Take 31 journalists from all different kinds of media and put them together in some classrooms at a university in Ohio, and what do you get? Lots of practical ideas.
The Kiplinger Program based at Ohio University in Athens each year hosts a fellowship with a different theme. This year, that was “Saving Local News,” with an emphasis on concrete solutions for community news outlets.
I was selected as a fellow for this year’s program, where I was joined by newsies from all over the country and from other parts of the world. The group included an editor from Afghanistan who now lives in California, where he reports on news relevant to Afghani communities. The founder and editor of an online publication in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, who considers his hometown “the center of the universe,” shared the struggles he faces. Another edits a biweekly newspaper for seniors in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, a town of about 16,000 outside Edmonton.
Other participants included people from large newspaper chains, TV stations, small start-ups and independent publications. Editors and businesspeople from dailies, weeklies, monthlies and online-only outlets shared ideas and meals.
We had in common a passion for local news that serves a specific community. And the amazing thing was that despite the drastic differences in business models – for-profit and nonprofit – platform, size or geography, our challenges are remarkably similar.
Artificial intelligence is not going away. Our discussions around that topic focused on how AI can support journalists, not replace them. The Catholic Review Media and archdiocesan communications staff spent a lot of time on the topic at a planning meeting a couple months ago. The Catholic Media Association of the U.S. and Canada provides some framework for AI usage and guidelines, but our staff has not landed on a complete policy yet. In fact, there’s still some debate among our staff about how – and even if – we should use AI. For now, we use it occasionally to suggest headlines, outline topics or summarize complex documents. It’s a subject on which Pope Leo XIV has weighed in extensively and will do so more formally in late May when he releases an encyclical letter “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”).
Many discussions at the fellowship centered around revenue – a challenge for everyone in the news business – so that we have enough resources to reach readers wherever they are.
That’s why the Catholic Review is delivered to more than 63,000 homes with a print magazine each month, as well as fresh news on the web every day, a twice-weekly e-newsletter, social media and a radio show/podcast. We want to bring news important to you as a Catholic in as many ways as we can. It’s what one of the presenters in the fellowship called delivering “the last mile” – closing the gap between our team and your home, your mobile device or your home computer.
We focus on the Catholic community in Baltimore City and nine counties in Maryland, bringing you news with expertise that you can’t get from secular journalists who don’t cover the Church full time.
Catholic Review Media conducted reader surveys in 2016 and 2021, both of which helped shape our coverage and the platforms on which we deliver it. We plan to conduct another survey this fall, so if you get an invitation (they’ll be sent to random households and readers), please be sure to respond. We really listen to the survey results. In fact, it’s often a topic at our staff meetings, where someone will invariably ask how a specific story will serve certain reader segments. It may sound calculated, but it’s a way for us to stay focused on you, our reader.
A weeklong seminar about saving local community news didn’t have all the answers, but it provides some good questions as we move forward.
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