The Georgia Trust for Local News today purchased The Macon Telegraph and The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in a landmark transaction that puts two storied papers under local control and nonprofit ownership. more

The commission will vote to replace the national cap with case-by-case reviews. more

Americans generally understand that losing local newspapers is bad for democracy and their communities. They may have taken solace, though, in the thought that people could still get traditional news from national outlets. But that’s not really happening, according to a distressing new study published June 29 in Communication Research. more

The Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America East (jointly WGA), filed suit to block the proposed merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery on the grounds that it violates federal antitrust law and would cause specific harm to writers.  more

Investments in The Maine Monitor, NC Local and The Richmonder will help the organizations strengthen their business capacity, expand their journalism and build long-term sustainability. more

“No one company should have as much power over what Americans watch, read, and hear as what Paramount-Warner Bros. would wield. American families rely on robust reporting to make decisions about what they eat, how they vote, how they invest in their future, and how they raise their children. This monopolistic merger would devastate American journalism by driving deep newsroom cuts, reducing editorial diversity, and further concentrating media in the hands of oligarchs who have already made damaging editorial and personnel decisions at CBS. Several states seem ready to use their power to block this merger in court, and RSF urges more states to join them immediately.” — Ben Grazda, advocacy manager, RSF North America more

The Minnesota Star Tribune has announced its initial lineup for its second annual North Star Summit. Building off last year’s wildly successful event, the summit will take place on Sept. 22 and 23 at the Guthrie Theater and the Four Seasons. The Midwest’s most influential leaders, both in the audience and on the stage, will come together for substantive talks, newsmaker interviews and panel discussions. more

The New York Times, the Daily News and other media outlets are asking a federal judge to impose sanctions on OpenAI, escalating a fight over artificial intelligence and copyright that could shape the future of a struggling news industry. more

A New Jersey court partially upheld a prior restraint against a community newspaper and vastly extended it to apply to all members of the “press,” in a troubling new order issued on July 9. more

The Local is a pilot newsletter to connect readers to their communities through journalism, co-hosted by Minnesotans Shadi Bushra and Jay Gabler. more

LAist, a nonprofit newsroom that’s built on a membership model used by other public radio stations nationwide, ran two experiments over the past six months that illustrate how media leaders need to think about audience relationships in fundamentally different ways. more

The writer E. Jean Carroll can collect $5.8 million held in escrow since a jury found that President Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed her, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Trump’s lawyers immediately appealed but were denied an emergency order to block the payment from being made. more

standards launched Saturday, July 4 — the 250th anniversary of American independence — as a newspaper of record: free to read, neutral by methodology, independent by architecture, and built for the public. more

Chicago Public Media invites Chicagoans to help shape the future of one of the city's most iconic digital addresses, made possible by a landmark gift from The Chicago Community Trust. more

BlueLena and Broadstreet have partnered to provide publishers with a new seamless, integrated solution for audience engagement, advertising operations and revenue development. Together, the two platforms enable independent news organizations to unify their advertising, sponsorship, CRM and newsletter monetization workflows in support of sustainable local journalism. more

Local news organizations across the country are wrestling with the same challenge: how do you cover more communities when resources are stretched thin? At Connecticut Public, the answer wasn’t to replace journalists. It was to build tools that help journalists discover stories they might otherwise miss. more

Rocky Mountain Public Media has filed an agreement to acquire six full-power FM radio stations and 11 FM translators from Community Radio for Northern Colorado, expanding its radio presence across the state. more

South Korea began enforcing a law Tuesday that allows steep punitive damages against news outlets and social media influencers for spreading false information as journalist groups warned it could chill public discourse and invite censorship. more

It’s hard to keep track of everyone suing AI companies for stealing their work. Those gleaming AI platforms, the costliest computer systems ever built, are peddling more stolen goods than a seedy pawnshop. But it’s worth following a lawsuit filed June 24 by a group of small newspapers, alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft pilfered news stories to train their AI systems. more

Versant has been investing in nontraditional media businesses that broaden the scope of the brands it already owns. more