Across New England, new strategies and collaborations fill the need for local news

Late last year, journalists at The New Bedford Light, a community news outlet in Massachusetts, covered plans for $1 billion in renovations at the city's aging school buildings. Because of the nonprofit news outlet’s reporting, the next school committee meeting was packed with citizens, says Lean Camara, chief executive officer of the Light.

That’s just one of the examples Camara can point to that show how the Light’s reporting has directly led to more civic engagement in the coastal city.

“It’s giving people the info they need to be engaged, however they want to be engaged, and we hear that a lot,” she says. The news outlet covers several issues of concern to the community — including immigration, the offshore wind industry and the city’s arts and culture — and has raised $6.4 million since it launched in 2021.

“People really do seem to understand that local news is really important to having a healthy and engaged and informed community,” Camara says. “People really seem to understand that it’s fundamental to democracy and civic health.”

Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, executive director of The Maine Monitor, is hearing a similar desire for local news coverage as she embarks on a listening tour across the state, partnering with other news outlets and community groups.

“People are really eager for news about their community, about their local government, about their state government,” says Schweitzer-Bluhm. “They want accountability journalism in their community.”

Reporting from the Monitor, a nonprofit, independent news site, was republished for free by outlets across Maine more than 1,000 times last year, according to Schweitzer-Bluhm, and its investigative work has spurred legislative reform and statewide conversations.

The Maine Monitor and The New Bedford Light are two examples of innovative newsrooms that are engaging with their communities in new ways and shifting local journalism’s funding strategies as the news industry recovers from the collapse of the advertising-focused business model.

Since 2005, more than 3,200 print newspapers across the country have ceased publication, according to a 2024 report on the state of local news from the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern. In response, efforts at providing local news to communities across New England are underway, from nonprofit newsrooms and fundraising drives to small outlets and fellowship programs.

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“There are so many great, smart people trying new things because they realize — and their communities are increasingly realizing — that access to good local news is the difference between a thriving, civically engaged community and one where nobody knows what’s going on, there’s polarization, and there’s misinformation,” says Kim Kleman, executive director of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

Both The New Bedford Light and The Maine Monitor are nonprofit news outlets that receive financial support from individual donors, foundation grants and sponsors. Last year, the Monitor received $446,415 from individual donors — a 56% increase from 2023. Similarly, readership of its free newsletters has more than doubled in recent years, says Schweitzer-Bluhm.

“Our readers tell us they really value the type of reporting we do that they know is independent, that they can trust, that they know is really deliberate and deep and that’s important to them,” says Schweitzer-Bluhm.

‘News is evolving’

In southern Maine, Liz Gotthelf, publisher of the Saco Bay News, checks her phone first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening to see if she missed any news. It’s a habit she picked up while working as a reporter for more than 13 years at the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, Maine.

When that paper closed in 2019, Gotthelf started the Saco Bay News. The site covers breaking news, municipal updates and human interest stories in Biddeford, Saco and Old Orchard Beach.

“I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they value it,” Gotthelf says. “I’ve had people thank me and say, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,’ because they know it's not easy all the time.”

In addition to being a reporter, Gotthelf juggles the responsibility of publisher, which means figuring out the funding and sustainability of the news organization. To date, she’s received grants from national organizations, studied SEO and online publishing, sold merchandise, raised money and partnered with larger outlets like The Maine Monitor to help manage donations.

“People say journalism is dying. I don’t think it’s dying, and it’s only dying if you let it die. It’s evolving,” Gotthelf says. “News is evolving and it's going through growing pains.”

The team behind The Providence Eye, an outlet founded in 2023 in Providence, R.I., is familiar with the challenges and opportunities of growing a news startup.

“We started with an idea: ‘This is something Providence needs, let's see if it works and if people respond,’” says Deborah Schimberg, publisher and managing editor. “Now we’re at the point two years later where there is a demand and interest in keeping this going.”

In addition to publishing stories online, the outlet has hosted community events, including Port Day, which attracted 150 people who took tours and learned about the city’s port. Currently, writers and reporters volunteer their time, though Schimberg hopes to change that in the future. This year, the Providence Eye partnered with Journalism New England and will host four community news fellows.

Journalism New England is a startup, founded in early 2025, that works with news outlets to build sustainable models. It also runs a career lab, where the first cohort of community news fellows is learning journalism skills. Erin O’Mara, founder and CEO of the organization, sees collaboration between newsrooms, the willingness to think differently about business models and revenue streams, and people’s awareness of the value of local news as signs of hope for local journalism.

Fellows are also in New England newsrooms through Report for America. Since 2018, about 55 journalists have been placed in newsrooms across New England to cover environment and climate change, indigenous communities, rural government and more at several news outlets, including the Maine Monitor, VTDigger in Vermont, and N.H. Public Radio and the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire.

“We really believe that the future of good local news is about newsrooms doing more and better local news, and you can lead with that and once you’re doing that, the community rallies around the newsroom,” says Kleman, Report for America’s executive director.

Across the country, student journalists are also playing key roles in providing local news coverage. At the Community News Service at the University of Vermont, student journalists are reporting local news stories under a model that provides real-world experience and college credit for students and a sustainable source of news stories for local news partners.

Over the course of a year, about 100 students write stories that are republished for free at more than 30 local news outlets.

“It’s predictable for the news outlets. They can count on a pipeline of stories.” says Meg Little Reilly, managing director at the Center for Community News at UVM, which tracks the growth of the student journalism field.

According to a recent report from the center, 48 news-academic programs started over the past year, and there’s an academic-news partnership in 45 states.

“Right now, as the field of the news media is in a state of disruption, the need for reliable, trustworthy news has never been higher,” Little Reilly says. “This is a civic obligation that America’s colleges and universities can step up and fill.”

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This story is part of Know Your News — a Granite State News Collaborative and the New England Newspaper and Press Association's Press Freedom Committee initiative on why the First Amendment, press freedom, and local news matter. Don’t just read this. Share it with one person who doesn’t usually follow local news — that’s how we make an impact. More at laconiadailysun.com/knowyournews.