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: Text Me Maybe?
By some estimates, more than 23 billion text messages are sent each day around the globe. Groundsource, a new start-up by Andrew Haeg the co-founder of the Public Insight Network, is working to use text messaging to create new networks between journalists and communities. We are working with Haeg on brining Groundsource to local newsrooms in New Jersey. He talked to NiemanLab about how text messaging can be a powerful on-ramp for community engagement and a great way to diversify the voices in local news. (Also check out Purple, another new start-up, which is using text messages to deliver election news.)

Good Journalism Starts With Good Questions

In a recent post about doing design sprints to solve big problems and plan new products, Nir Eyal argues that good products start with good questions. There is a renewed interest in the role of questions in journalism, ushered in by the success of projects like Hearken and the understanding that we can serve our communities better if we understand and respond to their curiosity. How questions are used as part of the reporting process, however, can take many shapes. Here are a few examples.

• Serial, Mystery Show, and Why Listeners Want To Be In On The Investigation – Columbia Journalism Review 
• Designing Journalism for Discovery and Engagement – Mediashift 
• Dazzle Our Readers With That Magic Moment of Enlightenment – Shazna Nessa
• The Atlantic is Tackling Big Issues Like Climate Change and Gun Violence by Posing More Questions – NiemanLab

Good News From North Carolina and Michigan

Occasionally we like to highlight stories about local journalists who are doing great work, trying creative solutions and making an impact on their community. These tend to be stories that inspire us and are full of interesting ideas that can be built on and adapted by other newsrooms. Today we are focusing on a few projects in North Carolina and Michigan that we are following.

• A Plan for a New Statewide Newspaper in NC – Columbia Journalism Review 
• The N.C. Newsroom Cooperative Wants to Give Independent Journalists a Home Base – NiemanLab 
• These Detroit-area Journalists are Breaking Big Stories…Without the Backing of Major News Outlets – Second Wave Media  
• After Mass Layoffs, Grand Rapids Navigates a New Media Landscape – Rapid Growth Media 

Events to Keep an Eye On

Too often local voices are under-represented at national events. The costs associated with attending these events and the time away from the newsroom are challenges for a lot of journalists. That means that they miss out on the learning and networking that can happen at conferences and conference participants don’t always get to see the full richness and creativity happening at small local newsrooms. We are always looking for ways to make sure local voices are represented at events and that the lessons from these events get disseminated to people in the field. Here are a few events we’ll be attending or watching over the next year.

• Media Law for Journalists: Workshop and Roundtable – April 26, New York City 
• Innovating Local Advertising – April 28, New York City
• Online News Association Conference – Sept. 15-17, Denver, CO 
• People Powered Publishing Conference – Nov. 10, Chicago, IL 
• International Journalism Festival – April 4-10, Perugia, Italy 
• Media That Matters – June 1-5, British Columbia

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.