Ellen Clegg presents What Works in Community News with Jaida Grey Eagle

Local news is essential to democracy. Meaningful participation in civic life is impossible without it. However, local news is in crisis. According to one widely cited study, some 2,500 newspapers have closed over the last generation. And it is often marginalized communities of color who have been left without the day-to-day journalism they need to govern themselves in a democracy.

Veteran journalists Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy cut through the pessimism surrounding this issue, showing readers that new, innovative journalism models are popping up across the country to fill news deserts and empower communities. What Works in Community News examines more than a dozen of these projects, including:

• Sahan Journal, a digital publication dedicated to reporting on Minnesota’s immigrant and refugee communities;
• MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit news outlet in Memphis, TN, focused on poverty, power, and public policy;
• New Haven Independent / WNHH / La Voz Hispana de Connecticut, a digital news project that expanded its reach in the New Haven community through radio and a Spanish-language partnership;
• Storm Lake Times Pilot, a print newspaper in rural Iowa innovating with a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit model; and
• Texas Tribune, once a pioneering upstart, now one of the most well-known—and successful—digital newsrooms in the country.

Through a blend of on-the-ground reporting and interviews, Clegg and Kennedy show how these operations found seed money and support, and how they hired staff, forged their missions, and navigated challenges from the pandemic to police intimidation to stand as the last bastion of collective truth—and keep local news in local hands.

Ellen Clegg spent more than 3 decades at The Boston Globe and retired in 2018 after 4 years of running the opinion pages. In between stints at the Globe, she was deputy director of communications at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is a member of the steering committee for the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship at the International Women’s Media Foundation. Ellen is co-founder and co-chair of Brookline.News, a nonprofit startup news organization in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Jaida Grey Eagle is an Oglala Lakota freelance documentary photographer currently located in St. Paul, MN. She is a member of the Women’s Photograph, Indigenous Photograph, and 400 Years Project.

Jaida served as a Report for America Fellow with the Sahan Journal as a photojournalist. Jaida researched Native photography as a Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) Native American Fellow for the upcoming exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts titled “In Our Hands: Native Photography From 1890 to Now.” in which her role evolved to co-curator on the project.

Jaida is a co-producer on the Sisters Rising Documentary, which is the story of six Native American women reclaiming personal and tribal sovereignty in the face of ongoing sexual violence against Indigenous women in the United States and has recently received an Honorable Mention at the Big Sky Doc Festival.

She holds her Bachelor of Fine Arts emphasizing Fine Art Photography from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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