Not a new topic on this blog!

Still, let’s keep at it. How does public media step up and provide their communities local news, especially now as the broader local news ecosystem in America is in crisis?

Current covered this new report that finds we should be so much further along by now… and why we aren’t.

The report is funded by the Wyncote Foundation. It’s authors largely used interviews to examine the local news commitment of public media — what is changing, what is succeeding and what is the problem where change and success are lacking.

Here are the topline findings which are explored in detail in the report:

1. Interviewees believe that public media has both the opportunity and responsibility to join the local journalism movement. Some view the reorganization to expand local news as an imperative that allows them to advance their position as a valued civic institution and to expand their audience in the face of declining radio listenership.
2. Committed, strategic leadership at the staff and board level is essential. The critical role of leadership showed up in every interview. Leadership at the executive level was often backed by a governing body willing to reimagine the role of the organization.
3. Becoming a frontline news provider requires a deep and challenging internal and external reconfiguration across the organization. The decision to become a frontline news provider involves much more than “adds,” e.g. more reporters, an upgraded website, a newsletter strategy. It means a reformulation of the organization’s sense of purpose. The degree of disruption will vary depending on pace and strategy, but interviewees described the shift to local news as nothing less than a change in self-identity.
4. Interviewees described five key pivots in their organizations: 
   1. Engagement with and participation in the local community and its existing news ecosystem.
   2. A digital-first newsroom and appropriate adjustment of work streams between broadcast and digital production.
   3. News assignments and production decisions consider community needs and interests before selecting the delivery format.
   4. Extensive and consistent audience development and engagement.
   5. A culture of innovation and experimentation.
5. No single strategy can be considered right for all markets. In several interviews, the realignment of priorities toward local journalism emerged outside of an organization’s formal strategic planning process. And the approaches to change among the organizations varied greatly.
6. Approaches to sustainability for local news are complex. Interviewees understand that the financial returns from the shift to local news remain uncertain. Several had recently made difficult choices to downsize staff amid fluctuating post-COVID revenues.

DOWNLOAD the REPORT HERE (pdf)

The study’s authors:

Feather Houstoun, Senior Advisor for Journalism for the Philadelphia-based Wyncote Foundation.

Mark Fuerst, principal of Innovation4Media.

Sarah Lutman, founder and principal at 8 Bridges Workshop in St. Paul.

Paulina Velasco a multilingual journalist based in Los Angeles.