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: Honoring Vets, Supporting Journalism
This Veterans Day we wanted to highlight the critical role local and nonprofit newsrooms have played in covering veterans’ issues. Across the country journalists are lifting up the voices and stories of veterans and the issues that matter to their families. These stories are complex, emotional, and take significant resources—and over and over again they produce meaningful impact. Some of the most important recent policy changes related to veterans’ health and well being started as investigative stories by journalists. We need to support those who serve our nation and the journalists who cover them. All the newsrooms highlighted in this blog post are participating in News Match, so your donations will be doubled.    

A List of Lists

Regular Local Fix readers know that sometimes we like to round-up the round-ups and list the lists. It is that time again. Below we’ve pulled together some recent listicles with particular resonance for people working in local news. 

• 50 ways to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act – Poynter 
• 8 strategies for saving local newsrooms – Columbia Journalism Review 
• 10 simple ideas to borrow from local news – Poynter  
• 8 key trends in local journalism – MediaShift 
• 3 local newsrooms talk about what community means to them – Journalism.co.uk 
• 5 quick thoughts on Cox putting its Austin and Palm Beach papers up for sale – Poynter  

Membership

We cover building and sustaining membership programs pretty regularly but this week we wanted to focus on reboots, where a newsroom or site takes a step back and uses a membership program to save itself, or rethink its strategy. Change like that is hard, but in those moments we can learn a lot from those who turn to their community.

• One thing saved kottke.org: shifting from ad revenue to memberships – Kottke  
• Stung by Medium’s pivot, The Establishment powers up for a membership-driven future – NiemanLab 
• Canadian community driven newsroom Discourse is asking people to invest in the company – Discourse 
• Podcast: How news organizations can make memberships work – Journalism.co.uk 
• News Revenue Hub turns Slack into a center for fundraising operations – Slack HQ 

More Good News

Finally, last week we bucked the bad news trend and instead focused on success stories about experiments and ideas that are working in local news — andwe asked for you to send us more. Here are some of the great projects you sent our way:

“I’ve been developing and strategizing personalization with local newsrooms this past year at Bloom (www.bloom.li).  Earlier this fall, I launched a few pilots for personalized (location-based) newsletters in collaboration with a publisher in Brooklyn and Virginia. More info and unofficial case study.”  
— Stephen Jefferson, Founder, Bloom

“By early 2018 — just a year after launching in Detroit, our fifth city — Chalkbeat will be launching in Chicago and Newark, New Jersey. And we are hiring.” 
— Elizabeth Green, Founder, Chalkbeat

“Earlier this year we partnered with a community news website in D.C. called PoPville to host the site and sell the ads. Dan Silverman, the owner, prefers to focus on content and let someone else focus on the business side. Since the deal, revenue is up for both of us and it looks like that trend should continue. I think this is only the start of more cooperation and partnerships between indie local news sites to share resources and provide services for one another. It should be an exciting 2018 despite the doom and gloom!”
— Scott Brodbeck, Founder, Local News Now

“The B-Town (Burien) Blog will be celebrating its 10th year on 12/11/17… We’re just another Mom & Pop Internet Publisher! 3,447,047 Pageviews so far in 2017 – +55% vs 2016, 12,339 Likes on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/btownblog), 6,218 Followers on Twitter (@btownblog).”
— Scott Schaefer, Founder/Publisher, B-Town Blog

“Journalism That Matters has received a grant for $150,000 to seed media innovations in southeast Ohio communities that lack local information. Working in partnership with the Jefferson Center to address the opioid crisis in Ohio, the project will be using community engagement practices to build the news and information capacity of the region.” 
— Cliff Hahn, Digital Producer for Channel X

When ProPublica said they were going to fund an investigative reporter at six local newsrooms they got 239 applications. “The topics represented a remarkable collective picture of the issues facing our society — both those that are well-known and those that are not yet widely appreciated… One goal of our project is to do journalism that is both about and emanates from communities that ProPublica might not otherwise reach. We received applications from 45 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.”
— Eric Umansky, Deputy Managing Editor, ProPublica

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Have a good weekend,
Josh and Teresa
@jcstearns, @gteresa

The Local Fix is a project of the Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program, which invests in innovations and institutions that are reinventing local media and expanding the public square. Disclosure: Some projects mentioned in this newsletter may be funded by Democracy Fund, you can find a full list of the organizations we support on our website.