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🏆 How nonprofit newsrooms measure success

🏆 How nonprofit newsrooms measure success

Plus: Is there a succession plan crisis for local news in small town America?

Paul Gewuerz
June 19, 2025

Your weekly briefing of stories from around the local news space about business, policy, trends, and more

Hello! Here’s what’s in this week’s issue:

» How nonprofit newsrooms measure success

» The succession crisis for small town local news

» Free sustainability audits for LMA members

» Local TV expansion for 50 US markets

» Are nonprofits too dependent on foundations?

» Rebuild Local News receives fresh funding

🏆 How nonprofit newsrooms measure success

A panel of leaders from small nonprofit outlets recently spoke at INN Days about how they measure their organization’s success - and it’s not all about audience size. One panel member, Charlottesville Tomorrow Editor in Chief Angilee Shah, said that “our goal is not to save journalism” but rather “to create something useful and vital for our community.” Read more from Nieman Lab

🏡 The succession crisis for small town local news

The Columbia Journalism Review recently wrote about how local news outlets are closing across the US due to a lack of succession planning. Although some outlets have paying subscribers up until the day they close, retiring owners are having a hard time finding people to run them.

🆓 Free sustainability audits for LMA members

The Local Media Consortium and Google News Initiative have partnered with the Financial Times’ media consultancy FT Strategies to offer sustainability audits to LMA members who apply by June 30. The audit, normally valued at $6,000 per consultation, will be free for the first 100 LMA publishers who register and include an AI & tech preparedness health check, reader revenue health check, and more. Apply at this link by June 30

📺 Local TV expansion for 50 US markets

Broadcaster Tegna has announced that it will be “significantly expanding” its local news coverage by launching local newscasts from 7 to 9am daily in 50 plus markets through streaming, connected TV apps and station websites. The company says it has made the move due to audiences’ “growing demand for coverage of their communities wherever they want to watch”.

🏛️ Are nonprofits too dependent on foundations?

This piece suggests that while the trend of local publishers converting to nonprofits opened doors to new sources of revenue for many, some have become too dependent on organizations like the Knight Foundation for ongoing support.

A new report from Reuters shows that more people now receive their news from social media (54%) than TV (50%) or news websites (48%). The report also confirms the rise of video over the written word and that digital subscriptions may have peaked. Read more from Nieman Lab

💰 Rebuild Local News receives fresh funding

Rebuild Local News received $5.25 million in funding from the Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and Press Forward to advance the organization’s efforts to advocate for nonpartisan public policies to strengthen local news in the US. Rebuild President Steven Waldman said that “This is more than an investment. It is a powerful affirmation that bold, nonpartisan, First-Amendment-friendly policy solutions are essential to the future of local news”. You can listen to my interview with Waldman on the Small Press, Big Ideas podcast here

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