Arkansas Publisher Weekly: July 14, 2022

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SPJ Pro-Chapter elects new board, plans retreat

Guest Column:

National Summit on Journalism in Rural America shows good journalism is good business

By Al Cross

Arkansas Press Association

Publisher Weekly Vol.17 | No. 28 | Thursday, July 14, 2022 | Serving Press and State Since 1873

An under-utilized opportunity for Arkansas newsrooms Anna Pope, an Oklahoma native and a recent graduate of Oklahoma State University, is working in her first journalism job at KUAF in Fayetteville. Pope and KUAF found each other through a national program called Report for America, which has 300 journalists placed in 200 newsrooms in all 50 states.

Report for America, a program of The Grounded Truth Project, is a national program that places journalists in community newsrooms around the country. (The Grounded Truth Project also has the newly launched Report for the World, which currently has reporters in India and Nigeria.) Report for America was founded by journalists Charles Sennott and Steven Waldman in 2014.

Even though Report for America has so many reporters working across the country, Pope is part of a very exclusive group, being one of two of the programs’ reporters having worked in Arkansas recently, and the only one currently active.

“I was just thrilled to be accepted into the program,” Pope said. “And being close to home was a bonus.”

Pope started at KUAF, an NPR affiliate, in June, just weeks after her graduation. Born and raised in Oklahoma, she holds a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism from OSU, where she reported for the university’s paper and later became its news editor. Pope interned at KOSU public radio, and was a 2021 Community Fellow with the Inasmuch Foundation, a nonprofit with the goal of improving the quality of life for Oklahomans.

So how did she get here?

“I wanted to learn as much as possible, and Arkansas was one of those places where I could do that,” she said.

Waldman, president of Report for America, recently spoke to attendees of the Tri-State Press Convention in Memphis about the state of the news media. One of the ways he’s supporting local news media is by helping news organizations fill gaps in their community reporting through this program.

“We’re about to open up our application window now Continued on Page 2

Anna Pope

An under-utilized opportunity for Arkansas newsrooms

Continued from Page 1

for the next class,” Waldman said. “The need for more coverage, especially in smaller communities, is severe. There are so many publications doing heroic work, and we can help.”

How does Report for America work?

News organizations that want to apply need to first define their need in a really clear way, Waldman said. By a “need,” he means a need in the community — a gap in coverage. “We’re less impressed by a need based on simple numbers of reporters. We want to know what are the beats that are being undercovered? What are the community needs that are not being met?”

Then the organization has to show they have good editing, Waldman said. “The sad reality is that everyone is stressed, and the cutback in local reporters is often accompanied by a cutback in editing. We have a responsibility to our corps members (reporters) that we are placing in these newsrooms to give them a good experience, too.

That they are going to get edited well.”

Waldman also said he likes to hear from the newsrooms that they are committed to do some fundraising in the community to support the position. “That’s new for some. We do emphasize it, because we want these slots to become permanent. We can stick our finger in the dike for two years, and that’s better than nothing, but we’re more ambitious than that. We want to help the newsrooms develop a third revenue stream based on fundraising to help these positions endure.”

Report for America requires a $32,000 minimum salary for all of its reporters, and news organizations are required to provide either health insurance or stipends so the reporters can acquire their own insurance. “Whatever all full-time employees are receiving, our corps members are to be included in that. These are not fellowships.”

But news organizations that are accepted into the program also get financial support in several ways. Report for America pays 50% of the reporter’s salary in the first year, 30% in the second, and 20% in the third.

Steven Waldman

half, but they just had no idea how to start. We’ve gotten more deliberate so we have a staff of four people where that’s all they do is to help newsrooms raise money. We are real, full partners with newsrooms on making that happen. It’s a great deal and competitive for that reason. These are hard to get.

And it depends on how much we raise. We’re out there raising money from national donors. Then we put that money back out into local newsrooms through salary subsidies. Whether we’re able to grow the corps over 300 next cycle will depend on how much money we raise in the next six months.”

“We work with the newsrooms to help them raise half of their half from their communities,” Waldman said. “And we have a staff of development people that help the local newsroom. We came to Waldman said Report for America is open to ideas about realize that newsrooms were fine to try to fundraise to support their Continued on Page 4

FOIA training important for Arkansas journalists Along with the Arkansas Press Association’s FOIA Handbook and yearround FOIA support for members, the APA will hold an educational seminar on the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act on Thursday, July 21, at 1 p.m.

“Transparency in government is vital to democracy,” said APA Executive Director Ashley Kemp Wimberley. “Arkansas has a history of strong Sunshine Laws that keep the state and local governments open and accessible to the people. But the laws can change – and not often for the better. It’s so important for our members, all working

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journalists and all Arkansans to keep abreast of changes to our FOIA laws and how best to utilize FOIA to stay informed.”

APA attorney John Tull, who is a founding member of Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull PLLC in Little Rock and who also sits on the Arkansas Freedom of Information Task Force, will be speaking on the ins and outs of the FOIA and using the FOIA in reporting. In addition there will be a Q&A session for any FOIA-related questions that participants may have.

Knowing the public information Arkansas

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journalists should have access to is important.

The seminar will be approximately two hours long. Originally planned as an inperson event, due to the increase in active COVID-19 cases the seminar will be held via Zoom. Cost to attend is $20 for APA members, including associate members, and $30 for non-members.

Register online at arkansaspress.org/ event/FOIAtraining. For more information email info@arkansaspress.org

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An under-utilized opportunity for Arkansas newsrooms Continued from Page 2

partnerships for housing in the future and they are currently working on a program that would include student loan debt forgiveness.

“We’ve seen situations where some corps members were just not getting a living wage,” Waldman said. “And it’s also almost impossible to get corps members to go into those circumstances. It’s a balancing act. Cost of living is extremely different from place to place, and we don’t want to micromanage newsrooms, but we have to have a baseline for participation.”

Size or shape of the newsroom doesn’t matter to Report for America. “We have a bunch of programs that are partnerships,” Waldman said. “Creative partnering.

Multiple newsrooms partnering.

Newspapers and radio stations partnering.

Newsrooms and universities partnering.

We really like helping independent local news, not just chains, so we are very open to smaller independent folks. We just have to work with them to establish a baseline of stability.”

“We do get applications sometimes from extremely worthy candidates that we can’t support because they seem too financially frail,” Waldman said. “This is the hardest thing we have to do is turn them down because their community situation would absolutely benefit from increased coverage. But we have to think about the well-being of our corps members in those situations because we’re sending them out across the country, oftentimes far from their homes, for two years and we have to make sure they are not laid off three months later.”

“But having said that, we do have tiny newsrooms,” Waldman said. “One Report for America reporter and then the editor, that’s a common scenario. We have newsrooms where the entire editorial staff are Report for America reporters. So being small doesn’t rule you out at all.”

A relatively new non-profit asked Report for America for three reporters, and they were able to accommodate them because the organization had set up a partnership with the public radio station in their state, which provided stability. “In the case of the smallest of the small, and the frailest ones, doing it as a partnership is a good way to think about it,” Waldman said. “We have a really interesting one in Milwaukee where a university journalism program

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created Milwaukee News Network and they blended student journalism with professional journalism. So there are a couple Report for America reporters there serving as professionals, both doing local journalism. And our reporters are helping mentor the students. It’s been a really big success, and I’m interested in seeing if that model can spread.”

Pope is excited about her first journalism job out of college. “Report for America is a great organization. And KUAF is a great place to be. I’m a working professional but I’m also learning so much like everyone does at their first job. I can see myself being here for a while.”

While Pope’s undergraduate degree focused on print reporting, she also had plenty of experience in multimedia. And to her, getting her first job was the most important hurdle to overcome. “I was interested in a job - it didn’t matter. Not everyone can say they have a careerfocused job right after college. And as a growth reporter I can focus on so many different aspects of the community. How growth is impacting the people of this area.”

Report for America continues support for their reporter throughout the experience through training, mentoring, and regional and national meetings. “One of the first meetings we had was building our beats,” Pope said. “There is so much under the umbrella of growth: environment, technology, rural issues, education, everything. I just need to make sure I’m getting down to impactful stories, and that I find unique ways to tell these stories.”

and Waldman, along with all of the Report for America staff and corps members gathered for their national meeting in June. Waldman said, “It’s so inspiring to see these aspiring journalists like Anna approaching their work in community newsrooms with a strong sense of public service. They are more idealistic than I was when I started out in journalism, and they have a much deeper commitment to journalism as a public service – a vocation – it’s about strengthening communities, people having their voices heard, providing useful information to help their families or communities to address important problems.”

“We spend a lot of time looking at the business model,” Waldman said. “The economic strains. The loss of revenue and advertising. The big fundamental tidal waves of negative news. It’s so uplifting and invigorating to hang out with these reporters who really want to go and report in a local community. They really feel like it’s important for democracy and the health of the community.”

“I would encourage more organizations to try Report for America,” Pope said. “We’ve all seen the decline in local coverage, the decline of numbers of journalists in newsrooms of all sizes. We’re here and passionate about reporting on your local issues. What better people to have working for you? And I would encourage students interested in journalism to keep Report for America on their radar when looking for work. So far it’s been a great experience and it has connected me with a great job.”

Waldman on Public Policy According to Waldman, three areas that need to be focused on to save local news are: Commercial, Philanthropy and Public Policy.

“We’ve tried to expand the number of rural placements,” Waldman said. “The latest Abernathy study shows rural communities continue to get hit by news deserts, and we also have plenty of beats that cover communities of color.”

First, he says, it is widely accepted that as markets, technology and audiences/ users change, news organizations need to keep refining their business models to strengthen themselves. However, traditional advertising and subscription income doesn’t cover all the bases it once did. So, secondly, that creates a need to explore fundraising. This is where Waldman says Report for America excels, but there are many other ways to explore philanthropy in our communities.

Before Pope started her job at KUAF, she

“We at Report for America are really

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An under-utilized opportunity for Arkansas newsrooms trying to beat the bushes,” Waldman said.

“Trying to get philanthropy from large, medium and small donors to support community journalism. We think there is a sea change. We are starting to see community foundations and others starting to support local news. For instance, the Walton Foundation this year came in as a supporter of a project in the Mississippi Delta area.”

Thirdly, Waldman proposes taking a closer look at public policy.

“I say somewhat reluctantly,” Waldman said, “that there needs to be advances in public policy. That’s a little controversial, because a lot of us are not really all that excited about getting the government involved in any way. But the crisis has gotten so severe, and the threat to democracy is so acute, that we feel there does need to be some public policy attention.”

Waldman said there are ways of doing it that can provide some base level support for local journalism without endangering editorial independence.

As examples, he cited several public initiatives, in practice or in planning, from around the country that have significantly improved local journalism. In New York City, news organizations were able to get the city government to divert part of their advertising budget that would have gone mostly to the New York Times, billboards and social media into community news organizations. In New Jersey, the state took money from the licensure of a telecommunications company and used some of it to set up a journalism consortium to support local journalism. In Connecticut, a newspaper was the benefit of stimulus money that was earmarked for local businesses to buy advertising in the local newspaper.

Wisconsin currently has a bill put forward by the Republican legislature, which mirrors part of the federal Local Journalism Sustainability Act. What Wisconsin is proposing is a tax credit for small businesses to advertise with local news organizations. And on the national level, bipartisan support is behind a payroll tax

credit for local journalists, where local news organizations would get a certain amount of money for each journalist that they have employed. Waldman says these are all substantial yet unobtrusive ways public policy can benefit community journalism.

On the downside, Waldman is fearful of recent attacks by state legislatures on public notices. “The public notice fight is so unfortunate,” he said. “Of all times they would be looking to push back on that now.

Whatever one thinks about the right way of distributing information like that is, it seems like exactly the wrong time to be headed in that direction.” Ultimately, Waldman is optimistic about how public policy can help stabilize and advance local journalism.

News organizations should look for ways locally of how public policy changes might improve local coverage.

To learn more about Report for America or The Groundtruth Project visit https://www. reportforamerica.org.

Agriculture is

Essential Telling the story of our state’s #1 industry.

Public Relations Contacts Steve Eddington 501-228-1383 | steve.eddington@arfb.com

Rob Anderson 501-228-1640 | rob.anderson@arfb.com

For photos, video, news, commentary and more, visit www.ArFB.com

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

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July 14, 2022

APW members win national awards at NFPW Conference Thirty-five members of Arkansas Press Women, including 14 student members, were recognized when the National Federation of Press Women announced the winners of its 2022 Communications Contest at the end of the group’s annual conference on June 25 in Fargo, N.D. APW members who won first place awards at the Arkansas 2022 Communications Competition this past May were eligible to compete for the National awards.

APW members recognized nationally are Maria Aguilar, Spencer Bailey, Jenny Boulden, Analise Buckingham, Matthew Campbell, Chloe Cloud, Julianne Dunn, Angelita Faller, James Gilbert, Audrey Hanes, Dwain Hebda, Mary Hightower, Eli Jackson, Hannah Lawrence, Frank Lockwood, Natalie Maruschak, Debbie Miller, Fred Miller, Ginny Monk, Teresa Moss, Kristin Netterstrom Higgins, Brittney Osborn, Orry Phillips, Audrey Poff, Alexus Raymo, Macie Redick, Celia Storey, Megan Sumpter, Stephen Swofford, Stephen Thornton, Staci Vandagriff, Tess Vrbin, Abi Wandling, Tristan Webb and Murriel Wiley.

APW’s winners were among almost 300 professionals from across the nation who were recognized for outstanding work completed in 2021.

Arkansas Press Women is an association of professional communicators of any gender in journalism, public information, business, education and government. To learn more about APW visit https://arkansaspresswomen.org/. For a complete list of NFPW 2022 Communications Contest winners, visit nfpw.org.

SPJ Pro-Chapter elects new board, plans retreat

The Arkansas Society of Professional Journalists Pro-Chapter, based in Little Rock, elected its new board of directors at its annual meeting on June 30.

Steve Listopad, APA director of communication and development, was re-elected president for a second term.

Sonny Albarado, editor in chief for Arkansas’s States Newsroom was elected to a second term as vice president. Rob Moritz, journalism lecturer at the University of Central Arkansas, was elected to a second term as treasurer.

Returning board members re-elected to positions were Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press journalist; Linda GarnerBunch, managing editor at The Trucker Media Group; Wes Brown, publisher at Daily Record in Little Rock; Jennifer Ellis, managing editor at the Arkansas DemocratGazette; Ebony Harding Kendrick, producer at THV11 and Brittany Reese, communications for Pulaski County.

New board members elected were KATV reporter Brenda Lepenski and Malvern Daily Record editor Lance Brownfield.

ARKANSAS NEWSPAPER CONNECTION Are you hiring? Let us know!

The Arkansas Newspaper Connection is a weekly newsletter published by APA connecting freelance and independent writers, editors, photographers and designers with Arkansas newspapers in need.

The publication also lists available job openings and other opportunities at Arkansas newspapers and associate member organizations.

The annual meeting was held in conjunction with the chapter’s annual Diamond Awards.

A complete list of Diamond Award winners can be found at https://arkansasspj.org/.

The board is holding a strategic planning retreat Sunday, July 17, at the APA headquarters. Several goals for the retreat are to plan programming, fundraising and legislative activities for the upcoming year.

Email steve@arkansaspress.org for more information about the chapter.

NEWS NEWS

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The Relevance Project offers assistance to newspapers According to The Relevance Project, an initiative of Newspaper Association Managers, here is further proof that advertisers and marketers seeking trusted media should hire newspapers.

The products in a newspaper’s portfolio show up in the Top 5 “trusted advertising channels” rated by U.S. customers.

Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising Study says in a special excerpt that seven out of 10 consumers said they either trust completely or trust somewhat these four channels, a term Nielsen uses to distinguish where ads show up or are referenced:

building trust with consumers carries even more weight for certain categories and industries,” Nielsen stated. “Consumers trust political, pharmaceutical and financial services advertising the least, which means advertisers in these areas should choose marketing channels that are most likely to elicit consumer trust.”

The Relevance Project offers advertising and promotions that support newspapers.

According to their website, “The Relevance Project seeks to corral the assets of community newspaper media and those of state, provincial and national newspaper associations, and position them for relevance in a digitally focused world.”

You can find more information about The Relevance Project here: https:// relevanceprojectnet.wordpress.com

Ads in newspapers (No. 5 at 68.5%) Editorial content, such as newspaper articles (No. 4 at 68.7%); a nice endorsement for branded or sponsored content.

Branded websites (No. 3 at 71.1%), which certainly includes newspapers.

Emails “I signed up for” (No. 2 at 71.7%), a tout to newspapers offering e-newsletters and marketing emails sent to newspaper readers.

IS THE MOST 'TRUSTED' SOURCE TO LEARN ABOUT PUBLIC-OFFICE CANDIDATES The rankings*: 1. Local Newspapers, 7.38 2. TV Stations, 6.45 3. Radio, 5.58 4. Political Mailings, 4.63 5. Social Media Platforms, 2.65

And the No. 1 channel from Nielson: “Recommendations from people I know” (89.2%). According to The Relevance Project, what better trusted source than newspaper readers who are informed consumers.

Nielsen, which describes itself as a global leader in audience, measurement, data and analytics, also included a tip that is perfect for local news advertising reps on how best to use this data. “Choosing channels that increase the likelihood of

INDUSTRY QUOTE “I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people.”

Joseph Pulitzer Arkansas Publisher Weekly

* Newspaper Association’s 2022 Survey of 1,000 adults who rated sources based on trust when it comes to learning about candidates for public office. (A score of “1” means you don’t trust them at all, while “10” means you trust them a lot.) In a 2019 survey, community newspapers scored 5.77.

NEWSPAPER POWER.

Print, Digital & Social Solutions for our advertisers.

Customizable, ready-to-go house ads related to these findings plus other issues of interest to the newspaper industry can be downloaded from relevanceprojectnet. wordpress.com/support-local-journalism/

Design by Metro Creative Graphics, Inc.

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Guest Column:

National Summit on Journalism in Rural America shows good journalism is good business

By Al Cross “I leave hopeful for community newspapers,” one attendee said as she left the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America June 4. And there were reasons to have hope.

At a time when newspapers must get more revenue from audiences that won’t pay good money for bad journalism, the Summit provided plenty of evidence that good journalism is good business, even if you’re not the only paper in your market.

“It’s still possible to run a successful smalltown newspaper, if you do it right,” said Marshall Helmberger, co-publisher of the Timberjay in Tower, Minnesota.

His co-presenter, Sharon Burton, won applause when she said, “I wish people in this business would stop writing our obituary.”

Burton publishes the Adair County Community Voice in Columbia, Kentucky.

She said the county’s top elected official told her that she keeps the official from doing wrong.

“I don’t think that you can get a greater compliment,” she said. “And that’s what we should be in our communities.”

That fit a statement from the Summit’s first presenter, Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University: “A strong news organization builds democracy and it builds community.”

To sustain such organizations, “There’s not going to be one business model; there are going to be many,” Abernathy said. “It just depends on what kind of community you’re in.”

The Summit had a research question: How do rural communities sustain local journalism that supports local democracy? The question was based on the increased need for community support for newspapers or any other form of news media in an environment where people are “bombarded with information,” as Burton described it.

Many local news media are getting more support from their communities with Arkansas Publisher Weekly

membership models that give subscribers extra benefits, but many publishers are reluctant to ask their readers for more.

At least in the Great Plains, that attitude is off base, said Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas, reporting on her team’s recent survey of publishers and readers in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas.

Finneman found that 40% of readers said they are likely or very likely to donate to their local paper to keep it going. She and Kansas Publishing Ventures, which publishes four weeklies, are testing that by implementing such a model later this month. “This is live, ongoing research,” which should produce its first report this fall, she said.

THE STATE OF RURAL JOURNALISM The challenges of rural journalism are mainly the challenges of the communities it tries to serve, and many of those challenges are daunting. But they are not dispositive. That was made clear by some sharp, innovative and courageous editors, publishers, academics and other journalism supporters.

“Community newspapers are still trusted” more than other news media, said National Newspaper Association Executive Director Lynne Lance, citing the recent survey done for NNA in the markets of its members, mainly weeklies and small dailies.

But more broadly, when you ask how America’s rural newspapers are doing, you also need to ask, and answer, this question: “How is rural America doing?” said longtime Georgia publisher Robert M. Williams Jr. “It’s hard for any newspaper to ever rise above the quality of the community it operates in, but there are exceptions,” he said.

The biggest problem in most rural communities is shrinking population, and that’s a problem for their news media, as well as the shift of retail business to bigbox stores that advertise little, said Tony Baranowski, then co-publisher of the 9

Times Citizen in Iowa Falls, Iowa, and now at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

For many older newspaper owners in small towns, the biggest problem is finding an acceptable buyer for their newspaper.

“What we see are thousands of independent owners across the country who want to leave their legacy but don’t have someone to buy their paper,” said Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro of Columbia University, founder of the National Trust for Local News, which tries to keep local news media in local hands, rather than profit-motivated chains or politically motivated buyers.

Speaking of such, Burton said, “It’s obvious by the quality of what they’re doing that they’re not in it because they love newspapering.”

Some owners who don’t want to sell to such buyers just close their papers, and some such buyers eventually merge or close them, or strip them down so much they create what Abernathy calls a news desert: a community “with limited access to the sort of credible news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level and helps residents make wise decisions about issues that will affect their quality of life and that of future generations.”

In some cases, that means a “ghost newspaper.” In others, it means no paper at all. Abernathy, who has tracked the trend for years, said that the recent rate of mergers and closures is double what she expected, and they are now being seen in affluent communities. She is in the midst of writing an update of her research.

Social and political divisions are a growing problem for rural communities and their newspapers. Bill Horner, publisher of the Chatham News+Record in North Carolina, said is county is so divided along racial and political lines that it made him and his partners question whether it was still a place for a general-interest newspaper.

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National Summit on Journalism in Rural America shows good journalism is good business

Continued from Page 9

Horner said his twice-weekly lost its largest single-copy vendor (three stores, 200 papers) because his sports editor told the owner that the paper was doing a story on the history of lynching in Chatham County. But he said he continues outreach to Blacks and Hispanics, each 12 to 13% of the county’s population, because sustainability relies on engagement and helping audiences solve their problems.

He said one recent success is a parenting newsletter, because most people are parents, and that crosses the social and political divides.

their leaders.

Baranowski said, “We have to embrace immigration, refugees, wherever they’re coming from.” His PowerPoint presentation said, “These are facts that are difficult for many of our overwhelmingly white communities to embrace, but we have to illustrate the successes of embracing immigrants and refugees.”

Shapiro told how the National Trust for Local News used philanthropic support to buy a chain of 24 community newspapers in Colorado and put them in a nonprofit.

Now, she says the Trust is asking, “How can we bring rural papers together under common nonprofit ownership to share resources and increase the chances of long-term service and sustainability?”

He said, “The community is not embracing their stories,” one exception being an Afghan who was an interpreter for the American military. “Never underestimate the value of people being proud of lifting up an underdog,” he said.

Dink NeSmith, a newspaper chain coowner who came out of retirement to save The Oglethorpe Echo in northeast Georgia and made it a nonprofit staffed

by University of Georgia students, said Saturday during the Summit, “We began to cover the Black community for the first time,” The county is 17% Black. He said a Black truck driver was appreciative and donated $500.

NONPROFIT OWNERSHIP MODELS A nonprofit business model is an increasingly attractive alternative for newspapers that have seen their profit margins fall into single digits and want to be able to get grants and tax-deductible contributions. The potential of the nonprofit model for rural papers was the topic of two Summit discussions.

“We see nonprofit local news ... as a real bright spot,” said Jason Alcorn, vice president of learning and impact at the American Journalism Project, which makes grants to nonprofit news organizations, partners with communities to launch new nonprofits and coaches

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Publishers who are interested in the nonprofit model can explore it with the help of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which has more than 400 nonprofit, nonpartisan publishers doing 400,000 stories a year, said Jonathan Kealing, the organization’s chief network officer.

INN publishes a conversion guide, developed with the Salt Lake Tribune, which recently went nonprofit, and a guide for nonprofit startups. It also provides advice for its members.

A fundamental difference between the profit and nonprofit models is that the former is about making money and the latter is about providing public service.

“Nonprofits are by law community assets” that can’t be sold, and their boards are charged with acting for the benefit of the community, not the benefit of the organization, Kealing said.

A nonprofit can still make money; it just re-invests profits rather than distributing them to owners. “Nonprofit does not mean non-commercial,” Alcorn noted.

Summiteers heard about the latest move of a group of newspapers to a nonprofit.

Liz and Steve Parker of the New Jersey Hills Media Group said they went nonprofit because their 14 weeklies had been making a small profit, but declining ad revenue prevented investments needed for growth, and they didn’t want to sell to any of the chains that were willing to buy it.

“The options for selling were so unattractive,” Steve Parker said. His sister said most of the buyers were “bottom feeders” who would have ruined the papers, so they created the Corporation for New Jersey Local Media, using the model of the Lenfest Institute, which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer: a social benefit corporation (“B corp”) that allows the

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papers to keep publishing editorials and anything else a paper can do, including events. The CNJLM can also take grants and tax-deductible contributions.

It can also acquire other papers, becoming an umbrella for independently operated news organizations. Amanda Richardson, executive director of the nonprofit, said it has been approached by another paper that might become part of the enterprise.

Liz Parker said the model is sort of like the people of Green Bay, Wisconsin, owning the Packers, but there is no reason that it can’t work “across the country.” Her session is on YouTube. Her detailed PowerPoint presentation can be read and downloaded here: https://bit.ly/3HUIWGa. Shapiro’s presentation is here: https://bit. ly/3u5tjWX. PHILANTHROPIC SUPPORT Philanthropy is becoming part of the business model at many American newspapers, but not so much among rural weeklies and dailies. Rural philanthropy has always been something of an oxymoron, with most of the big money staying in big places. The Summit explored how philanthropy can help rural news outlets.

Editors and publishers at chain-owned rural papers might think that their ownership model precludes asking for philanthropic help from individuals and institutions, but one of the better examples of philanthropy helping a non-metropolitan paper is at the Traverse City Record-Eagle in Michigan, a daily owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. Nathan Payne, who recently moved from the editorship of the Record-Eagle to be the rural team editor for Kaiser Health News, discussed at the Summit how he raised support through the local community foundation, a type of philanthropy that is becoming more common in rural areas and in Traverse City. It added a trust factor to a chain paper asking for money.

He said people in Traverse City see the value of “20 professional skeptics all over the community, turning over rocks” but they didn’t really know the state of local journalism. This year, the paper has $15,000 from foundations, and it has

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expanded its coverage area to include more rural counties, a rarity today.

A similarly enlightened community is Rappahannock County, Virginia, pop.

7,400, where the weekly Rappahannock News has added muscle to its newsroom with the help of Foothills Forum, a local philanthropy created specifically to help the independently owned paper.

The county “has tradition of deep civic engagement,” Publisher Dennis Brack said at the Summit. He acknowledged later that its proximity to Washington, D.C., 90 miles to the east, and the presence of many retirees from D.C., also help.

The first funded project was a poll of the county, to which 42% of residents responded, saying what mattered most to them was privacy, beauty, family farms and internet and cell service. So the next project, using freelance journalists, was on the “digital dilemma;” the second was on land use, then housing. In the pandemic, the News produced a daily newsletter.

Brack said the paper and Foothills Forum are independently operated with an operating agreement that is public, along with the names of donors, but are “highly collaborative.” The only direct subsidies have been sharing the match for RFA reporter and picking up the pay for a parttimer during the pandemic.

At least one philanthropy has been created specifically for rural news: the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism, headed by Jody Lawrence-Turner, who is also project editor at The Bulletin in Bend, whose owners founded the philanthropy.

She said it was created to help rural news organizations adapt and adjust their business models, with strategic advice on digital revenue and other topics, partnerships on stories, micro-grants, talent recruitment and development.

FORJ’s first big pilot project addresses a growing complaint of rural editors and publishers: They can’t find qualified people who want to work in local news. One solution often suggested is developing interest and talent among students in high school or even middle school. FORJ’s Future Journalists of America pilot at four high schools in Bend newsrooms hosts a lab with sessions taught by professionals in a semester-long curriculum: media literacy; professional craft; doing

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

assignments with news staffers; a digital, district-wide publication; and exploration of sustainable business models. The overall goal is to sell “a career with a purpose, ensuring the continuation of a free democracy,” Lawrence-Turner said.

OTHER SUMMIT SESSIONS Horner teamed up with Terrence Williams of The Keene (New Hampshire) Sentinel, a daily, to discuss how they are adapting their newspapers and raising more revenue from their readers. Kentucky journalism professor Buck Ryan, who has been studying Horner’s paper, wrote up the session for The Rural Blog at https:// tinyurl.com/yckuuj5x.

Burton and Helmberger’s “Good journalism is good business” session featured two editor-publishers who have hometown competition but still thrive.

Helmberger said his editorials have cost the Timberjay some subscriptions, but more might have come from people appreciative of campaigns like the one that changed a law on public access to contracting between public bodies and private entities; it’s called “the Timberjay law.”

“They know when it comes to our investigations, we don’t play favorites,” Helmberger said. “Over time, the light bulb clicks on, and they realize newspapers can play an important role in bringing positive change to the community. ... We don’t just have readers. We have engaged readers who can’t wait for the next issue.”

That showed when the Timberjay was the target of a frivolous lawsuit that would still take a big part of its annual cash flow to defend. Crowdfunding for the defense raised $30,000, Helmberger said.

Both Helmberger and Burton have played unusual — and probably for most journalists, controversial — roles in their communities. Helmberger is the executive of the local economic-development authority, and Burton served on the board of the local hospital that had been driven into bankruptcy by mismanagement. When the new county judge-executive asked her to serve, she had many reservations because journalists are supposed to cover news, not make it. But she agreed “because I could not think of anything more important to do as someone who loves this community and the people who

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made it great,” she wrote, adding that she felt she could make sure the board was more transparent than it had been. She recused herself from reporting or editing any hospital stories and had an outside professional edit them. More on Burton’s exploits is at https://tinyurl.com/3abtkt6b.

Burton concluded with a personal statement that many independent editorpublishers would make, and one that could be useful in reassuring or alerting readers concerned about owners’ motives: “I make money so I can be in the newspaper business. I’m not in the newspaper business to make money,” as she said most buyers of newspapers are today. “It’s obvious by the quality of what they’re doing that they’re not in it because they love newspapering. I think they’re part of our problem, because they hurt our reputation.”

At the close of the Summit, I observed that we are in a fast-moving environment in which news publishers and people who want to help them need to remain in contact, so the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues will create a platform for Summit attendees and others to share information, questions and answers. And we will hold another Summit via Zoom in a few months, again focused on innovation and sustainability.

The stories from which this report is drawn are on The Rural Blog at http:// irjci.blogspot.com. Video of the sessions are on YouTube at https://tinyurl.com/ yc43y8uj.

Originally published by the National Newspaper Association Foundation.

Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the extension professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky and director of its Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog at http://irjci.blogspot.com.

July 14, 2022