🎁 Knight Foundation grants $20 million to Report for America

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

→ Knight Foundation grants $20 million to Report for America

→ 139 year old newspaper will close amidst lawsuit

→ McClatchy acquires accelerate360

→ Festivus for the Rest Of Us

→ Lee chooses AWS for its GenAI applications

🎁 Knight Foundation grants $20 million to Report for America

The Knight foundation announced a $20 million investment into Report for America to support local journalism. The money will be used to recruit more journalists, build trust between local newsrooms and their communities, and increase local dollars to support newsrooms.

⛔ 139 year old newspaper will close amidst lawsuit

The Everett Leader Herald, a newspaper serving the town Everett, Massachusetts for nearly a century and a half, will close and pay out $1.1 million to Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria as part of the settlement of a defamation lawsuit. The publication allegedly published a series of knowingly false articles aimed at discrediting DeMaria, who was labeled “Kickback Carlo” in the stories.

🤝 McClatchy acquires accelerate360

McClatchy has finalized its acquisition of distribution, logistics and media company accelerate360. The new company, which has a huge distribution network with access to over 56,000 retail locations, will operate under the name McClatchy Media Company (MMC).

🥂 Festivus for the Rest Of Us

Here’s a great piece from Kristen Hare at Poynter on how the Tampa Bay Times delighted readers with a Festivus-style airing of grievances. Among the top complaints from readers for 2024: Taco Bell taking too long for a renovation, movie theaters not being cold anymore, and the Tesla Cybertruck.

For anyone out of the loop on Festivus, please enjoy this gem:

☁ Lee chooses AWS for its GenAI applications

Lee Enterprises has selected Amazon Web Services as its cloud provider to support greater scalability and speed while developing GenAI applications. Lee says that its AI projects will help deliver hyper-local, hyper-personalized news and information services that serve consumers and advertisers.

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Local Stories

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