Agenda

From the Ground Up: State and Local Policy as a First Frontier in Reimagining Public Media

Craig Aaron (Free Press)

Evaluating What Works: Evidence from Illinois

Matt Pearce (Rebuild Local News); Tim Franklin (Northwestern University)

Legislative Activism for Community Media

Mike Wassenaar (Alliance for Community Media) 

Evaluating the Impact of State Level Local News Funding: A Case Study of New Jersey State Funding for Local News

Matt Weber (Rutgers University)

The Last News Frontier: How Public Media Staves Off News Deserts

Claire Powell (University of Missouri); Stan Jastrzebski (University of Missouri); Nick Matthews (University of Missouri)

Beyond Philanthropy: Rethinking Policy Rationales, Public Service Media, and the Limits of Donor-Funded Local Journalism

Susan Abbott (Cross Pollinate Consulting)

Public Media Under Pressure: Measuring Real-Time Policy Impacts on Local Journalism and Programming Output

Alex Curley (Semipublic)

"You Have to be a Swiss Army Knife”: Local Newsroom Integration of Vertical Video Journalism

Betsy Broaddus (University of Washington)

Funding Civic Information Capabilities, Not Newsrooms: A JTBD Framework with Comparative Cases

Madison Karas (Gazzetta)

Bridging the Gap: Aligning Funder Goals and Newsroom Realities in Philanthropic Support for Local Journalism

Damian Radcliffe (University of Oregon)

Unlocking Government Advertising as Civic Infrastructure: A Scalable Policy Lever for Local Journalism Resilience

Maya Chupkov (Common Cause)

(Finally!) an Anti-Trust Lever Against Private Equity in Local News: Why Texas v. BlackRock May Be the Most Important Case You’ve Never Heard Of

Margot Susca (American University)

Erica Beshears Perel (Tiny News Collective)

Bianca Vazquez (Beloved Community Incubator)

Maddie Poore (The 51st)

Eric Falquero (The 51st)

Is Local News Always Good? The Impact of Local News Provision on Residential Equilibria

Jaeyong (Danny) Han (Arizona State University)

Judges and the Decline of the Watchdog

Asa Royal (Harvard University), Patton Chen (Harvard University)

Political Fragmentation, Public Opinion, and News Supply: A Place-Based Approach to Understanding Affect, Polarization, and Declines in Local Journalism

Nik Usher (University of San Diego)

Segmenting U.S. Local and National News Audiences

Kirsten Eddy (Pew Research Center)

Nonprofit News and Pennsylvania’s Local Journalism Ecosystem Under Strain: Promises and Limits

Aaron Hyzen (University of Pennsylvania)

A New Methodology for Mapping Local News Landscapes: Broadening the Scope of “Who Counts” and Leveraging AI to Better Understand Local News Provision

Sarah Stonbely (Tow Center); Michael Krisch (Brown Institute); Dhrumil Mehta or C.J. Robinson (Tow Center)

Reforming Public Subsidy: Evidence on Corporate Ownership and Newsroom Proximity's Impact on Local News

Simona Bisiani (University of Surrey); Heravi Bahareh (University of Surrey); Sarah Stonbely (Tow Center)

A Community-Centered Approach to Ecosystem Mapping

Letrell Crittenden (Temple University); Andrea Wenzel (Temple University); Nina Kelly (Temple University); Sydney

Boeger (Temple University); Derrick Cain, Temple University

Voicing Critical Information Insufficiency: Development and Validation of Survey Instruments for Critical Information Needs

Andrea Lorenz (Kent State University)

Measuring what Matters: Developing Shared Approaches to Assessing Local Journalism Employment and Infrastructure

Jennifer Henrichsen (Washington State University)

Matthew Weber (Rutgers University)

Ben Toff (University of Minnesota)

Damon Kiesow (University of Missouri)

Jennifer Henrichsen (Washington State University)

Harsh Taneja (University of Illinois)

Johanna Dunaway (Syracuse University)

The Agentic AI Journalist-Community Facilitator: An Interdisciplinary Framework for Equitable Political Reporting in Local News involving Diasporic Communities

Pallavi Guha (Towson University)

Money Can’t Buy a Media Ecosystem: What Lichtenstein’s Media Crisis Teaches the U.S. about Local News Sustainability

Patrick Boehler (Gazzetta); Gerald Hosp (Zukunft.li)

Local Journalism as Civic Infrastructure: What Policymakers can Learn from Community Voice Data

Solomon Oladimeji (Nigeria Health Watch)

The Black Press and Advocacy Journalism as Reaction to the Failures of Local Mainstream Journalism

Christoph Mergerson (University of Maryland)

Karin Assmann (University of Georgia)

Betsy Edwards, (Virginia Press Association)

Rebecca Snyder, (Maryland | Delaware | DC Press Association)

Matt Pearce, (Rebuild Local News)

Libraries as Civic Information Infrastructure

Terry Parris, Jr. (Stanford University)

Case Studies in Library-Journalism Partnerships

Andrea Lorenz (Kent State University)

Student Journalists as Government-Supported News Workers: A Conceptual Reframing

Jocelyn McKinnon-Crowley (Syracuse University) 

A Public Health Approach to Rethinking Policy's Role in Journalism

Stephanie Devitt (SDK Strategic Services)

Colleges and Universities as a Key a Role in Local Media Public Policy

Corey Hutchins (Colorado College)

Designing Public Policy that Reaches Independent Local Newsrooms

Chuck Corra (LION Publishers)

Saving the Market, Not the News: A Political Economic Critique of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act

Sydney Forde (University of Pennsylvania)

Saving Local News: Evidence from State Policy Interventions

Sean Ewing (Florida Gulf Coast University)

The Case for Intervention: The influence of Government Funding and Support on Editorial Resilience and News Quality

Joy Jenkins (University of Missouri)

Preventing News Deserts Through Improved Monitoring: Tracking the Health of Local News Ecosystems and Using Diagnostic Surveys of Local Publishers

Benjamin Toff (University of Minnesota)

Rescuing the Watchdog Without Leashing It: First Amendment Constraints on Government Support for Local Journalism in an AI Era

Israel Balderas (Elon University)

Lessons from the Platform Era for AI Governance: The Infrastructural Dependency Trap in Local Journalism

Heesoo Jang (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The Zero-Click Model's War on Journalism: How AI Overviews are Squashing Publisher Revenues

Anastasia Micich (Check My Ads Institute)

AI, Local Journalism, and Civic Reciprocity: An Analysis of US State-Level Bargaining Frameworks and Policy Recommendations for North Carolina

Angela Chen (Duke University)

Sima Bhowmik (University of Vermont)

Anna Brugmann (NPR)

Benjamin Cooley (University of Vermont)

Louisa Lincoln (Public Media Bridge Fund)