This page recounts the history of the local news initiative in Acton, Massachusetts, as recorded contemporaneously through a series of Updates sent by email to Friends and supporters. Updates have been lightly edited. To receive future Updates, visit our Subscribe page.
From Update #1: June 16, 2023
Acton has had several weekly newspapers over the decades. The Acton Enterprise was published from 1890-1937, followed by the Assabet Valley Beacon, Acton Liberty Bell, Acton Citizen, and various incarnations of The Acton Beacon. Beacon Communications was bought by an investment company in 1993, and passed through various ownerships, finally ending up as a part of GateHouse Media, which then merged with Gannett. Under GateHouse/Gannett ownership, local coverage in the Acton Beacon faded away, until finally the print edition stopped entirely, with the last print edition on May 5, 2022. Archival copies of these predecessor efforts are available online through the Acton Library system
The current newspaper effort began with members of the Acton-area League of Women Voters (LWV-AA), who participated in a statewide LWV project on the decline of local journalism. That yearlong effort began with an inspiring keynote presentation by scholars Ellen Clegg & Dan Kennedy on What Works: The Future of Local News. Research documents that when local journalism declines or disappears in an area, civic engagement tends to decline, government tends to become less transparent and accountable, and the likelihood of corruption increases.
The LWV-AA organized a well-attended community workshop at Town Hall on February 4,2023. The 70+ participants heard from leaders of newspapers in surrounding towns and began the process of brainstorming what a dream newspaper for Acton should look like. A follow up meeting on March 2 attracted a core group of Acton residents with diverse backgrounds and skill sets, eager to plunge in and make the new paper a reality.
That group has been meeting monthly and working on multiple fronts simultaneously. One subgroup is exploring bylaws and business plan, another is working on fundraising, another on technical underpinnings, and others are exploring various local partners. Although the LWV kickstarted the effort, the ongoing effort is independent of the League, and is working towards becoming a 501(c)3 non-profit. To spread the word about this initiative, to build enthusiasm, and to get a better sense of what people would like to see in an Acton paper, the team has also been holding a series of “affinity group” meetings with various groups and constituencies who share a common interest that they would like to see reflected in the new paper.
In the meantime, the newspaper team has begun to practice generating Acton-relevant content for publication in the Acton-Maynard edition of Action Unlimited. The Action Unlimited is delivered to many households in Acton, or can be picked up at the Acton Memorial Library or from a box outside of CVS. The Action Unlimited also has an online edition. Scroll down below the flipper to see the content in an easier to read format. Since beginning our collaboration with Action Unlimited, we have published on a wide range of topics, all with a local focus, including: [6 article titles].
This emerging effort can definitely use more volunteers. At this moment, we are especially in need of people with business expertise, experience in non-profit management, and a lawyer and/or CPA able to work on the paperwork needed to become a 501(c)3. Writers and editors are also very welcome.
The team’s next meeting will be [date][venue.] The agenda will include forming a Website Design Team, finalizing our initial Mission Statement, and formulating a process for recruiting and vetting additional authors. If you are ready to plunge into working on this exciting effort, please come to the [date] meeting.
From Update #2, July 5, 2023
The Acton Newspaper Initiative is making progress. After much heart-felt discussion, we adopted a Mission Statement, as follows:
Our mission is to operate as an independent organization that consistently provides relevant and accurate news to the Acton community. We are committed to reflecting diverse voices and encouraging civic and community engagement as we inform and enrich the lives of our readers.
We hope that you see in this statement the foundation of an enterprise that will improve our town and your life.
The Mission Statement was drafted by the newly formed “Organization Team,” and adopted by consensus of the larger leadership team. The Organization Team is also taking on the development of a business plan and fund-raising process, with guidance from the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN). The next meeting of the Organization Team will be [date][venue]. Homework: Read and prepare to discuss the first three chapters of the INN start-up handbook, up through “Building your audience strategy and development program.” New people are welcome to join the Organization Team, especially people with legal, entrepreneurial, or non-profit experience.
We continue to summit articles for publication through the Action Unlimited. Since the last Update, we have published articles that both inform and enrich lives, including: [8 titles].
In parallel with the Action Unlimited partnership, the Tech Team is researching and experimenting with approaches to a free-standing online publication.
From Update #3: September 24, 2023
Thank you for your continued interest in the effort to spin up an independent, non-profit, nonpartisan news organization to gather and publish local news for Acton, MA. A volunteer team, operating under the label “Acton Newspaper Initiative (ANI),” have been writing, editing, organizing, planning, building and otherwise moving this venture forward since March, 2023.
Since our last update, the ANI has published the following articles via the Action Unlimited: [28 article titles.]
The Tech Team has built a testbed website, independent of the Action Unlimited, and are currently refining it based on input from the ANI team. Friends of the Acton Newspaper Initiative (in other words, this email list) will be given access to the website on or about November 1, and your comments and suggestions will be used to further refine the look and functionality of the website. All the ANI articles, going back to the very first “issue,” are on the website, including some that were not published in the Action Unlimited for lack of space.
The Organization Team has been moving us towards meeting the requirements for membership in the Institute for Non-profit News (INN). INN provides mentoring, resources, and other support to hundreds of nonprofit, nonpartisan, local news organizations dedicated to public service–like us. To join INN, we need to “produce original journalism,” which we are doing. We need a Mission Statement, which was highlighted in our last Update. We need a name for our publication, which is the current focus of the Organization Team.
The Editorial Team has been editing a steady stream of articles every week, and coaching new writers. In addition, an ad hoc group of ANI writers, prospective writers, editors, and tech folks have been begun to develop a written set of Editorial Policies and Procedures. Developing such guidelines is helping to consolidate our values and priorities about what kind of publication we want to be, and the guidelines themselves will be valuable as we bring additional volunteer writers on board. So far, that group has addressed deadlines, conflicts of interest and disclosure, quotes and sources, who can be an author, and word count.
The Affinity Group Team is changing its name to the “Outreach Team,” and changing its mode of operation. Previously, that team had been organizing meetings to gather input from people with a particular interest or focus, and asking what they would like to see in a local newspaper. By now, we have a pretty good handle on that question. From now on, the Outreach Team will try to get a slot on the agenda of existing groups or organizations in town, where they will explain the status and plans for the newspaper initiative and seek to recruit a contact person who can organize coverage of events and issues of importance to that group.
The Newspaper Initiative looks towards the day when we will have a small paid staff, but for now we are an all-volunteer effort. We need every kind of help: writers, entrepreneurs, people who know about non-profit leadership, a lawyer, a person to take notes at meetings, a person to tag photographs with “alt-text” so that people with impaired vision can use their computerized text readers with our emerging website.
For writers: We have someone to cover Select Board Meetings and we have writers on environmental and water issues, but we are looking for someone to cover other important Boards and Committees regularly. Is that you? Now that the school year has started, we especially need someone to cover School Board meetings and events at schools. Whatever you do, wherever you go in town, write about it!
From Update #4: October 14, 2023
The most exciting news is that we now have a name for our venture: The Acton Exchange.
The team working on the paper voted by ranked choice voting at our monthly team meeting on Oct 11, 2023, and The Acton Exchange was the clear winner. In discussion prior to the vote, this name was praised for conveying a multiway sharing of news and information within and around our community, as contrasted with the one-way flow from paid journalists to paying subscribers model of traditional journalism.
Having a name is an important step towards being able to apply for membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) for fundraising, for putting across the top of our emerging website, and for outreach to individuals and organizations around town.
We are still on track to share access to the beta version of a stand-alone website for The Acton Exchange with you on or about November 1, and invite your comments and suggestions. The team viewed and critiqued a version of the website at our Oct 11 meeting, admiring the archive of 65+ articles, the ability to search by term and browse by month or category, and the cross-linkages that allow a reader of one article to jump to other articles in the same category.
Since our last update, we have published the following articles via the Action Unlimited: [12 article titles].
From Update #5: November 1, 2023
We are thrilled to be able to invite you to view and critique a beta version of the website of The Acton Exchange. Please go to ActonExchange.org and take a look around.
Don’t concern yourself with aesthetics at this time. Our Tech Team and Editorial Team have been focused on functionality and content, and that’s what we want you to look at in this round of critique.
First, read a bunch of the articles. Our archive now has nearly more than 80 articles written by more than 25 different authors. Please don’t comment on individual articles. Instead look at the breadth and scope of the collection of articles. Our commitment is to publish articles that are relevant to the people of Acton, are accurate, reflect a diversity of voices, inform and enrich the lives of readers, and encourage civic and community engagement. At this time, we are only publishing news articles; no opinion pieces (yet). How are we doing, content-wise?
Next, give the functionality a good workout. If you are especially into tech details, try it out on different browsers and devices. In addition to just scrolling down though the articles in reverse chronological order, you can do the following: click on an author’s name to see all other articles by that author, click on a category (e.g. Environment, Select Board) to see all other articles in that category, search for a specific word, browse the site by month, or browse by category.
If you find something that seems to be not working, please send us:
- a description of what you were trying to do
- specifics of the unsatisfactory behavior
- what kind of device you were on (e.g. Macintosh computer, Samsung smartphone)
- what browser you were using (e.g. Safari, Chrome, Firefox)
If you feel that an important domain of Acton news is not being covered, consider stepping up to write those stories. The Acton Exchange is currently an all volunteer effort, and what gets covered depends on who has volunteered. We are especially eager for new writers who will be able—over time–to submit multiple related articles in a domain where they are knowledgeable. We are looking for volunteers willing go to all or most meetings of a specific municipal Board/ Committee/ Commission and report when something newsworthy is decided or discussed. Likewise, we are looking for active members of local non-profit, non-governmental organizations who would be willing to write about events or milestones achieved by their organization. And interesting one-off stories are always welcome. Writers will have to abide by a set of editorial policies around conflicts of interest, source attribution, opinion, and other journalistic norms.
From Update #6: November 29, 2023
As of 11-13-2023, Acton News Initiative, Inc., which will be doing business as “The Acton Exchange,” is now an officially recognized non-profit corporation in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!
The Org Team determinedly wove their way through a thicket of paperwork, and steered the rest of the team towards establishing a mission statement, a name for the organization, officers, initial bylaws, and a Board of Directors. Massachusetts nonprofit corporation status is not the same as federal 501(c)3 status; that requires additional steps, which we are working on.
The official non-profit designation puts us in a position to open a bank account, begin fundraising, and apply for provisional membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN). By joining INN, we will ally ourselves with 425 other independent news organizations, pioneering a “new kind of news network: nonprofit, non-partisan, and dedicated to public service.” According to their website, more than 90% of INN member organizations survive their startup phase and emerge ready to grow, in part because of the mentoring, training opportunities, and networking provided by INN.
As part of the process becoming a Massachusetts non-profit, we established officers and a Board of Directors. The initial officers are: President: MaryHelen Gunn-Laurence; Treasurer: Avantika Nautiyal; and Clerk: Pamela Minichiello. All of the Officers are, ex officio, members of the Board. Other founding Board members are Marion Maxwell, Jefferey Vandergrift, and Kim Kastens. MaryHelen, Avantika, and Marion have been key members of the Org Team; Jeff has been central to the Tech Team; and Kim and Pam have been working on the Outreach Team. [Disclosure: Kim is the primary author of these updates you have been receiving.] To keep organization separate from editorial, the founding Editor-in-Chief, Franny Osman, is not a member of the Board, nor will be future Editors-in-Chief. As the organization matures, we expect to bring on additional Board members who aren’t so deep into day-to-day operations and can bring a broader perspective.
From Update #7: December 10, 2023
As we noted in our last update, we’ve made great strides this year bringing an Acton news source to fruition. While our small group has accomplished all this using 100% sweat equity, we are now at a point that requires an initial cash infusion to accomplish our next steps. Specifically, we need funds to cover state filing fees, web hosting, accounting and legal fees, and membership in INN, an organization that mentors non-profit local news start-ups like ours. To this end we have created a GoFundMe page [URL] to raise initial funds. After we are an official non-profit 501(c)3 organization, we’ll initiate a more ambitious fundraising round, with the goal of putting this organization in a position to supplement our talented, motivated volunteers with some paid staff so that we can expand the amount and frequency of town news coverage.
With your help, our next efforts will provide the foundation for the Acton Exchange to become a lasting news source for our community. We hope you will consider donating a small amount to help us in this next important phase. For those who prefer to contribute by check [directions].
From Update #8: January 7, 2024
Thank you for your continued interest in local news for Acton. It’s been a busy and productive month.
Reporting the news:
Since our last Update, we have continued to publish a steady stream of locally-sourced, locally-relevant news on our website, The Acton Exchange (AE), and through our partnership with the Action Unlimited. We passed the landmark of one hundred published articles, including our first article with video. We are rolling out a new article type: “Backgrounders” are articles that do not report on current news, but do provide information that the editors think will help Actonians better understand a current, locally-relevant event or issue. For the benefit of our growing cadre of volunteer writers, the Editorial Team completed and posted our Editorial Policies and Procedures document. Finally, the Tech Team is in the process of moving our web content to our own server. The domain name will be actonexchange.org.
Organization:
The Board of Directors completed our application for membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), slipping in under the end-of-year deadline to be eligible for key 2024 programming. INN is a a network of 425 nonprofit news organizations, all dedicated to public service. If our application is successful, membership in INN will open the door to training opportunities, mentorship, matching grants through the NewsMatch program, and fiscal sponsorship for our application for federal 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profit status. To complete the INN application, the Board developed and posted policies on Conflicts of Interest, Corrections, Donor Transparency, and Editorial Independence. Links to these policies are along the right-hand side of the Acton Exchange website. The Finance Team ran a successful seed money campaign through GoFundMe, raising over $6,200 from 129 donations. Thank you if you were among the 129. A more ambitious round of fund-raising will follow when we are a 501(c)3 and can accept tax-exempt donations. To prepare for 501(c)3 fiscal sponsorship through INN, the Board is now drafting a 2-year business plan.
Upcoming Events:
* All-hands Team Meeting: [date][venue] This meeting is open to anyone who wants to volunteer to work on the local news initiative in any capacity: we need writers, editors, web people, tech people, business people, an accountant, a meeting note taker; whatever you know how to do, that skill is probably needed.
* Workshop for AE writers and editors: [date][venue] We intend that this will be the first of a series of optional workshops for Acton Exchange writers, aimed at helping us build up our capacity to report the news. This first interactive workshop will be led by the AE editorial team, and will focus on the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists (which we agreed to abide by when we applied to INN) and the editorial polices of the Acton Exchange. Anyone who has written for the Acton Exchange or might be interested in doing so is welcome to attend.
From Update #9: February 4, 2024
It was only one year ago, on February 4, 2023, that the Acton-area League of Women Voters convened a community workshop in 204 Town Hall to gauge whether there was interest in trying to spin up a local, non-profit, non-partisan news source for Acton. How far we have come!
New Content:
In January, ActonExchange.org posted the following articles: [14 article titles, with hyperlinks to individual articles]. We are working towards introducing a new content type: Letters to the Editor. Our aspiration is to have a Letters section on the website in time for Town Elections and Town Meeting.
New web domain:
In January, actonexchange.org was moved from the private web domain of a Tech Team volunteer, to a domain owned by the Acton News Initiative, Inc. This was one of our first purchases with the seed money raised on GoFundMe. Thank you if you donated! One benefit of this transition is that you can now share the URL for a specific article, as we have done in the list of articles above. This platform provides us with the scalability and security needed as we continue to build out our content. The next priority for our website is a new look and design that will be easier to use and provide flexibility for new content types.
Building Capacity:
* Four members of our Board of Directors attended the first New England Newsrooms Conference, at Boston University on January 25. Along with representatives of dozens of other small non-profit newsrooms engaged in journalism in the public interest, we learned about fundraising strategies, driving reader engagement, copublishing and collaboration, and “how not to get sued.”
* On January 27, our three editors joined 9 writers for our first Acton Exchange Writers’ Workshop. Together, we worked our way through key points in the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists and in the Acton Exchange’s own Editorial Policy, discussing how these policies can play out in the specific circumstances of Acton guided by the AE Mission Statement.
Come learn from giants in the field of community news:
The Acton Exchange is collaborating with the Silver Unicorn Bookstore to host Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy for a discussion of their new book, “What works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts and the Future of the Fourth Estate.” In the words of Gregory L. Moore, former editor of The Denver Post, this book “pulls together in one place innovative approaches from across the country to stave off growing ‘news deserts.’ You can’t help but find this book nourishing if you care about preserving local news—and our democracy.” The discussion will be on Friday, March 1, 7:00 pm, at the Silver Unicorn Bookstore, 12 Spruce Street, West Acton.
From Update #10: March 11, 2024
It’s been a very busy month for the Acton Exchange Team, with many new articles, a sharp-looking web redesign in the works, new content types in the planning stage, and a visit to Acton from two giants in the field of community journalism. Read our content at actonexchange.org. Engage with our team, and perhaps find a role for yourself, at the the March All-hands meeting.
Silver Unicorn discussion with Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy
On March 1, a standing-room-only crowd piled into our local independent bookstore to hear authors Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy discuss their new book: “What Works in Community Journalism: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate.” The authors discussed the broader forces contributing to the decline of local journalism nationwide, and shared lesson learned from their extensive reporting from communities across the country where small dedicated teams have been starting up non-profit news sources devoted to journalism in the public interest. In addition to strong turn out from the Acton Exchange Team, the event attracted volunteer and staff journalists from community news organizations in Boxborough, Maynard, Harvard and Westford, so we now have new contacts among our counterparts in surrounding towns.
If you haven’t yet read the Clegg/Kennedy book and would like to know more about the forces behind the nation-wide movement to reinvigorate community journalism — of which the Acton Exchange is a small part — a generous supporter of community journalism has donated a copy of the book to each of Acton’s two public library branches.
Website redesign!
Our existing website, built with zero budget by Tech Team member Tom Beals, has served us very well in our first year of publication. The simple, intuitive reverse-chronological-order layout has provided us with a venue to publish a growing collection of news articles, to build our cadre of writers, and develop a functional editorial process. We now have 139 reported articles on our website.
However, we are in the exciting process of developing a new website that will be more flexible, more powerful, and more visually appealing. Talented local designer David Gerratt is contributing his design expertise to this effort. At the end of this email, see an image of approximately what the home page will look like. More details at the March All-hands meeting.
In addition to being visually-appealing, the new website is scoped to accommodate many more functions than our current site can support, including new types of content, on-line donations, community calendar, and letters to the editor. Not all these functions will be operational on launch day, but the new design provides room for growth and embodies our aspirations for an effective gathering spot for Acton folks to learn, communicate, and connect.
Volunteer help wanted
To achieve our vision will require more hands and minds. Could you see yourself in any of the roles below? Or could you suggest someone who might thrive doing this work? All roles on Acton Exchange Team are somewhat flexible, according to the skills, passions, and constraints of the particular volunteer who steps up.
Municipal News Beat Reporter: This beat reporter will monitor the communications (official social media, press releases, public notices, newsletters) coming from our three municipal government entities (the Town of Acton, the A-B School District, the Acton Water District) as well as our state legislators. The reporter will pitch to the Editorial Team story ideas based on this information flow, including announcements to run as received and stories that would benefit from additional reporting. For some stories, the reporter will engage with the appropriate government entity to elicit information not in the original communication. This volunteer position is a good match for a person who wants to learn more about what is happening in Acton.
Newsletter Manager: Our plan is to transition from our current once a month “Updates” to a weekly e-newsletter. The newsletter will feature links to each of that week’s Acton Exchange articles, as well as news of our progress as an organization (as in the current Updates), and occasional news or insights from the nation-wide effort to foster non-profit, non-partisan community news in the public interest. The Newsletter Manager will be responsible for compiling each week’s article links, collecting organizational news from the Directors, Editors and other teams, keeping an eye out for news from the larger world of non-profit community news, and assembling the weekly newsletter. The e-newsletter will be free, but will require a “subscription,” and the Newsletter Manager will manage the subscription database. This is a good position for a person who loves to communicate, values the Acton Exchange as a community-building enterprise (as well as a news source), and is well-organized.
Layout person: This volunteer will receive content from the Editor-in-Chief and the Letters Committee and post it into WordPress, under guidance from the Editorial Team and with access to the Tech Team for technical support. For articles and letters, the layout person will apply categories and tags, check hyperlinks, assure that each content segment is positioned correctly and linked successfully, and apply corrections and correction notices to previously published articles. For images and video, the layout person will position multimedia elements appropriately within articles, write alt text (descriptions of images for visually impaired readers), make sure there is a thumbnail for each article, check for photo credits, and manage the Acton Exchange’s collection of images and video. This team member is enthusiastically invited to suggest improvements to the website as experience accumulates. Some experience with WordPress is desirable, although a computer-literate, detail-oriented, reliable volunteer who wants to engage with every Acton Exchange story could be trained.
Money also wanted!
The seed money funds that we raised through our initial GoFundMe campaign have supported web hosting, website programming, zoom account, mail box, fees, insurance, and so on. We are working to achieve federal 501(c)3 tax free status, which will allow us to accept tax-free donations, position us for more serious fund-raising, and thus enable us to supplement our talented volunteers with some paid staff time. In the meantime, though, the seed money funds are running low, and we could really use an infusion of smallish (not yet tax free) donations. Please make out your check to The Acton Exchange and mail it to Acton Exchange, 100 Powdermill Road Suite 109, Acton MA 01720.
From Update #11, April 6, 2024
Full membership in INN:
On March 15, we were notified that we had been approved for full membership and Fiscal Sponsorship in the Institute for Nonprofit News. Membership in this organization certifies that we are an independent nonprofit news source producing journalism in the public interest, and gives us access to mentoring, resources and journalism training. When the Fiscal Sponsorship paperwork is finished, donations to the Acton Exchange will be tax-deductible. Read more.
Redesigned website opening soon:
Working with talented Acton-based designer David Gerratt of NonprofitDesign.com, we have completely overhauled our website. The new website is beautiful to look at, intuitive to navigate, and offers us the opportunity to include new types of content. The new website is undergoing testing at this moment, and is behaving well so far. Within the next couple of days, the familiar blog-style layout disappear, to be replaced by a classy, newspaper-style layout. Watch this space: actonexchange.org
Letters to the Exchange now being accepted:
The new website design provides a place to publish letters to the editor, and the team has been working to establish policies and a vetting process for letters from the community. We are now accepting incoming letters. Letters can be in reaction to specific articles we have published, or on other issues of current interest to people of Acton. Letters must be less than 350 words, on a local topic, and fit to print.
Weekly e-newsletter coming soon:
We are launching a weekly e-newsletter, envisioned as a succinct communication with direct links and short descriptions for each of that week’s articles. We will continue to send out monthly Updates, to let our volunteers, donors, and other interested stakeholders know what is happening with the Acton Exchange, along with occasional news from the broader world of nonprofit journalism. As early supporters of Acton’s local news initiative, you will be automatically subscribed to the weekly newsletter, but be assured you will be able opt out easily at any time.