How to make the case for local journalism 💡

Plus: A Fresh Look at Reader Revenue

Author

Paul Gewuerz
February 20, 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 to make the case for local journalism

» Hyperlocal News Network joins Local Media Consortium to offer preferred CMS for local publishers

» Class action against AI startup

» Knight Foundation awards nearly $5 million to local news programs

» Report: local media organizations need to unite around four goals

🎧 Small Press, Big Ideas Podcast: A Fresh Look at Reader Revenue

💡 How to make the case for local journalism

The Local Media Association’s Lab for Journalism Funding offers some feedback to a cohort of newsrooms on how to make their case for local journalism, and shares the top takeaways here. Among the top: focus on outcomes not story count, tell your own story, and community, community, community.

🥇 Hyperlocal News Network joins Local Media Consortium to offer preferred CMS for local publishers

The Local Media Consortium named the Hyperlocal News Network’s CMS as it’s preferred content management system for publishers. HNN offers a scalable and collaborative CMS that allows licensees to share content and advertising with one another as well as a DIY content marketing platform which will now be available across the country to LMC members.

You can learn more about both organizations in my Small Press, Big Ideas interviews with HNN founder Michael Shapiro and LMC CEO Fran Wils.

⚖ Class action against AI startup

The News/Media Alliance announced that AI startup Cohere is being taken to court by a group of publishers including McClatchy, the LA Times, Advance Local, and others over copyright and trademark infringement. The plaintiffs have accused Cohere of massive unauthorized use of publisher content.

💵 Knight Foundation awards nearly $5 million to local news programs

The Knight Foundation has announced $4.95 million in grants to extend four Local Media Foundation programs: the Knight x LMA BloomLab, the LMA Lab for Journalism Funding, the Family and Independent Media Sustainability Lab, and the Branded Content Project. The four programs are all aimed at fostering the sustainability and financial independence of local news publishers.

📰 Report: local media organizations need to unite around four goals

According to Nieman Lab, findings in a new report show that journalism support organizations (JROs), their funders, and local newsrooms should focus on uniting around four goals to revitalize local news efforts.

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Small Press, Big Ideas

A podcast about the business of local news

A Fresh Look at Reader Revenue

This week’s guest on the Small Press, Big Ideas podcast is an OG in the local online news advocacy space.

Ned Berke dreamed early on of becoming a journalist, but things didn’t work out exactly as he thought they would. After finding that his initial goal of international reporting wasn’t what he thought it would be, Ned stumbled onto the local journalism frontier and found it fascinating.

After founding two local news sites (blogs in those days), Ned attended the original Block by Block conference, known for being the origin of LION Publishers. (For more on LION, please listen to my interview with Executive Director Chris Krewson)

Ned’s background operating local news sites combined with this early involvement in the advocacy space made him a perfect fit for his current position as Chief Strategy Officer for BlueLena, a company that provides audience development, subscription, and revenue solutions for independent media organizations.

On the pod, Ned and I talked about BlueLena’s CRM and CXA tools, their BlueLena Academy, a training resource to help improve publisher’s audience and revenue strategies, and the ever-changing landscape of audience development.

Ned also shared some great best practices for local newsrooms on reader revenue strategies, this alone should be worth the listen for any local publishers out there who may feel overwhelmed on this front.

Listen to the full episode wherever podcasts are found, or listen and read my full summary on my website: A Fresh Look at Reader Revenue

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