Few people other than local journalists understand what’s happening where we live—the issues, the people, and the daily moments that shape our lives. This is because they are embedded in the fabric of our communities. However, their work only holds value if we recognize it. If we let local journalism fade away (or fray), we lose not only today’s news but also the untold future potential of stories and knowledge that connect us and help us solve problems.
In late October, I attended a Press Forward event in Cleveland, where community foundations from across the U.S. gathered with peers, funders, and other stakeholders. At the event, it became clear that one of our biggest challenges will be convincing local community members across the ideological spectrum—especially foundations and philanthropic individuals—to rally around journalism as a public service, not a partisan tool or a simple transaction. Many have never considered this before. We will need to clearly tell the story of the industry’s collapse—how ad revenue shifted from local businesses to a few companies in Silicon Valley—and frame journalism’s mission and utility in a way that highlights its benefits and avoids partisan politics. While there is much to do, it was heartening to see so many people working toward these goals. Coming out of the event, I’m more convinced than ever that shifting the flow of money from top-down national-to-local to local-to-local is the right way to rebuild.
It’s no secret that trust in institutions is low right now, and it’s not hard to see why. Too often, when institutions are called out—whether by journalists or others—they see only two choices: to lie or refuse to engage. Taking responsibility isn’t on the list. Consider this example, which almost seems mundane given all the other stuff that’s going on: U.S. Zoos Gave a Fortune to Protect Pandas. That’s Not How China Spent It. The article details how some of the most trusted environmental institutions in the U.S. and Europe sent millions to China to rent pandas. The money was supposed to support conservation but instead funded infrastructure projects, including roads, buildings, tourism, and construction at a massive breeding center. All of this disrupted natural habitats and left pandas isolated in smaller populations. When reporter Mara Hvistendahl asked the zoos for comment, we see a familiar type of response: “The National Zoo did not answer written questions about funding. The San Diego Zoo declined to comment.”
The zoos could have said, “We’re aware of this and carefully considered the implications of our choice, but it was a tradeoff we decided to make.” Instead, they simply chose to say nothing. In all likelihood, they’ll continue practices many will view as unethical. We expect better even from our children.
Journalism is just one spoke in the hub of a healthy community, but one thing separates it from other actors: it owns its mistakes—publicly—and invites scrutiny. This willingness to admit fault and continuously improve is unique, and it’s one huge reason why journalism is crucial to communities. If more people understood that, I think they’d value it more.
Right now, our communities are struggling in ways that can’t be fixed by partisan politics or platitudes. Journalism has the power to unite us by telling stories that improve lives and remind us of what’s at stake. Journalists are the public’s eyes and ears, and ensuring they have jobs is one of the best ways to help communities thrive. It’s a fight that matters—one we can’t afford to abandon. As we know, freedoms are rarely taken outright; they’re lost when we stop defending them.
Let’s go.
In this edition of LLM, we have stories and commentary about the challenges and evolving dynamics in journalism and media, from the role of the press in times of conflict to rebuilding local news infrastructure and fostering civic discourse. We explore the impact of privatized digital spaces, the fragility of hyper-capitalized systems, and the privacy concerns of emerging technologies. We’ve also got some lighter stories including one on rediscovering weeds, and the unexpected joy of connecting with lost mementos. We celebrate the legacies of Ella Jenkins and Lou Donaldson and explore how AI is reshaping audio. Finally, reflections on the political climate highlight the spread of misinformation, shifting global orders, and the failures of economic strategies in shaping voter behavior.
Lenfest Institute initiatives
Publications
📌 Beyond Print toolkit: A highly comprehensive step-by-step guide for newspaper operators to reimagine the role of print and build sustainable long-term success.
🎉 Tesnim Zekeria joins The Lenfest Institute as Program Manager, National Programs: Tesnim brings a wealth of experience to the national programs team. Most recently, Tesnim helped run a Google-sponsored program with the Fund for Equity in Local News that accelerated the digital transformation of community publishers. Prior to that, she worked on programs at the Google News Initiative and in advisory roles at Atlantic Media.
Grant opportunities
💰 New grant opportunities for Lenfest Community of Practice members will be announced in early 2025.
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Learn more: How the Institute’s communities advance journalism sustainability by Allie Vanyur
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Interesting quotes
Journalism and media
In 2017, Marty Baron, then the editor of the Washington Post, famously said, “we’re not at war; we’re at work.” This time, we must be at work, but also preparing, if an errant leader chooses so, to be at war. — Richard Tofel, What Now for the Press?
The patterns we perceive now rise less from information gathered in our close communities and more from what crosses our awareness along national paths. — Nathan Heller, Republican Victory and the Ambience of Information
Our efforts are buying publishers time in two different ways: We’re freeing up time by providing core services that publishers can simply plug into rather than build and maintain, thus giving them more time to focus on the crucial tasks of producing and monetizing local journalism. By driving down burn rates, we’re extending the runway for publishers and giving them more time to find that audience fit. — Jim Brady, Rebuilding the roads, bridges and power lines of local news
As more news organizations embrace the role of convener, news leaders are looking for the right ways to set up in-person and online engagement for quality discourse or connection. Many civil society organizations have meeting structures they believe work well, and some have research to affirm them. — Kevin Loker, What’s striking news leaders about listening in a polarized world; what’s striking researchers
Starting stories at the beginning … means resisting the temptation to stick a label on something and make a moral verdict. — Brian Stelter, The election proved the media is in crisis. Here’s what it needs to do to regain its relevance
Over the years, according to records and interviews, the [University of Florida] had … inflated faculty head count, ordered what professors believed was unnecessary equipment and spent millions luring higher-scoring students — all for [U.S. News] rankings. — Stephanie Saul, A Star President’s Resignation Was a Mystery. Was It All About Rankings?
Tech & product
Our public and shared spaces, online and off, have been thoroughly privatized and commodified, in ways that we are still only beginning to fully grapple with. Disaffection, alienation, and isolation are rampant, and all are byproducts of the hyper-capitalized digital world that Silicon Valley has constructed for us to inhabit. A world where we are encouraged to build community and seek engagement on social media platforms owned by billionaires, to disparage the other for clout, vie to strike it rich with the right crypto trade, or outsource our thinking and creativity to generative AI. It is a brittle, hollow world. — Brian Merchant, Silicon Valley got what it wanted
It was unrealistic to expect profit-driven social media companies to act as good-faith gatekeepers to facts that challenge power. Julia Angwin, The Right’s Triumph Over Social Media
The humble hyperlink – the connective tissue of the open web – has fallen on hard times. — Will Oremus, Musk admits X throttles links as “news influencers” take over
Privacy advocates have been in a state of high alarm about the colliding political and technological trend lines. “It’s just so evident—the impending disaster,” Emily Tucker, the executive director at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told me. “You may believe yourself not to be in one of the vulnerable categories, but you won’t know if you’ve ended up on a list for some reason or your loved ones have. Every single person should be worried.” — Ronan Farrow, The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone
Daisy … is a new AI tool with the voice of a grandmother designed to talk with fraudsters and "waste as much of their time as possible." — Ryan Morrison, Meet Daisy — the AI-generated granny helping to trap scammers
Life
Along with the usual to-do lists, costume ideas and vacation itineraries, Rebecca Rranza jots down what she calls “manic thoughts”—dream summaries and cryptic reminders. — Ann-Marie Alcántara, When Did Apple’s Notes App Become an Extension of Our Brains?
Children are not miniature versions of yourself. They do not like what you like, or what you think they will like. No matter how many times this has been demonstrated to me over the years, I’m always pancaked when the reminder comes. — Dave Kim, I Gave My Son the Books I Loved. He Chose ‘Heidi’ Instead.
In fearful times, people often see themselves as optimists or pessimists. Being a pessimist can be comforting; if you’re a pessimist, then nothing about the future can surprise you, because you already know it’s going to be bad. The problem with pessimism, however, is that it’s limiting. Pessimism makes it harder to imagine, or really believe in, a better future. — Joshua Rothman, Do You Have Hope?
We think of weeds as trash, yet many have come here from other places where they’re considered highly desirable. — Florence Williams, Weeds Are Everywhere. Why Aren’t We Eating Them More?
Katie Ornelas bought a record from a thrift store in Austin, but when she opened the slipcover for The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn, she instead found a recording of vows, prayers and cheers from a wedding. The record was labeled "Phil's and Donna's Wedding." "We put it on, and we were just instantly, just connected with that record and wanted to make sure it found its way back to its family, because it was in a different sleeve." — Ben Hooper, Vinyl record from 1966 wedding found at thrift store, returned to couple
Arts
Ella’s mother rebuked her for whistling — “A whistling girl and a crowing hen will come to no good end,” she would say — but she also worked overtime cleaning houses in Chicago’s wealthy neighborhoods so that she could buy her daughter a harmonica. The day Ella received the gift, she left it in a taxi while on her way to show it to Uncle Flood. “I cried for days and months,” she said. Mike Peed, Ella Jenkins, Musician Who Found an Audience in Children, Dies at 100
“Some guy was laying back in the corner asleep,” he wrote of a visit to one club. “I thought he was a bum or something. Then somebody came in and said, ‘Man, get Bird to play one.’ So they woke him up, gave him this horn — he didn’t have a horn. Man, such saxophone I never heard in my life. I said, ‘I’m giving up the clarinet! From now on I’m going to play saxophone just like this guy, if I can,’ because his tone was so sharp it just cut right through your heart.” — Barry Singer, Lou Donaldson, Soulful Master of the Alto Saxophone, Dies at 98
“When we started the band, it was because I fell in love with Mia’s voice,” he said. “It was so beautiful and so powerful, and so intimate.” — Evelyn McDonnell, A New Set of Gits Releases Gives Mia Zapata Her Voice Back
Fugatto can be used to dial a number of distinct audio traits and descriptions up or down, resulting in everything from the sound of saxophones barking to people speaking underwater to ambulance sirens singing in a kind of choir. — Kyle Orland, Nvidia’s new AI audio model can synthesize sounds that have never existed
Every one of these links is a post-election political type thing
None of us know the direction or velocity of our vulnerability. It is, mercifully, unimaginable to us. — Lydia Polgreen, I Never Panic. I’m Panicking Now.
The United States is in what can only be described as an epoch of crisis. There is no quarter of American life that has not been claimed by the term, from the planet (climate) to the Republic (democracy, migration, housing) and the deepest chambers of the human heart (loneliness, despair). — Jeneen Interlandi, ‘We Tire Very Quickly of Being Told That Everything Is on Fire’
In a landmark study, the psychologist Philip Tetlock evaluated several decades of predictions about political and economic events. He found that “the average expert was roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.” — Adam Grant, If You’re Sure How the Next Four Years Will Play Out, I Promise: You’re Wrong
The biggest challenge of our lifetime will be figuring out how to combat the American willingness to embrace flagrant misinformation and bigotry. — Roxane Gay, Enough
The liberal order that bestrode the world after 1989 was quite different from the post-World War II liberal order that preceded it — more utopian in its ambition, more culturally comprehensive in its claims, more imperious and imperial and hubristic and therefore, yes, foredoomed. — Ross Douthat, A new world order doesn’t mean the old politics simply disappears
President Biden made a big bet on what the commentator Matt Stoller called “deliverism” — the principle that if you run the economy right and deliver the things people need, particularly good jobs, the votes will follow. It didn’t happen. — Peter Coy, The election’s other biggest losers? Economists.
When the moral sense of a nation begins to decline and the wheel of progress to roll backward, there is no telling how low the one will fall or where the other may stop. — Frederick Douglass via Jamelle Bouie, Down About the Election? There Is a Speech I Want You to Read.
Last month’s shuffle
Each month for over a year I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of the songs that caught my ear. Some are familiar to me, some aren’t. Some are new, some are old. The playlist tends to span eras, genres, and sounds. It’s probably not for everyone but here it is!