Welcome to the Local Fix. Each week we look at key debates in journalism sustainability and community engagement through the lens of local news.  But first, we always begin with one good idea…

One Good Idea: Help Hearken Build New Engagement Tools
Our friends over at Hearken, the community engagement platform rooted in curiosity and discovery, are building new tools for newsrooms and they want your feedback. They just posted a six question survey that will help them decide on their next big idea. Let them know what you think. (And be sure to finish the survey for a top-notch newsroom dancing GIF)

The Art, Science and Law of Comments

Anil Dash wrote last week that when we say “Don’t read the comments,” we “normalize online harassment campaigns and treat the empowerment of abusers as inevitable, rather than solvable.” He continues, “Those underrepresented, unheard voices are the most valuable ones we lose when we throw the baby out with the bathwater and assume online comments are necessarily bad.” Building community takes work. Building relationships is hard. Comments are no different, they take time, energy and resources. Other than closing comments, how are newsrooms grappling with this? Local Oregon paper Willlamette Week is testing out a new platform called Civil Comments. The Guardian is only allowing comments on an article when they have enough staff to meaningfully moderate and participate. Our friends at the Coral Project are thinking hard about how to help newsrooms build better online communities. Here are a few of their recent posts. 

• Comments Can Be Good if You Let Them 
• Advice for the Accidental Community Manager 
• Internet Comments and the Law  

A Renewed Focus on Nonprofit News

Nonprofit news was back in the spotlight last month when news broke that the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com were being donated to a new nonprofit that will now own the papers. There was a lot written on that deal, so rather than revisit those links we wanted to point you to a few other recent posts about nonprofit news that you might have missed. Whether you work in a nonprofit or for-profit newsroom,  these pieces will resonate. 

• 25 Ideas Nonprofit Newsrooms Can’t Afford to Ignore 
• A Code of Ethics for Journalism Nonprofits 
• Disclosure, Revenue Diversity Reduce Risk of Undue Donor Influence in Nonprofit News  
• Exxon-Columbia Spat Highlights Emerging Gray Area in Nonprofit Journalism 

The Past is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.

In the movie Spotlight there are a few great scenes showing the work of the Boston Globe’s in-house librarians and archivists. Their work was central to how the Spotlight team pulled together that groundbreaking story. It is a reminder of why it is so critical to carefully protect and preserve the news we create. For Black History Month the New York Times is mining its archives for unpublished photos and sparking a conversation about “the past, present, and future of its race coverage,” and “encouraging readers to share their own materials and memories“. Here are a few other links about preserving digital content and using your archives:

• Amber is Here to Help You Fight Link Rot and Preserve Content  
• How to Preserve Your Work Before the Internet Eats It 
• How Esquire built Esquire Classic, a New Standalone Digital Archive 

Human Resources

We don’t talk enough about managing and leading newsrooms in times of transition, when people’s roles are constantly in flux. These issues aren’t just about media executives, but also matter for people at all levels in newsrooms large and small. Increasingly people are leading teams in newsrooms that work across departments and require managing up and down the newsroom hierarchy. There have been a few good pieces recently on thinking about employee roles, teamwork and management in newsrooms.

• A Newsroom’s Sharpest Leaders Aren’t Always Managers 
• How to Succeed in Hybrid Roles in New Media 
• For Nonprofits, Mission is Key to Employee Morale 
• Need to Find, Keep, and Maximize Talent Today? Look To an Old-School Example, Gene Roberts 

Have a good weekend,
Molly and Josh 

The Local Fix is a project of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s Local News Lab, a website where we are exploring creative experiments in journalism sustainability.