Episode 119: Ron Mitchell

Ron Mitchell: The African American and English speaking Latino diaspora really, uh, is a New England phenomenon, uh, where they're all over the country, but in New England, there are large pockets where it's not just in Boston per se, but you have groups in other states as well that still are interested in this news and this focus.

Ellen Clegg: Welcome to what Works, a podcast about the future of local news coming to you from Northeastern University School of Journalism and the center for Transformative Media. I'm Ellen Clegg.

Dan Kennedy: And I'm Dan Kennedy. Today's guest is Ron Mitchell Paul, publisher and editor of the Bay state banner. In 2023, Mitchell and Andre Stark, both of them seasoned television news journalists, purchased the Banner, which is a newspaper covering the black and brown communities in Boston and beyond.

Ellen Clegg: The Banner was started in 1965 by Melvin Miller. The print weekly is legendary for covering stories that were ignored by other publications. Stories about the black and Latino communities in the Boston neighborhoods like Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. Mitchell and Stark are expanding its digital footprint, among other things.

Dan Kennedy: During his 27 years at WBZ, Mitchell created news coverage focused on racism in elementary school textbooks in 2014 and a series chronicling an 11 year lawsuit that culminated in an $11 million award to a black firefighter in Brookline.

Ellen Clegg: We'll also be talking with Sanjana Mishra, a, uh, Northeastern journalism and criminal justice graduate. She's worked in local news, communications and social media and she's a student of Dan's. So, Dan, can you tell us more about her research?

Dan Kennedy: Sure. Sanjna took two courses with me last semester and somehow lived to tell the tale. In our Ethics and diversity class, she wrote a final paper called How Private Equity and Corporate Ownership Are Killing Local Journalism and American Democracy, which was an in depth examination of how Alden Global Capital and USA Today company known as Gannett until recently have hollowed out newsrooms in a never ending quest for higher profits.

Ellen Clegg: Later on, I'll have a quick take on, uh, North Star Stories, a daily radio broadcast on local news carried by a network of 17 community FM stations across Minnesota. It's by Community for community, and it's funded partly by donors and partly by the state.

Dan Kennedy: I'll have a quick take about the latest on the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, which announced earlier this year that it was shutting down in the face of mounting losses. What's happened since is mostly good, but it comes with a sour aftertaste. But now, let's hear from Ron Mitchell. Ron, welcome to the podcast. The Bay State Banner, which covers the black community in Boston and beyond, is celebrating its 60th year of publication. You and Andre Stark led a group that purchased the banner in 2023. So please describe the Banner's mission from your point of view and what you've tried to accomplish during your time as publisher and editor.

Ron Mitchell: Well, thank you so much Dan for having me here on this wonderful podcast. We at the uh, Banner have been doing positive journalism about the black and brown community since 1965. This is our 60th uh, year in publication. As you mentioned, Andre and I had the opportunity to purchase the Banner a little over three years ago from its founder, Mel Miller. The Banner has always been a straight ahead black owned news publication that really focused on the greater Massachusetts community. It wasn't just Boston, but it included Worcester down to Cape in the Islands, down on Brockton and New Bedford, as well as focusing on stories in New Hampshire and other states as well. The African American and English speaking Latino diaspora really uh, is a New England phenomenon where they're all over the country, but in New England there are large pockets where it's not just in Boston per se, but you have groups in other states as well that still are interested in this news and this focus. So the Bay State Banner really tries to tell the story of the black and brown community. I like to say the positive as well as the negative. We talk about the challenges and then we also try to provide stories and various different uh, information for the readers and our viewers online that can help give them tools for personal wealth, for job opportunities, for health care and all those types of things.

Dan Kennedy: And uh, as you mentioned, the Banner was founded by the legendary Melvin Miller. In what ways does the Banner continue to reflect his vision for the paper? And in what ways has it changed?

Ron Mitchell: Well, Melvin really was a civil rights icon when he started his paper in 1965. You have to remember the climate. There was hardly no black police officers, hardly no black firefighters, no representation in the State House, no representation in City Hall. Melvin, who was a Harvard educated attorney, really tried to take his paper and forge his message of uh, inclusion and really holding the various different wheels of power at that time accountable. You know, Martin Luther King and various other civil rights icons spoke with Melvin. They were friends of his and he carried their message through the paper. And today it's still the same. You know, we stand on the shoulders of Melvin like he stood on the shoulders of William Wernon Trotter and we Dubois when they created their papers back in the beginning of the 20th century. So we now continue that legacy on in the beginning of the, you know, 21st century as we move towards creating a more equal and positive environment for our community. And Boston faces a lot of challenges, especially right now. Most communities around the country do, and not just black communities, but all communities. When we look at the current federal attack on civility, on, you know, justice, on equality, the removal of social services, the draining of funding from a lot of social programs, but the banner is really calling out the injustices that are happening in our society, much like Mel did in his day.

Ellen Clegg: Mainstream news organizations have struggled to diversify their newsrooms. That is assuming they've even made an attempt. Can you talk a little about the ongoing need for vibrant news outlets that serve the black and brown communities?

Ron Mitchell: If you look back at black owned newspapers and media outlets over the decades and centuries, it was clear that in the black community, if you wanted to see a, ah, positive image of yourself, you couldn't go to what was in the mainstream media. Most of the newspapers in the 19th and 20th century that had any images of folks of color were very derogatory. You would have to go to the black owned newspapers to see positive images of yourself and hear the real stories of the challenges of your people. And I think that our black community hasn't forgotten that. And that's why they look to black owned media for the truth about themselves. You know, there are still a lot of corporate media outlets that really manipulate news and they don't really focus on what I call pure journalism. They focus on what I refer to as influences. Stories being created in a way to influence a response. Journalism is creating true journalism. It's creating, uh, a story that tells the truth about a particular issue and then allows the reader or viewer to draw their own conclusions. But what we're seeing a lot in media now is that stories are being designed, written or presented in a way to motivate a response, to scare people, to excite people into responding to clicking on that story. And then at the back end of the story they'll say, oh, those things we scheduled about in the front. That's not really the case. But by that time they've already tainted the image. They've already left journalism by the wayside and are now in what I refer to as influencism. So it's really important that all journalists in this particular environment, where there's misinformation being presented as news every single day online and in the web news consumers have to be educated and understand where they're getting their news from. Because as I said, a lot of times it's not Actual news, it's influencing or, you know, true propaganda. I think that the black community learned for multiple centuries that black owned newspapers are created in a way that tells their true story. And if you have mainstream media that's owned by billionaires and trillionaires who have another agenda, as we've seen over the past four or five years, their newsrooms have been gutted of neutrality and their focus has been turned into a political tool. So I think that the basic banner, uh, and many local newspapers, not just black owned, but many community newspapers, are holding the front line on true journalism today.

Ellen Clegg: That's inspiring. Thanks for that. Could you describe how the banner might cover an issue of importance to the black community in a way that would be different from, say, the Boston Globe? Globe.

Ron Mitchell: I think that the Globe most recently has worked very hard to hire journalists who are from the community and who can understand the perspective of the community. But the challenge of the Globe is there are daily and we're a weekly. We can delve into an issue. We can talk about an issue in a lot more depth and with a lot more understanding in some cases than a daily reporter can. When we go out and we cover a story about our community, we're talking with five, seven, ten different people, even if we don't utilize them own story, who are of this community, who share that, uh, community bond or community perspectives. Now, I don't necessarily want to call the Globe out. I don't think that it's fair to say that they don't have reporters who do this. But I think that the model is different and that being a weekly and being a paper that has 60 years in the community, people are more inclined to speak to us. They're more inclined to tell us what they truly feel. And I think that the types of stories that we cover tend to be, uh, more community based because again, we can look at a longer lens. We don't have to feed the beast every single day. We don't have to, okay, what are we doing this today? What's, what's up tomorrow? You know, we don't cover breaking news in the traditional way. We don't run out to the latest, uh, crime event or, you know, the latest thing every single day. We're not searching for that breaking new story. We're trying to really present the flavor of our community. Good, bad, indifferent. You know, the, the good, the bad and the ugly, as they say. As we all know, Boston's black community, like many black communities around the country, have a reputation of being dangerous places, you know, places not safe for commerce. And a lot of that are the stereotypes that are perpetrated over centuries about people of color in general. And the Bay State banner, being of the community for 60 years, is able to tell a true story about our community and bring forth the many wonderful elements that make African American life and Latino, uh, life in Boston, you know, so inspiring and so exciting. Boston has a tremendous history, a tremendous history of civil rights affecting the whole country. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Coretta Scott King, W e D voice. You know, you can go back to pre slavery. The first woman who sued in the 1700s was an enslaved woman who won her case. And then that actually, that case changed and made Massachusetts a free state. There are so many examples of how African American people in the greater New England area affected our country in positive ways. We try to tell all those stories, and we try to be true to our community.

Dan Kennedy: Now, Ron, you've started a nonprofit venture called the Banner Institute for Community News. It's aimed at supporting not just the Banner, but, as your website describes it, quote, the sustainability of black and brown multimedia community news outlets through funding, partnering, and educational support. End of quote. I had a chance to sit in on one of your board meetings recently. This is intended to support media serving communities of color throughout New England. So please tell us more about the purpose of the institute and what you've accomplished so far.

Ron Mitchell: The Banner Institute was formed technically around a year ago to help support black and brown news outlets around New England. As it was clear to me, once we purchased the Banner and looking at the landscape of, uh, news outlets across the country, things were getting tougher in general for news outlets. News is going mostly digital, and a lot of local newspapers are dying or going digital at the very least. And black and brown newspapers are, uh, no exception to that rule. So as I looked at the landscape, it became clear to me that we needed to try to create a not for profit entity that could help support the Banner, as well as other newspapers in our community that do the same thing as a banner, tell the truth about our community with a true journalistic edge. So I was lucky enough to round up some wonderful scholars like Keith Motley and Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot and Maria Rivera, Denise Kegler and Charlie Titus, as well as myself and Glenn Lloyd, to put together a not for profit that is beginning to raise money and then will help to distribute that money at various different news outlets around the New England area that need support. As we have seen, community newspapers are dwindling as advertising dollars shrink, and as funding and nonprofit funding opportunities Dwindle. So putting together a team of experts and, uh, scholars like we have, who have in their various different fields, been, you know, tremendously successful, helped to bring all those resources together and provide us the opportunity to actually raise some funding in support of not just the Banner, but other institutions. We literally have just gotten started actually raising funds because, uh, as you know, when you create enough for profit, there's a lot of paperwork and structural things you have to put in place. So we've really only been raising funds actively for the past month, I'd say, so we haven't had any major funding grants come our way. We are making progress in getting some wonderful feedback.

Ellen Clegg: Uh, you and Andre Stark both have a background in television news, and publishing a newspaper is very different than that. You told the Globe a couple years ago that one of the biggest challenges was having to write a weekly editorial. I can sympathize with that. Uh, we're wondering what you would say. The biggest surprise is that you've encountered since taking charge of the Banner, what have you learned that you can share with other news entrepreneurs?

Ron Mitchell: Wow, that's a big question. As you said, Andre and I both came from different sides of broadcast news. I was a television cameraman and de Facto producer at CBS Television for 27 years in the newsroom, working with the reporter every day. You know, get them, get to in the morning, coming in at 10, not knowing what my story was many times. By the end of the day I'd have to have an Emmy quality short film about whatever the story was. That's how I viewed my job very seriously. And I considered myself a journalist. Andre worked on long format, Frontline, Nova, um, and also museum stuff with the, uh, Smithsonian and things of that nature. So we both came with a different background. But the good news was once it became clear that we really did have a chance to purchase the Banner, we reached out to Ken Cooper, who was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. And he helped to really hone our skills and guide us. And as a, as a consultant and then to be the first managing editor we had as, um, when we first purchased a paper, it really helped to get us on a strong path. The lessons and tools that we have for other journalists, I think the things that we did right out of the gate were, was we looked for partnerships. We did a lot of research and realized that the Banner used to have a sports section. It used to have a lot of other parts of the paper that no longer existed. So we brought as many of those sections back as we could. We looked for Sponsorship. We looked for partnership. They had a relationship with WCBB Channel 5. We continue that partnership. We now have a segment under Sunday newscast, a banner week in review type of uh, uh, highlights the stories in the banner for the week. We have a partnership with Boston Business Journal. We share content. We have a partnership with wgbh. We hope the one hour television program monthly with them called GBH amplifies as well as sharing content. Uh, we work with um, Meet Boston. They sponsor a food and travel section we created exclusively for them to help tourism. You know, we work with different other corporations like uh, the, the cdfi, ujima, who now sponsors our business section. So I say that anybody who is working to create journalism, go out and partner with as many different adjacent organizations in your community that are like minded. Um, it is a tough environment out there and together we are stronger. So that's the one thing I do tell a funny story that the first week we own the paper took over on a Tuesday, which is our print day. So the first day the first paper went to print really wasn't our responsibility. But the next week, the following Monday, staff walked up to me and said, oh, so Ron, what's your editorial going to be this week? And I was like my, uh, editorial. And they said, well, you know, you got to have like 900 words, uh, editorial, something strongly about. Mel did one every week. I was like, oh my God. So I ran and called my wife, honey, honey, I've got to come up with this editorial. She goes, well you're, you. There's good news or bad. The good news is you're highly opinionated. The bad news is it has to make sense now. Thanks honey. Thanks. That's helpful. So, so I think that was the biggest challenge that I didn't um, anticipate. A lot of the other challenges I could anticipate, but I think until you're in the ocean, it's hard to see what the current's going to be like. You know, there are a lot of things that Mel hadn't changed. It seemed like since 1965 a, uh, lot of internal structures that we had to update and modernize to really keep up with the times. He had a wonderful website. He had very little digital advertising. He had something maybe $75 for a post and that was it. Now a quarter of our revenue was digital ads. You know, we had to redesign the website to be able to accommodate that. Um, we changed our printing to a local printer who's in the, in the United States, upstate New York. First publishing saved us a Substantial amount of money every year from where he used to print. Um, you know, he made his printed decision maybe eight years ago to print at a printing company up in Canada, uh, because it was the largest printing press in North America. And at the time it gave in the press the best price on full color. Well, you know, it's been eight years since that decision. In 10 years now, you know, locally, you can beat that price. So those types of things we had to. To. To address. I kind of equated as taking over a car going down the highway at 60 miles an hour. Mel's got to get out of the seat. Andre and I have to get into the seat. And then as soon as we get in, when I'll stamp it on the gas and going 75. Not the speed, but trying to keep up with the responsibilities, uh, we have. And as you take off at the higher speed now, the hubcaps flying off that loose mirror on the side is shaking the window. You know, all the little things that were minor problems now with the accelerated pressure and speed are major issues. So there are a lot of internal things that we had to upgrade, you know, and modernize to be able to keep up with the additional revenue and pressure that we took on when we bought the paper, because we had to take on a lot of debt to pay. Now, what he deserved for his multiple years of commitment to the paper and, you know, to keep the paper running.

Dan Kennedy: When you mention partnerships, Ron, I should point out that, uh, our journalism program at Northeastern has partnered with the Banner for many years now, uh, both when Melvin Miller owned it and now under your leadership. So that's been a great partnership as well, especially for our students. Given your long background in local television news, we're wondering what you'd say about how that has changed over the years. Like newspapers, local TV news is facing challenges related to a, uh, shrinking audience and aging viewers. Do you have any thoughts on what TV news should do to increase its appeal?

Ron Mitchell: Wow, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. And thank you, by the way, for reminding me, because in my partnerships that I mentioned, I didn't talk about the multiple university partnerships that we have. As you mentioned Northeastern, we also have a partnership with Boston University and our journalism program there, where we work with students who are in the journalism program who writes stories for us. Just like a partnership with Northeastern, we also have a partnership with Rockford Community College and other colleges in the area. So if you are a local newspaper, I, uh, encourage you to partner with as many of the local Institutions of higher learning and high school, high schools in your area, if, uh, they have a writing program. Again, partnership is key. So I just wanted to say that, and thank you for reminding me. As far as local news, I tell the story that it was clear to me about five years ago when TV budget shrunk, when they really began to hire reporters who to me weren't pure journalists in some ways. And I don't want to indict or put down any new journalists who are out there now, because there are a lot of good journalists still in TV news. But the way that I explained it is this way. When I first started some 30 years ago in the business, you could be a reporter and you just happened to be on tv, you could be reporting print, radio, whatever, but you were a journalist first, you're a reporter first. And the medium you presented your news in just happened to be on television. The reporters had a great feel for their individual communities. When you went to a news meeting, the reporters were saying, this is what's going on in my community. These are the stories I think I should cover by the end of my career. 27 years later, you will go to that same news meeting and the producers will be saying, based on analytics, those are the things that our audience care about. So we want you to go out and cover these stories in this way, again, shaping the journalism to fit the matrix they were getting from their audience evaluations, instead of allowing journalists who have a feel and understanding of the community to really drive the stories they cover. So the first thing I would say is trust your reporters. Hire reporters who are pure reporters, not people who are mic holders or influencers who want to be reporters, not people who are going to temper the story to be the most salacious or exciting or scary to get people to view and then try to explain the truth on the back end. Be true to what journalism is. Hire journalists first and foremost and listen to them. I understand the advertising matrix. I've been in advertising sales before my days in TV news, and I understand that advertising revenue drives the ability to pay for everything, and it's a shrinking ad mark. Digital advertising is stealing a tremendous amount from broadcast advertising as far as ad dollars, and I understand that. But if you really want to serve a community, you have to be in focus on true journalism and allow your reporters who are on the ground to drive the stories you cover because they are of that community. And again, hire people who are of the community who understand that community, who, who have a connection. I can't tell you the number of Times when I was working for quarter in my first 20 years there, well, I would roll up into a community with a reporter like somebody named Bill Shields, who had, you know, he knew every fire chief, you know, every local police chief, you know, you know, if we were on the story in the South Shore, he knew everybody. Oh man, you know, move on the phone and he's got the contacts, you know, same thing Sarah and Shaw in the black community. Charlie Austin, you know, and there are a whole host of other reporters, you know, 10 years after they left who still had the pulse of their communities. But today, again, a lot of those decisions are driven by Matrix and not by on the ground reporters who really understand the community they serve.

Ellen Clegg: Wow, uh, those are some great reporters you mentioned and Charlie Austin, one of the best. Bill Shields, Finally a question we ask all our guests who. What's on your media diet? What do you read, watch and listen to? Any recommendations for our listeners?

Ron Mitchell: Wow. Um, I read a lot of different stuff. I read of course the local papers. I do, you know, read the Globe. I do listen to various, uh, different podcasts. I just really think that you have to have a wide variety of news sources and you have to take into account what the origin of the news sources are, ah, that we listen to. I don't know that I want to run off a list of recommendations as much as I would say be diverse and understand the origin of the news that you listen to make sure that it is journalism, not influencism. Make sure the people who are presenting the news to you aren't being paid to follow an agenda and aren't chasing Matrix instead of chasing the truth.

Ellen Clegg: Thank you so much for coming onto our podcast. We've been talking with Ron Mitchell, publisher and editor of the Bay State Banner.

Dan Kennedy: Thank you Ron. That was a great conversation.

Ron Mitchell: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being here.

Dan Kennedy: You know, Alan, I'm getting old and uh, listening to Ron Mitchell talk about the Bay State Banner's 60th anniversary reminded me that I did a story on the Banner's 30th anniversary, uh, for the Boston Phoenix, you know, 30 years ago. And of course at that time Melvin Miller was uh, large and in charge and he uh, was a well respected member of Boston. And uh, the Banner was seen as a real force in the city as it continues to be under Ron Mitchell and Andre Stark. So it's really great to see how they have been able to keep it going and even to take it in new directions. And it was really good to be able to listen to Ron tell us about that effort.

Ellen Clegg: Yes. And I loved his take on, um, influencers versus journalists. And, uh, because we're seeing that change, we're seeing the rise of creators, uh, as opposed to, uh, shoe leather reporting. And he mentioned some of the greats on TV news. Bill Shields, Sarah Ann Shaw, who had what we used to call a big Rolodex. They had lots of contacts. They knew people. They knew police chiefs, firefighters, people in the neighborhoods, and they also knew the street names. They knew how to get around Boston. And we lose something when we move to the algorithm.

Dan Kennedy: We do. Although I should say that influencers aren't going anywhere. And there have been, uh, some efforts to bring influencers on board as more trusted sources of news in their own right. And, uh, I'd really love to see that happen. But for now, I think that Ron Mitchell's description of, what did he call it? Influencerism Was pretty on target. Sanjana, thanks so much for joining us today. We'd like to start by asking you, where did you grow up and how did you get local news in that place?

Speaker D: Yeah, hi. Uh, first of all, thanks so much for having me. I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I think our main news source down there is the Charlotte observer, um, which is great. They do great work. Um, I think before college, like, back in high school, my main, like, news source was sites like Google News and Apple News. I didn't really, like, understand the emphasis of local coverage, so. And like, a lot of the local stuff I got was from what other people are posting on social media and sharing on their stories and stuff. Um, so I think, yeah, mainly. Sometimes, um, we would get the Charlotte observer, but it was mainly social media and, like, national news on, on Apple News and stuff like that.

Ellen Clegg: That's great. I worked for the Charlotte observer at the beginning of my career. Charlotte, for four and a half years. Long time ago.

Dan Kennedy: Ellen has been everywhere and knows everybody. It's, uh, quite remarkable.

Speaker D: Where are you from?

Ellen Clegg: I'm from Minnesota.

Ron Mitchell: Okay, cool.

Ellen Clegg: Uh, and I went to University of Missouri. Um, but my first job was in Charlotte when it was really known for its editorializing, for busing, to achieve racial balance in the schools. So enough about me. What interested you in the local news crisis enough to write a paper about it?

Speaker D: Well, I first learned about it in high school and, um, from watching a show on Netflix, uh, called Patriot Act. I think, like, after that, I couldn't really stop thinking about it because in classes I had learned about food deserts, but I had never really known about news deserts. It was like another example of how our communities are being underserved and underfunded, um, and forgotten, neglected. And so when I started studying journalism in college, like, part of me was thinking, like, how do we make this more accessible to everyone? Like, what, like, can we do to, to solve this? Yeah. For my final research paper, um, it was supposed to be about an ethics issue in journalism. And I was like, well, the main one I can think of is the local news crisis. So I just, I wanted to really dive into it and like, learn more about different solutions that are happening, ah, across the country and, and kind of how widespread the issue is. Um, and learning more about the private equity firms that are kind of behind the crisis. Um, and that that's what led me to write the paper.

Dan Kennedy: And yes, you do write quite a bit about how private equity has destroyed newspapers. So what do you think the single most important step would be that might help solve the local news crisis?

Speaker D: If I had to choose one solution, um, I would say that it needs to be getting private equity out of the equation. And so I know that a lot of newsrooms have been starting to turn to like a non profit or a non profit hybrid model. Um, and we were talking about the um, Baltimore Banner in class a little bit. I think revenue coming from a wide range of sources, um, and not having like a private equity firm behind all of it, um, like through advertising and maybe even like tax credits, like that is not in our hands, but like maybe electing, um, legislators who think that that's important or letting legislators know that that's what we value, um, giving local newsrooms more tax credits so they're not like, funded by these private equity firms. And then, yeah, like digital subscriptions, um, starting like community engagement teams, um, in these newsrooms can kind of make the revenue come from a wide range of places. Um, I don't know if that was very cohesive, but.

Dan Kennedy: Yeah, well, there's a lot of potential solutions and none of them would solve the whole problem. So I think you were right to touch on a few. Anyway, um, thank you. We've been talking with Sanjna Mishra, a recent graduate of Northeastern University. Her paper is called How Private Equity and Corporate Ownership Are, uh, Killing Local Journalism and American Democracy. And you will find it on our website at WhatWorks News.

Ellen Clegg: Thanks for your research.

Speaker D: No, uh, thank you. This is great.

Dan Kennedy: No, it was terrific. Thank you so much. So now it's time for our quick takes on developments in local news. In January, the Block family, which owned the Pittsburgh Post Gazette announced that it would shut down in May. And here we are in May. If that actually happened, it would have left Pittsburgh as the largest city in the US Without a daily newspaper. But even though the paper was reportedly losing millions of dollars and was involved in a years long battle with its union, it always seemed likely that someone would step forward to try to save it. Otherwise, why announce a five month deadline? Then in April, the Venatulas Institute for Local Journalism announced that it would acquire the Post Gazette. Venitoulis is the nonprofit that operates the Baltimore Banner, one of the largest and most respected digital startups in the country. So that was good news indeed. Pittsburgh will continue to have a daily newspaper. A, uh, print edition comes out twice a week and the rest of the week is digital only. The Post Gazette itself will operate as a nonprofit, making it the second major daily in the country to follow that path. The other being the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah. Several other papers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tampa Bay Times, are for profit papers that are owned by nonprofit foundations.

Ellen Clegg: But you said at the top of this podcast that the news out of Pittsburgh comes with a sour aftertaste. So what's that about?

Dan Kennedy: The first thing the Venatulas Institute did was lay off about half of the Post Gazette staff. Now given that the paper had been losing an estimated $15 million a year, that step was perhaps justified, although it was certainly unwelcome. We shouldn't discount claims by the papers union that the layoffs were retaliation for, uh, a long strike and that 80% of those who were laid off were former strikers. But it gets worse. Venitoulis executive director Bob Cohn insists that there actually weren't any layoffs at all. Recently, Richard J. Toelfel interviewed Cohn for his second Rough Draft newsletter and he asked him about the layoffs. Cohn's response? Well, we haven't announced any staff reductions. When Toffel pressed him, he said, quote, it was an asset purchase, which means that the prior owner terminated everybody. We arrived with nobody in the newsroom and then we rehired many people from the old Post Gazette into the new Post Gazette. So we started with a blank sheet of paper. This is corporate speak. Unbecoming of a nonprofit that was founded to reinvigorate local news. And I just hope it was a lapse that won't be repeated.

Ellen Clegg: Well, my quick take is on an addition to the rich local news environment in Minnesota. I recently spent some time out there and talked with Emily Krumberger, who's vice president of programming for a network of independent community FM stations across the state. That network is known as ampers, and the stations all produce unique local shows. Ampers, by the way, stands for association of Minnesota Public Educational Radio Stations. We'll drop a link in the show notes. There are 17 member stations. It's only five minutes long, but it fills gaps that bigger Minnesota outlets miss.

Dan Kennedy: You mentioned that it's got a unique mix of funding.

Ellen Clegg: Yeah, it's supported by individual donors and some grant funding, but also by an appropriation from the Minnesota Legislature. A significant share of the state money flows from a constitutional amendment. In fact, in 2008, Minnesota voters approved the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, and that amendment raised the state sales tax by 3.8of1%. Tiny amount, but the tax generates roughly $240 million each year, and that revenue flows into four dedicated funds. One of those funds is the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, which supports these radio stations. AMPERS uses its allocation to produce programming, and that fits the fund's mandate to cover Minnesota's cultural heritage. By the way, the legacy amendment is going to sunset in 2034 unless lawmakers extend it. As you know, Minnesota is a purple state, so it's not a lock on the future.

Dan Kennedy: And that's it for this week's show. Thanks for tuning in to this discussion of the state of media past, present and future. You can leave a news tip, comment or suggestion on our website at WhatWorks News. That's where you can also learn more about our book, what Works in Community News. And please rate us at Apple Podcasts.

Ellen Clegg: Our, uh, graphics are by Alison Booth. Our music is by Promiser, courtesy of Lucas Wilson. You can find Promiser on Apple Music and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Apple and other platforms.