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Local Journalism

18 posts
Children doing nature drawings, in antique photo.
View Post
  • Environment & Sustainability

Sustainability: Suddenly the action is local.

  • Deborah Fallows
  • May 9, 2024
Ten years ago, we were searching for examples of local-level sustainability efforts. Now they are everywhere.
View Post
  • Local Journalism

Florida Man!

  • Deborah Fallows
  • February 16, 2024
How a regional Florida newspaper informs its citizens and encourages activism.
The staff of The Ball State Daily News gather in their campus offices. Courtesy of Lisa Renze-Rhodes/Ball State University
View Post
  • Education

A Student Newspaper Takes on Community Responsibilities

  • Deborah Fallows
  • September 7, 2022
The Ball State Daily News has filled a local journalism gap.
Part of a "story map" of Paddle-to-the-Sea's journey through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, prepared by the International Water Institute and based on Holling Clancy Holling's 1941 book.
View Post
  • Local Journalism

Why Maps Matter, Starting in Childhood and Even More Now

  • James Fallows
  • July 23, 2021
A "geo-historical narrative" captured the imagination of many children in mid-20th century America. Maps have always had power to shape perceptions of reality. A memoir about their influence--and an introduction of what's to come.
View of he Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead, just outside De Smet, South Dakota. Wilder chronicled her childhood in this part of the country in her 'Little House' books, and one of her daughters became a noted journalist. In De Smet a new journalistic experiment is underway. (All photos by Deborah and James Fallows)
View Post
  • Local Journalism

The Rise of the Kingsbury Journal, and the Future of Local Journalism

  • James Fallows
  • July 8, 2021
A local paper with a longer history than its home state suddenly shut its doors, for good, during the pandemic. How an entire community willed a new publication into existence--and avoided becoming one more American "news desert."
View Post
  • Local Journalism

The Editor Behind the Story of ‘Own Towns’

  • James Fallows
  • May 26, 2021
Few people outside the publishing world knew of Dan Frank. Many benefitted from his vision, and skill—including anyone visiting this site.
Michael Jones, then of Google, speaking at an Atlantic event about the future of mapping several years ago.
View Post
  • Local Journalism

Michael Jones Receives Royal Honors

  • James Fallows
  • August 2, 2020
Awarded the 2020 Patron's Medal for his contribution to the development of geospatial information.
Mark Russell, executive editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis.
View Post
  • Local Journalism

In Defense of The Commercial Appeal

  • James Fallows
  • November 13, 2019
A few days ago I published an item about a new online journalistic site in Tennessee, The Daily Memphian. In that item, I quoted some Daily Memphian officials saying that they had been prompted…
Overpass in Memphis Tennessee.
View Post
  • Local Journalism

On the Virtues of Statewide Journalism

  • James Fallows
  • November 12, 2019
A few days ago I published an item about a year-old online effort to revive local news coverage in Tennessee, The Daily Memphian. It was part of an ongoing series about efforts to…
The Shawangunk Journal offices in Ellenville, New York. Backwards sign made by artist Roger Baker.
View Post
  • Local Journalism

The New Approach to Local Journalism

  • James Fallows
  • October 27, 2019
Here’s another installment in the ongoing series on how local news operations, especially newspapers, can devise new ways to stay in business. For previous entries—from Mississippi, from Maine, from Massachusetts, from Southern California and the San…
"Traditionally, white gowns were for girls, blue for boys," Worth Robbins said of Harvard's high-school-graduation ceremony, pictured here in 2016. "For the past six years, seniors have voted to have the gowns distributed randomly. This year the seniors voted to have only blue gowns, a symbol of their propensity for knocking down differences and announcing themselves as a class of innovators and activists."
View Post
  • Local Journalism

‘We’re Doing It for Love of Community’

  • James Fallows
  • October 16, 2019
Do local public-radio stations play an important role? In big cities, from Boston and Washington to San Francisco and L.A.? In small towns, like those across Mississippi or Alaska or…
The editor Ed Miller and publisher Teresa Parker with Vol. 1 No. 1 of The Provincetown Independent as it comes off the press on September 6.
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  • Local Journalism

There’s Hope for Local Journalism

  • James Fallows
  • September 18, 2019
Everyone knows that local newspapers are in trouble. That’s why Deb Fallows and I have been chronicling examples of smaller papers that have bucked the economic trend—in Mississippi, in coastal Maine, in rural…
The editorial and business office of the Quoddy Tides newspaper, in downtown Eastport, Maine (James Fallows)
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  • Local Journalism

‘Local, Local, Local’: How a Small Newspaper Survives

  • James Fallows
  • August 30, 2019
This is another road report on the state of local journalism, which is more and more important, and more and more imperiled. It is important because so much of the future of American economic, cultural, and civic life is now being devised and determined at the local or state level.
The Mississippi state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, where Larrison Campbell grew up—and where she returned. (Nagel Photography via Shutterstock)
View Post
  • Economic Development

The American Sense of Place

  • James Fallows
  • July 12, 2019
An update: Reactions from readers and significant local-renewal developments
The 2019 journalists for Report for America (Courtesy of Report for America)
View Post
  • Local Journalism

Report for America Revives Possibilities for Local Journalism

  • James Fallows
  • June 26, 2019
A promising movement, in discouraging times.
Birney Imes III, who stepped down last year as publisher of The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Mississippi, with his son, Peter, the current publisher (Luisa Porter / The Commercial Dispatch)
View Post
  • Local Journalism

The Last Family-Owned Daily in Mississippi

  • James Fallows
  • May 10, 2019
How one local paper survives

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