The narrative that local news is dead is widely accepted in the media industry. The rise of digital advertising has cut off local news organisation's main source of revenue, leading to decades of cuts and managed decline at once-lucrative publications who have struggled to adapt.
But over the last few years, there have been glimmers of hope. Although there are still vast news deserts with no coverage, start-ups are springing up to fill gaps in some areas. Publications like Axios get a lot of publicity for their pledges to save local news via their bullet-pointed newsletters. However, there are many smaller publishers which get far less attention, but which are well on the way to making the business side of local news work for them.
In this special podumentary episode of Media Voices, Esther Thorpe talks to four of the participants of the most recent Google News Initiative Startups Lab: Borderless, Santa Cruz Local, the San Jose Spotlight, and The Mendocino Voice. They discuss what drove them to start their publication, what business models they're choosing to use, and some of the challenges they've faced launching a media business.
For more on the start-ups, the transcript and more, see our website voices.media
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The Wall Street Journal's Edward Hyatt on the changing SEO landscape
TotallyEV's Chris Minasians on building audience trust in product reviews
The Telegraph's Maire Bonheim and David Alexander on newsletters for different business goals
War correspondent Jane Ferguson on how tech is evolving conflict reporting
Immediate Media's Ridhi Radia on making inclusion a strategic priority
JournalismAI's Tshepo Tshabalala on practical AI use cases for small newsrooms
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The Economist's Nada Arnot on why publishers should be running more brand campaigns
The Quality Edit's Lauren Kleinman & Lee Joselowitz on performance publishing
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Futureproofing local news: State of the market
Integrating AI into newsrooms: experiment, report, measure
AI in the newsroom: Opportunities, regulation and risk
Project 23’s Elaine dela Cruz on creating DE&I programmes in media
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