Rick Reger

Featured in: Favicon

chicagoreader.com Favicon

editorandpublisher.com

Articles

Research Insights: Nikki Usher

Feb 23, 2024 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Sarah Stonbely |Mark Caro |Rick Reger

Nikki Usher, an associate professor of Communication at the University of San Diego, focuses their research on news in the changing digital environment. They blend insights from media sociology and political communication to understand the tremendous challenges facing the U.S. local news industry – and what they mean for civic life, particularly in historically marginalized communities.
‘The Most Ambitious Package of Local Journalism Policy’

Feb 19, 2024 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Mark Caro |Rick Reger

The ailing local news industry in Illinois would receive compensation from Big Tech companies and benefit from state tax incentives and a new journalism scholarship program under sweeping legislation introduced in the General Assembly this month. “It is the most ambitious package of local journalism policy that I’ve seen,” Anna Brugmann, policy director for the nonprofit Rebuild Local News, said of two bills introduced by State Sen.
Finding ‘What Works’

Jan 30, 2024 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Mark Caro |Rick Reger

Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy brought much hands-on experience and perspective to their quest to find, as their new book puts it, “What Works in Community News.”Clegg was a three-decade Boston Globe veteran who, as editorial page editor, oversaw Pulitzer Prize-winning work for editorial writing and commentary. More recently she helped launch and is a top executive at Brookline.News,a nonprofit hyperlocal outlet based in her Boston suburb.
Applying Breaks to a Crisis

Jan 18, 2024 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Rick Reger |Mark Caro

The bipartisan Illinois Local Journalism Task Force has announced a series of possible legislative steps, including tax credits, exemptions, grants and other measures, to address a local news crisis that has hit the state particularly hard. “Illinois has lost 232 newspapers since 2005,” Task Force Chair and Illinois State Sen. Steve Stadelman said at the Jan. 17 news conference announcing the recommendations, which are included in a newly released task force report on the issue.
Saving Community Journalism: The Path Ahead

Jan 18, 2024 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Penelope Muse Abernathy |Rick Reger |Mark Caro

A good newspaper is an anchor in a community. It reminds a community every day of its collective identity, the stake we have in one another, and the lessons of its history. Ron Heifetz, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Two decades ago, few of us envisioned how quickly and decisively the internet would demolish the economic model that had supported local news in this country for almost two centuries.
Churning toward disaster - Editor and Publisher

Dec 21, 2023 | editorandpublisher.com | Rick Reger

Having determined that reader regularity is the most important factor in getting people to pay for news, Medill Spiegel Research Center Director Edward Malthouse sees trouble on the local-journalism horizon based on newly collected data.
Churning Toward Disaster

Dec 19, 2023 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Rick Reger |Mark Caro

Having determined that reader regularity is the most important factor in getting people to pay for news, Medill Spiegel Research Center Director Edward Malthouse sees trouble on the local-journalism horizon based on newly collected data.
Tipping Point for Public Support?

Dec 12, 2023 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Laura Colarusso |Mark Caro |Rick Reger

When Identidad Latina launched in 2001, it was a free biweekly newspaper with a circulation of about 10,000 that covered Hartford and the surrounding areas for the Spanish-speaking population of Connecticut. But by 2009, it had cut back to 7,000 copies, because, like most local news organizations, its advertising revenue had declined substantially after the Great Recession forced widespread small business closures.
Connecting the unserved

Dec 12, 2023 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Sarah Stonbely |Mark Caro |Rick Reger

Dr. Christopher Ali is the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and Professor of Telecommunications in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. His research interests include media and telecommunications policy and regulation, broadband policy, critical political economy, critical geography, comparative media systems, qualitative research methods, media localism and local news.
How Local News Fares in the Cities

Dec 5, 2023 | localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu | Bill Arthur |Mark Caro |Rick Reger

The nation’s cities and its suburbs are home to 287 million people, more than 85% of our population, representing a myriad of cultures, affiliations, concerns and interests. To get the news they need to navigate city and suburban life, the residents of these urban areas can turn to a variety of local media outlets: television as well as print and digital media. Yet their options in many inner city neighborhoods and bedroom communities are shrinking.