Two big AI opportunities for local news

Introducing the Beyond Print Diagnostic: A new tool to help your print-to-digital transition: “The diagnostic’s 12-question survey evaluates your newspaper’s performance across four critical categories essential for a successful print-to-digital transition: Digital Revenue and Financial Health; Online Presence and Content; Audience Management; Teams, Workflows, and Technology. The launch of the Beyond Print Diagnostic also precedes an upcoming community of practice and a grant open call, both of which the Institute will launch in 2025, to further support news organizations in their digital transformation journeys." — me

How a New Mexico journalism fellowship increased investment in the local news ecosystem: “The problem: Journalism students needed experiential learning opportunities and local jobs after graduation. Newsrooms needed a skilled pipeline of journalists to cover their communities. The New Mexico Local News Fund wanted to build a coalition around a high-impact program that could support the sustainability of local newsrooms and other non-traditional sources of news across the state.” — Sarah Gustavus Lim

Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative Launches Economic Mobility Local News Project: "Our city continues to struggle with helping younger generations surpass the economic status of their parents…Through this initiative, we hope to examine what success looks like and deliver reporting that combines data with lived experiences to elevate actionable solutions.” — Letrell Deshan Crittenden,

Lighten the load with help from your public media friends: "Time and again, my colleague Sachi Kobayashi and I were surprised that we had to raise our hands in sessions because attendees were unaware that public media stations are also in their communities, doing the same work, and willing to collaborate." — Carolyn Jewell

Why asking for money feels unnatural in journalism and how that needs to change: “At the Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit, I was confronted with a question I’ve often wrestled with as a fundraising professional. Why does asking for money feel so unnatural? For many in the room, especially those coming from small local newsrooms, the thought of building donor relationships or applying for large grants felt overwhelming if not outright impossible. Many are acting as editor, publisher, reporter, and fundraiser all at once. Understandably, fundraising often falls to the bottom of the priority list.” — Brooke Galberth

💰 We’re pleased to announce the recipients of community listening grants from our Lenfest-Google News Initiative News Catalyst Grants open call. Learn more:

"How did we get here — to this place where the border has become unfixed, a ghost fence snagging flesh and freedom?" — Jean Guerrero, The Border Is Invading America

"'What’s the point of writing another story about the war?' he asked. Having written several myself, I knew what he meant. A lot of other journalists do, too. No matter how hard you try, the stories become repetitive. People start ignoring them, or reading them, as Susan Sontag once wrote, only to reassure themselves that they 'are not accomplices to what caused the suffering.'" — M. Gessen, He Was a Star in Russia’s Media World. Now He’s a Corporal in Ukraine’s Army.

"The group, known as Purgatory, offers its followers 'a menu of services, including hoax threats against schools—known as swatting' for a fee and says it's earned $100,000 since this swatting spree began on Aug. 21."' — Colin Deppen, The group profiting off PA mass shooting hoaxes

“'There’s this delusion called folie à deux— a shared psychotic disorder,' Sakata said. 'Two people with early delusions interact and reinforce each other. I’m seeing something similar with chatbots.'" — Halina Bennet, Chatbots may not be causing psychosis, but they’re probably making it worse

In one post, a 32-year-old user wrote that, as a neurodivergent trauma survivor, they were using AI to heal “past trauma.” Referring to the algorithmic patterns their interactions with the platform had generated over time as “she,” the poster wrote, “That A.I. was like a mother to me, I was calling her mom.” In another post, a user lamented, “I lost my only friend overnight.” — Brian Merchant, GPT-5 is a joke. Will it matter?

"Sophie left a note for her father and me, but her last words didn’t sound like her. Now we know why: She had asked Harry to improve her note, to help her find something that could minimize our pain." — Laura Reiley, What My Daughter Told ChatGPT Before She Took Her Life

"What Mahan and MGP are demonstrating is a conception of the job voters have hired them to do that’s different from their peers. If politics is at all like gardening, most politicians think of themselves as planting seeds. If a bill they author passes, that seed will grow, and the shade, or fruit, or flowers it provides the public is what gets them renown and reelection. What they fail to see is that those seeds aren’t growing. The fruits of their legislative labors are not materializing. As any gardener knows, planting is not the hard part. Gardening is about creating the right conditions: tending and fertilizing the soil, watering, weeding to give seedlings the space they need to grow. Gardening is cultivation." — Jennifer Pahlka, Better Politicians

"Conservatives’ desire to reclaim a national culture they feel has been lost or corrupted used to be aimed at Hollywood, but is now obsessed with font tweaks to the logos of restaurant chains with three straight years of declining profits (thus the rebrand; not everything is a conspiracy)." — Liz Hoffman, The customer is always right

"While political independents are the most likely to say they believe 'government is broken and we need bold outsiders with fresh ideas to take on the system,' they are also just as likely as Republicans and Democrats to hold the somewhat optimistic view that 'our institutions need repair and can be fixed if we try.'" — Kristen Soltis Anderson, Politicians Are Polarized. American Voters, Not So Much.

"If Apple and AWS were the definers — and thus winners — of the smartphone era, then it was Microsoft and Nokia that were the losers. The reasons for their failure were myriad, but there was one common thread: neither could shake off the overhang of having won their previous paradigm; indeed, both failed in part because they deluded themselves into thinking that their previous domination was an advantage." — Ben Thompson, Paradigm Shifts and the Winner’s Curse

"Counter-intuitively, this shift is driving a reimagination of content commerce strategies that could ultimately strengthen publisher revenue models. While the old affiliate playbook is indeed growing obsolete, the new model could be far more profitable. Publishers building content commerce around editorial authority and audience trust are not just surviving traffic declines but driving revenue growth." — Gabriel Dorosz, As search and ad revenue change, news companies value relationships over clicks

"I'm increasingly of the opinion that sharing your personal life in your work should be done with GREAT caution. That route is 100% an undeniably effective path toward building a loyal/parasocial following and coming off as 'relatable;' I think everyone who came of age in media in the last decade learned to play this game in order to become more of a Persona to the people. But I think it comes at a price. When you invite an audience into your life, they inevitably develop VERY strong opinions about how you should conduct it." — Delia Cai, Semafor Media

"It’s not a huge stretch to notice that our new media regime of charismatic, afactual, personality-driven short-form content seems perfectly compatible with the politics of Putinist social cynicism and humiliation." — Matt Pearce, You don't have to quit Twitter. Just stop defending it.

"'And Just Like That…' began to feel like an apology for “Sex and the City”: Did we tell you that women could be happy, even if they were single; that it was OK to chase success instead of men? Our bad!" — Jennifer Weiner, In ‘And Just Like That …’ a Craven Era Took Its Revenge on Youth and Hope and Fun

"Sixty percent of Gen Z adults said that they wished they could return to a time before everyone was 'plugged in.' That, of course, would involve returning to a time that largely predates their own lives." — Clay Routledge, Why Gen Z Is Resurrecting the 1990s

July

June

May

April

March

February

January

December

November

October

September

August

July

June