Nonprofit to provide D.C. coverage for local newsrooms 🏛

Plus: How Local Publishers Can Compete with Google and Meta

Author

Paul Gewuerz
March 06, 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:

» Nonprofit to provide D.C. coverage for local newsrooms

» Advocacy group wants to reshape local news to better serve working and middle-class

» Can AI save local news?

» Takeaways from the 2025 Knight Media Forum 

» The opposite of a news desert: a news rainforest?

» Layoffs announced at Maine Trust and Scripps

🎧 Small Press, Big Ideas Podcast: How Local Publishers Can Compete with Google and Meta

🏛 Nonprofit to provide D.C. coverage for local newsrooms

NOTUS, a nonprofit news outlet established by the Allbritton Journalism Institute, has launched the Washington Bureau Initiative, a pilot program to deliver tailored Washington D.C. coverage to local audiences. The initiative will partner with six local newsrooms from around the country to “to bridge the gap between federal actions and local impacts”.

👷‍♀️ Advocacy group wants to reshape local news to better serve working and middle-class

The Media Power Collaborative, a policy-focused advocacy group dedicated to reshaping the local news landscape, released it’s policy framework. The MPC’s initiative aims to have local news recognized as a public good and exclude corporate chains from public funding, among other goals.

🤖 Can AI save local news?

Check out this podcast episode that asks the question: can AI save local news? Host Pete Pachal talks to Mathison AI founder Mark Riley about how AI can enhance local journalism, how to avoid “news slop”, and how to assure that AI serves the public good and not just Silicon Valley corporate interests.

⚡ Takeaways from the 2025 Knight Media Forum

The Knight Media Forum, an annual gathering hosted by the Knight Foundation that brings together leaders in journalism, philanthropy, and technology to discuss the future of local news, democracy, and information ecosystems, recently concluded in Miami. Knight foundation VP of Journalism sums up five key takeaways.

🌴 The opposite of a news desert: a news rainforest?

We all know about the danger of news deserts, but are there areas that actually have an overabundance of high quality local news? It sounds great, until further examination shows that these news ecosystems tend to pop up in and around major cities (where the ad dollars are already flowing), and not in the communities who need it. Read more from Poynter.

đźš« Layoffs announced at Maine Trust and Scripps

Two local news publishers announced layoffs this week. The Maine Trust for Local News will eliminate 49 jobs focused on print production, circulation, and advertising as it moves more to digital. The E.W. Scripps Company also announced job cuts at multiple stations that the broadcaster holds.

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Small Press, Big Ideas

A podcast about the business of local news

How Local Publishers Can Compete with Google and Meta

Google generated $100 billion last quarter.

That’s a fact that this week’s guest on Small Press, Big Ideas shared with me that I actually had to go check to make sure he didn’t misspeak. Spoiler: he didn’t.

Kenny Katzgrau is the Founder and CEO of Broadstreet, an ad management platform built for publishers who work directly with their advertisers. Kenny and Broadstreet are a fantastic case study in how to be a David to Google’s Goliath, so much so that Kenny was actually subpoenaed to appear as a witness for Google’s defense in a monopoly lawsuit two years ago.

On the podcast, Kenny tells his journey starting as a software engineer who didn’t necessarily have hyperlocal journalism in his career crosshairs. He also discusses how small publishers can outperform the Googles and Metas of the world with the personalized, community-driven approach that local publishers can offer.

In addition to Broadstreet, Kenny is also the publisher of his hometown’s hyperlocal news outlet: Red Bank Green. He shares the story of a custom built digital ad for a local butcher in Red Bank that was a smashing success and planted the seed that led to Broadstreet.

Have a listen to the full episode wherever podcasts are found (links above), or listen and read my full summary on my website: How Local Publishers Can Compete with Google and Meta

Check out this great video of the local butcher who became the first success story at Broadstreet:

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