A standing-room-only crowd of more than forty was packed into The Silver Unicorn Bookstore for “Community News Night” on the evening of Friday, March 1. In partnership with this publication, Acton Exchange, the small indy bookseller in West Acton hosted veteran journalists Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy to discuss their recently published book, “What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate.”
Paul Swydan, The Silver Unicorn’s proprietor, and Kim Kastens, board member and regular contributor to the Acton Exchange, had been in conversation for months on the topic of the importance of local news for a community. The detriment caused by the end to print distribution of The Beacon in May of 2022 following years of decline in local coverage after being purchased by the Gannett publishing company was acutely felt. Kastens’ opening remarks informed attendees that a year-long study by the MA League of Women Voters inspired the Acton Area League to host a public forum early in 2023 to determine whether there was interest in creating a local news outlet and willing persons to do the work. She noted, “We catalyzed a group of volunteers who got together to explore how to do this.” The group began publishing content in a weekly circular, the Action Unlimited, last May, and launched an independent website last November. In another month or so, a newly designed website will debut.
In addition to interested residents and Acton Exchange volunteers, the event drew volunteers and staff from other local news organizations: Boxborough News, Westford CAT, Harvard Press, and the one-man operated Weebly site, Town Wide Mall in Maynard. Unlike these established and newly emergent local news outlets, the weeklies of the past had transitioned to being “ghost newspapers”, as Kennedy calls them, publishing regional news that held little interest for their traditional readers. Having become increasingly irrelevant, and focused on paying down the debt of acquisition and enriching the new corporate owners, one-third of those papers have closed since 2005, Kennedy said. Roughly 34,000 associated jobs have been lost.
The message driven home by the authors throughout the evening was the critical role local news sources play in civic life. According to Clegg, “What we found in our research is that local news is key to trust.” She added that this holds true across the various outlets, whether print, radio, or local access TV, because readers, listeners and viewers “feel a direct connection” to the people covering community events such as school sports and funerals. The authors shared a few other discoveries from their research. When communities lack local coverage that provides scrutiny, municipal governments are charged higher interest rates for borrowing and straight party ticket voting increases because down-ballot candidates are unknown to voters. When reporting is focused on zoning, local tax issues, and community rather than national news, the partisan temperature is brought down, according to an academic study cited by Clegg and Kennedy.
When the conversation opened to questions, attendee Kevin Wesley asked, “What are the hyper-local sites covering? What’s the content like?” Kennedy responded that one weakness among them is that they “dare to be dull.” He offered that contributors need to get down and do the work of covering community life, those everyday issues. Clegg, who is now co-chair of the steering committee and clerk of the board of directors with Brookline.News, concurred, commenting, “We went out to find out what the community wanted to read about. What we found is that people were missing the joy of Brookline. The joy of community. Why we live here.” Cassie LaRussa, co-editor of Boxborough News, asked the authors to comment on the potential longevity of all-volunteer news organizations. Both Clegg and Kennedy agreed that eventually, the need to employ staff is unavoidable. In order to grow, in order to be sustainable, the organizations reach a point when a conversion to non-profit status is necessary. Acton Exchange’s board chair, MaryHelen Gunn was interested to hear the authors’ take on the philanthropy model, relying heavily on donations to cover operational costs. Kennedy emphasized that this requires education of local residents, businesses and organizations on the importance of supporting the news, just like the importance of supporting kids’ education and activities or arts and culture. Clegg added, “[Funding] is going to come from your readers, your listeners. It takes some education that this is not a business venture. It’s philanthropic.” A final question came from KJ Herther, with the Town of Acton’s Economic Development Office. She asked about the influence of AI on local journalism. Kennedy offered, “I’ve used AI to generate titles. They’re pretty boring. It’s a bit of a fad actually, but in a few years, we’re going to be thinking about it in a more reasoned way. It’s not going away.”
IMAGE: Audience at Silver Unicorn Bookstore discussion with authors Dan Kennedy and Ellen Klegg. Photo credit: Alissa Nicol.
Alissa Nicol is a Select Board member and a frequent volunteer contributor to Acton Exchange.
