about how they are working to be sustainable, and to share research on best practices. Partners are the Center for Innovation and Sustainability of Local Media at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media; LION Publishers; the Google News Initiative; and Douglas K. Smith.

First, there’s a database that includes a map and list of all 710 publications, compiled in the middle of 2020 from a survey and research at UNC. You can sort the map and list by things such as location (there are 24 outlets in North Carolina), platforms, revenue stream, tax status (LLC, nonprofiit, sole proprietor, etc.), years in operation and editorial strategy. Each publication also has a profile.

The project also produced the GNI Startups Playbook for news entrepreneurs, with valuable guidance on building a product, finding and expanding an audience, identifying initial sources of funding and revenue, and setting up operations, including templates and a large list of resources. It was written by Ben DeJarnette of LION, with contributors Anika Anand (a LION deputy director and a UNC grad who grew up in Kinston); Conor Crowley of GNI; Phillip Smith of Journalism Growth Lab; and Smith.

And there’s a report that tracks trends in digital-native local news, written by Chloe Kizer, a Durham operations and growth consultant working with the UNC Hussman School. Among its key findings:

Read moreNC Local for March 17: Project Oasis and local news startup success

NC Local for Feb. 24: News that ‘sets up camp’ in our minds

by

By Eric Frederick, NC Local newsletter editor

[Also in the Feb. 24 edition: A new WUNC podcast on poet, lawyer and justice warrior Pauli Murray; free hands-on data training; the legislative fight over public notices; a long list of jobs and learning opportunities; and the latest on media habits from Pew Research. Sign up to get NC Local in your inbox each week]

I want to start this week with the good work because, although this isn’t unusual, there has been a whole lot of it lately: Reporting that holds power to account. Stories that tie the past to the present, and future. Unfinished business that needs our attention. Solutions to consider. Innovation. Challenges to our moral complacency. And many reminders of our shared humanity. It’s all there. 

First up: For most of the past year, several blocks just north of Uptown Charlotte were occupied by a tent city of people who had nowhere else to live — until the camp was cleared late last week by order of the Mecklenburg County health director because of a rodent infestation. Many residents were moved temporarily to a shelter motel.

The story brought out a wealth of useful, enlightening and heart-tugging work from the Charlotte-area journalism community. There has been much more than I can possibly mention here, but among the pieces I saw that stood out:

Read moreNC Local for Feb. 24: News that ‘sets up camp’ in our minds

Training opportunity: Report on public health, learn data skills and land a story

by

Local journalists can build on a recent UNC data journalism project showing a decline in North Carolina public health funding — and report a local story while learning data skills — through a workshop during the NC Press Association conference this Friday and followup hands-on training March 15 for selected participants.

The training draws on work by the Carolina Data Desk and students of UNC Hussman Associate Prof. Ryan Thornburg, who analyzed information from 45 counties in North Carolina for a story that showed that public health funding in the state had dropped in recent years even as population and needs increased.

That story by Rachel Crumpler, published Jan. 19 by The News & Observer, explored North Carolina funding statewide as a followup to national reporting by Kaiser Health News. Now, Thornburg is partnering with the NC Press Association and  the NC Local News Workshop to help local reporters across the state dig into funding at the county level.

The project promises lots of wins: Training for reporters who take part, a deeper look at some counties and new data from others, and strong stories for local publications.

To see if your county was included in the UNC student analysis, check out one-page summaries offering a snapshot and starting points for local reporting.

If your county is missing, that means the next step would be getting and analyzing your local health department’s data. Sign up for one or both:

  • Feb. 26, 2 p.m. via Zoom: How to use data to report about public health spending (Open at no cost to all interested participants, courtesy of NCPA. Sign up.
  • March 15, 3 p.m.-5 p.m.: Data Reporting workshop — Hands on training while reporting a local story. Apply.
    • Five reporters will be selected for a free 2-hour hands-on workshop, led by Thornburg and Melanie Sill of the NC Local News Workshop, that walks reporters step-by-step through the skills they need to use data to find and tell stories about local public health departments. Deadline for applying: Monday, March 8.

 

NC Local for Feb. 3: The crabgrass, and the palm trees, in our back yard

by

By Eric Frederick, NC Local newsletter editor

[Also in the Feb. 3 edition: NCPA conference agenda, remembering editor and mentor Mike Yopp, journalism shoutouts, jobs and opportunities; DTH prevails in UNC suit and reveals misleading communication in Silent Sam legal settlement. Sign up to get NC Local in your inbox each week]

In the local news landscape in North Carolina, speaking metaphorically:

There are some “weeds growing up in the empty lots,” as Sarabeth Berman of the American Journalism Project says about the creep of disinformation. And there are partisan pitches masquerading as news. But here and there, an oasis is growing in a news desert — with some help from our community of purpose.

My final takeaways from speakers at the NC Local News Summit / The Power of Many: 

GETTING IN THE WEEDS

Philip Napoli, professor of public policy at the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, and Asa Royal, research associate at the center:

Napoli, who will become director of the DeWitt Wallace Center in July, for years has been researching the health and quality of local news beyond the metrics, in a qualitative way: Is this reporting really local? Is it original? Does it address community needs? Recently he and Royal have been digging into the rise of hyperpartisan sites in the guise of local news. You can read some of the findings in this Nieman Lab piece.

Royal and Napoli report that in North Carolina, an organization called Metric Media has 49 digital outlets, deployed all at once in 2018, with home pages that are nearly identical and with content that’s often dated, much of which links to a single source called Old North News.

Read moreNC Local for Feb. 3: The crabgrass, and the palm trees, in our back yard

NC Local for Jan. 20: Are we covering the right power?

by

By Eric Frederick, NC Local newsletter editor

[Also in the Jan. 20 edition: A new collaborative analysis available to NC local media shows (literally) a network view of 2020 NC campaign giving; how media can help local arts communities through the pandemic; jobs, opportunities, and COVID reporting help) . Sign up to get NC Local in your inbox each week]

Change, paradoxically, is our constant. (There’s a big one happening in DC, right about now.)

People and institutions — especially institutions — often forget that fact. They get comfortable. But every day, if we’re paying attention, we learn something. We get new perspectives, we understand things we didn’t; and if we’re smart, we apply that knowledge. Think about January 2020. How different our approaches and philosophies were, just 12 months ago.

If the news and information community is to continue to empower our quest for a healthy society, we must adapt — every day.

Aside from being my philosophy of life, that was one of my key takeaways from the first NC Local News Summit last week, “The Power of Many,” hosted by the NC Local News Workshop at Elon University with support from the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at UNC. The name itself suggests a change that has happened over the past decade — the realization that we can do more by leveraging the talents of each of us, rather than being rigidly and relentlessly competitive.

If you’re not one of the 150 or so people who attended the Zoom summit, I recommend the video of the speakers’ presentations. Each speaker talked about some species of transformation.

Today and in weeks to come, I’ll highlight some of their key insights:

Read moreNC Local for Jan. 20: Are we covering the right power?

NC Local for Jan. 13: Covering the current crisis: Local journalism’s role, + resources

by

By Eric Frederick, NC Local newsletter editor

[Also in the Jan. 13 edition: A campaign to save the historic Wilmington Journal, and shoutouts for a dozen recent examples of strong NC journalism. Sign up to get NC Local in your inbox each week]

The insurrection a week ago at the Capitol was yet another call to duty for North Carolina’s local news and information providers. Obviously, stories just don’t get much more important than this one — and it has hundreds of local tendrils.

People are anxious. They need reliable information on what’s happening. And there’s a very good chance that there’s more unrest to come — and closer to home.

I consulted a lot of smart folks over the past few days and pulled together a few tips, plus some good work and some things to think about:

Ways to build trust

‘While we don’t know what the next few days and weeks will entail, we know this is far from over. And as journalists, it’s an important moment for us to convey credibility.’

Mollie Muchna, for Trusting News, offers several useful guidelines for keeping faith with readers while covering civil unrest. The key points:

Read moreNC Local for Jan. 13: Covering the current crisis: Local journalism’s role, + resources

Miss the Summit? Watch the video for speakers and breakout highlights

by

We’ve posted the video of the opening two-hour session of the NC Local News Summit, a virtual event on Wednesday that drew about 150 people together via Zoom.

The video features our speakers (in order of appearance), and reports back from each of the breakout sessions.

  • “The NC Local News Workshop and the Power of Many” — Melanie Sill, interim executive director, NC Local News Workshop
  • “The Power of Diverse Collaborations” — Ju-Don Marshall, WFAE chief content officer and executive vice president
  • What we’re learning about nonprofit news success — Fran Scarlett, Institute for Nonprofit News chief knowledge officer and business strategy coach, in conversation with Melanie Sill
  • “Local News and Local News Research (including the growth of partisan ‘pink slime’ sites”) — Philip Napoli, Duke Sanford School of Public Policy professor and journalism researcher, with research assistant Asa Royal
  • Local news philanthropy: “Renewed Urgency and Glimmers of Hope,” Lizzy Hazeltine, fund coordinator for the NC Local News Lab Fund
  • “Abolishing the Fourth Estate: What’s possible when we remember we are members of our communities” — Cierra Hinton, co-director of strategy and operations for Press On, publisher and executive director, Scalawag magazine
  • “Transforming the Community Newspaper” — Les High, publisher of the Whiteville News Reporter
  • “A New Push on Local News Entrepreneurship ” — Anika Anand, deputy director of LION Publishers, in conversation with Melanie Sill

Also, Cierra Hinton of Press On Media and Scalawag has turned her Summit talk into a piece for Scalawag. In the piece, Hinton describes a “disconnect between the press, the people, the news, and the communities we report on” and argues that journalists “need to cover people-power like it is the power that drives our democracy—because it is.”

In the context of political violence in Washington, she writes: “When we fail to name whiteness in our reporting we are at best complicit in the active practice of white supremacy, and at worst, we are upholding the spread of values that lead to events like those that took place.”

Check back next week for more materials and takeaways from the NC Local News Summit.

NC Local News Summit countdown: A great time for talking about trust, and have you picked your breakout session?

by
Trust signpost

This past week’s news of a mob storming the U.S. Capitol, partly because of mistaken beliefs about the presidential election, highlighted one of journalism’s greatest challenges: How can you inform people who don’t trust facts and are hostile toward media?

Local news outlets usually get higher trust marks than “media” in general, but are feeling the effects of distrust even as they try to enlist audiences and communities as engaged members, paying subscribers, and philanthropic supporters. How can new and existing organizations build credibility — including with people who have never trusted mainstream media, and in an age when people trust facts less than before?

Read moreNC Local News Summit countdown: A great time for talking about trust, and have you picked your breakout session?

Speakers, facilitators and you: NC Local News Summit update

by

We headlined the upcoming NC Local News Summit “The Power of Many,” and that power is evident in the people coming together for the Jan. 13 session. Helping build the program are speakers, discussionleaders and attendees whose own expertise will be shared during the breakout workshops.

Each breakout will also include a national guest expert, who’ll be there as a resource, and will be set up for participants to share what they’re doing, what they need, and what opportunities they see for strengthening support systems for local news in North Carolina.

Register now, if you haven’t already, for the half-day session. If you have registered, watch your email for a sign-up for breakout sessions. Zoom meeting information will be emailed to registrants Jan. 11.

Find program details here.

Along with the featured speakers and conversation leaders, all of whom have strong NC knowledge and ties, the Summit will be powered by its participants, who include many key players in the state’s vibrant landscape of local news (from established media to one-person startups).

Breakout sessions won’t be panel discussions, but instead will invite people to share experiences, lessons, questions, and needs, and engage participants in brainstorming and discussion.

Find speaker and facilitator summaries and bio links here. A quick list:

  • Our speakers will be Ju-Don Marshall from WFAE, Fran Scarlett from the Institute for Nonprofit News, Philip Napoli from Duke University, Cierra Hinton from Press On and Scalawag magazine, Lizzy Hazeltine from the NC Local News Lab Fund, Les High from the Whiteville News-Reporter, and Anika Anand from LION Publishers.
  • Breakouts will be led by Fiona Morgan of Branchhead Consulting and the American Journalism Project and Philip Napoli; Cole Goins from Journalism+Design, Ryan Thornburg from UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media and Shannan Bowen of McClatchy, and Katherine Goldstein of the Double Shift podcast.
  • Joining them will be some national guest experts: Joy Mayer of Trusting News, Stefanie Murray from the Center for Cooperative Media, and Tracie Powell from the Borealis Project.
  • Each session also features contributing participants who’ll speak about their efforts and how to build on them.

The program begins at 8:30 a.m. with a social networking half-hour. The session opens at 9 a.m. with a welcome from Dean Rochelle L. Ford of the Elon University School of Communications, home of the NC Local News Workshop, and continues with a series of short talks and conversations through 11 a.m. Breakout sessions run 11:15-12:30, and the full group will come back together to hear takeaways from each session.

All sessions will be recorded via Zoom, and we’ll share recording links and other resource material with all attendees.

Hope to see you there.