📰 USA Today bets big on California

Plus: AI wins and losses in 2025, How ad fraud hijacked journalism + Towing scams, elder care, and watchdog journalism in Connecticut

Author

Paul Gewuerz
December 25, 2025

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

Merry Christmas! 🎄🎅🎁 Here’s what’s in this week’s issue:

» USA Today bets big on California

» A tough year ahead, with signs of progress

» AI wins and losses in 2025

» Report: news audiences as valuable as ever

» How AI can help (and hurt) local journalism

🎧 Small Press, Big Ideas Podcast: Is your audience real? How ad fraud hijacked journalism + Towing scams, elder care, and watchdog journalism in Connecticut

📰 USA Today bets big on California

E&P’s Mike Blinder reports on how USA Today is launching a new statewide local news initiative called Today Californian to deepen coverage of California’s diverse regions and communities as part of a bigger bet on statewide journalism. The project aims to give readers more relevant, locally focused reporting while strengthening audience engagement across the state.

📊 A tough year ahead, with signs of progress

Local news faces a tough road ahead in 2026, with overall advertising revenue still declining even as digital ad sales show modest growth. There are early signs of progress in how local outlets are adapting, including some new strategies and investment that could help stabilize community journalism.

🤖 AI wins and losses in 2025

Newsrooms in 2025 saw both real wins and hard lessons with AI: some outlets struck licensing deals and experimented responsibly with tools, while many others stumbled into mistakes or ethical challenges as they tried to integrate the technology. Poynter highlights that AI isn’t a cure all, it can boost efficiency but also raises concerns about accuracy, transparency and editorial control that newsrooms must actively manage.

🎥 New for 2026: Daily Vertical Video for Newsrooms

LocalPod.co is launching a done-for-you vertical video service built for local publishers.

LocalPod turns your existing reporting into a short, high quality daily short form videos using templated text overlays and community sourced local b-roll.

We’ll post every video directly to your social channels, giving you consistent visibility and opening up new audience growth and revenue opportunities.

👉 Now booking limited Q1 pilot partners at a discounted rate.

📑 Report: news audiences as valuable as ever

A new report from the News/Media Alliance shows that news and magazine media continue to reach huge, highly valuable audiences with newspapers hitting about 118 million U.S. adults weekly and magazines reaching roughly 223 million over six months, and their readers tend to be more affluent, engaged, and responsive to advertising than average consumers.

📰 How AI can help (and hurt) local journalism

This article argues that AI poses a dual threat and opportunity for local journalism, potentially deepening news deserts by pulling audiences away from local outlets while also offering tools to help synthesize civic data and streamline newsroom tasks.

💰 Multiply Your Ad Space With LocalPod

Readers aren’t the only audience. LocalPod.co gives you listeners too: automated podcasts that multiply ad space, expand reach, and generate new income streams.

Small Press, Big Ideas

A podcast about the business of local news

🚨 First up on the Small Press, Big Ideas podcast this week I spoke with cybersecurity and digital ad fraud expert Dr. Augustine Fou.

In our conversation, Dr. Fou dissects the shadowy underbelly of programmatic advertising and how it’s been siphoning money from quality publishers, especially local news outlets, for decades.

This one should be an eye opener to any publishers relying on programmatic advertising in their revenue mix. To learn more about Dr. Fou’s work and get access to his free ad fraud detection tools, visit his website FouAnalytics.com.

Listen here: Apple | Spotify | YouTube

🕵️‍♀️ I also spoke with Elizabeth Hamilton, Editor in Chief at The Connecticut Mirror about her deep roots in Connecticut journalism and her passion for investigative reporting.

We spoke about a case study on predatory towing practices that led to new legislation all sparked by beat reporting, Connecticut’s post pandemic elder care crisis and the hidden chaos in home healthcare systems, the state of Connecticut’s unique socioeconomic and political dynamics, and more.

Elizabeth is leading a special newsroom, have a listen on you app of choice to hear the story today. Apple | Spotify | YouTube

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