David Boardman, dean of Klein College of Media and Communication and founding chair of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, last week convened and helped organize a blue-ribbon forum of media leaders, foundation funders, academics and government representatives to share ideas and strategies for addressing the nation’s crisis in local news.
The Local News Summit, held March 27-30 in Oceanside, California, was the first major national gathering of its kind focused solely on local journalism. The summit was hosted by the Lenfest Institute, a nonprofit that owns The Philadelphia Inquirer, and by The Aspen Institute.
“Dean Boardman challenged the local news industry to think about how best to revitalize and reinvent the practice of local journalism in support of the democracy it serves,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director of the Lenfest Institute.
Even while The New York Times, The Washington Post and other national publications are thriving in the digital age, more than one in five local newspapers have disappeared over the past decade, and most other local papers and local television stations have seen significant staff reductions. A growing body of research demonstrates that this decline in local reporters leads to less civic participation and more government corruption.
Even with those challenges, recent years have seen the emergence of many innovative new digital news sites, both nonprofit and for-profit, including many focused on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in journalism.
“Our goal was to bring those innovators together with leaders from legacy media and philanthropy to start to build a roadmap for local news going forward,” Boardman said. “The early feedback we’ve received indicates we created new relationships and energy that will truly make a difference.”
Media organizations attending the summit included representatives of The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Boston Globe, The Texas Tribune, ProPublica, Block Club Chicago, Chicago Public Media, NPR, StoryCorps, Capital B, URL Media, Chalkbeat and The 19th*. Nonprofit support organizations included Report for America, the News Revenue Hub, The National Trust for Local News, the Solutions Journalism Network, the Local Media Association, the Institute for Nonprofit News, Local Independent Online News and the American Press Institute. Universities represented included Temple University, the City University of New York, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Also attending were philanthropic organizations such as Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation, and tech companies such as Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Apple.
The summit also featured a discussion on potential government support for local news in the form of tax credits for subscribers and advertisers who support local outlets and for news employers who hire more journalists. Featured at that session virtually was U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, a key proponent of such legislation. The White House also sent a representative to the summit.
“The summit was the first major face-to-face gathering of journalism practitioners in well over two years and one of the most productive in memory,” said Friedlich of the Lenfest Institute. “I’m one of many who are deeply grateful to Dean Boardman and Klein College at Temple University for launching this challenge, convening this watershed event and providing the necessary and vital leadership.”
"This summit could prove to be historic,” said Steve Waldman, president and co-founder of Report for America, which provides subsidized reporters to small newsrooms. “It pulled together many of the leaders in the local-news innovation community to urgently move toward not only strategic sharpenings but bold actions. It really gave me a sense of hope."