A journalism dream team that numbered nearly 150 newsroom professionals, philanthropists, policymakers, educators and students met in Hershey to discuss the myriad problems plaguing Pennsylvania’s local news industry and share potential solutions.
The second annual Keystone News Summit, held April 15-17, brought together the best and brightest in a series of two dozen sessions, some of which offered a macro view of the rapidly changing state of news coverage, production and consumption in Pennsylvania. Other micro-style presentations addressed specific topics such as basic business planning, mapping media ecosystems and best practices for engaging communities and building their trust.
The two-day summit kicked off with a video welcome from Gov. Josh Shapiro, who spoke about the importance of local news and its place in the commonwealth.
“Local news is at the heart of our communities across Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “The room is filled with people who care about their neighbors — keeping their neighbors informed, reporting on the needs of people in communities big and small.”
Meeting the community’s needs was a common thread that wound through much of the two-day session. Presenters such as Lisa Hughes, publisher and CEO of the Philadelphia Inquirer, talked about the ever-evolving nature of her own publication as it strives to create content that the community at large — and not just news consumers — is willing to pay for.
“It sounds easy, but it’s really hard,” said Hughes, whose publication is owned by the nonprofit Lenfest Institute. “But that’s always at the center of our thinking: How do we create a compelling proposition for the business community and the philanthropic community so they want to continue to support us?”
Philadelphia isn’t the only city in the state where a nonprofit entity has assumed the publishing mantel from what had been a legacy media operation. Former NPR anchor David Greene, now interim publisher of LNP / LancasterOnLine, talked about how nonprofit news operations can help to restore trust and engage younger audiences. Steve Mellon, a longtime Pittsburgh Post-Gazette multimedia journalist, said that the Post-Gazette’s new nonprofit ownership group — the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism — has a Herculean task to restore trust following a three-year strike while the Block family owned the paper.
“We want to give them a chance to do that,” Mellon said. “People feel like they can become stakeholders — not an audience.”
The summit also was used to unveil the Keystone Local News Coalition, a broad-based effort aimed at connecting journalism outlets and community stakeholders across Pennsylvania with potential legislative solutions to the challenges facing the news industry.
The coalition’s roots can be traced to last year’s initial Keystone News Summit, during which event organizers gauged interest in creating a task force to investigate ways in which state policies might protect and sustain local news in the commonwealth.
Tara Bradley-Steck, a coalition director and managing fellow of Duquesne University’s Yoder Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media, said last year’s summit moment is now a full-fledged movement.
“By uniting Pennsylvania’s journalism advocates into one powerful voice, we are providing lawmakers with a clear, research-backed roadmap to stabilize our newsrooms,” she said.
Bradley-Steck said the coalition’s goal is to convince the state legislature to treat local news for what it is: a vital public utility.
“Like water, like electricity, reliable information is a necessity for a functioning civic life,” she said. “We are calling for an official study to pave the way toward landmark legislation that stabilizes news outlets across the commonwealth.”
Legislators also shared the stage for sessions that focused on potential policy solutions and how citizens and elected officials can work together to save local news. State Rep. Chris Rabb said there’s natural tension between journalists and elected officials. But Rabb said he doesn’t see groups working to find a solution to issues plaguing the local news industry as being at odds with one another.
“It is a cumulative and a collaborative process that can benefit everyone, irrespective of geography or ideology,” said Rabb, who introduced legislation that would create a nonpartisan entity to provide grants to newsrooms and nonprofit organizations filling critical information gaps in underserved communities. “And this is about as pro-democracy as it gets, particularly on a hyper-local level.”
Panelists discussed approaches being used in other states, such as government advertising set-asides, a journalism tax refund credit and even a tech tax as ways to prop up sagging news media revenue.
In a related panel session, Rep. Joe Ciresi (D-Montgomery) said Rabb’s proposed legislation is important and worthy of support. “I do believe we need to help journalists be journalists,” he said.
This year’s summit also featured a “Shark Tank”-style event known as the KNS Big Idea Competition, where four contestants pitched innovative ideas to enhance news coverage or improve the delivery of that coverage to potential readers. Ideas included launching a Latino-focused community story lab in Norristown, Pa., creating of a “person of power” index that maps politicians’ relationships and connections in the Lehigh Valley, and establishing a subsidized subscription model for low-income families in Latrobe, Pa.
Ultimately, the $15,000 first prize went to Green Philly to launch the Creator Newsroom hub that links social media content creators with verified reporting that will be used in posts.
While many sessions focused on problems facing today’s news organizations and journalists, others put tomorrow’s journalists in the spotlight by examining such topics as partnerships between newsrooms and college-level journalism programs, a new statewide internship program, and methods for young journalists to find and retain jobs.
Trib Total Media in Pittsburgh is among the entities providing robust internship programs, and Luis Fabregas, the Trib’s executive editor, said being a part of such a program is satisfying in more ways than one.
“I think about retiring, and I’m comfortable knowing I’m leaving our newsroom in great hands,” Fabregas said, referring to the next crop of storytellers, dozens of whom attended the summit along with their college mentors.
“But we need to think a lot about the future of all these students coming out of these schools. Where will we put all these great journalists graduating in a couple of weeks?”
While several of the summit sessions focused on threats that the journalism industry currently faces, Fabregas said he sees strides being made by entities such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Trib and the 40-odd member outlets that are part of the Pittsburgh Media Partnership.
“I’m a little hopeful about the future,” he said. “I’m not all down about it. We need to find ways to innovate and attract readers who are out there. They’re consuming (news) differently today.”
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