Local News

With local news sources in peril, Cambridge is considering an infusion of public funds

A proposal in front of Cambridge City Council could provide critical funding to journalists, but some are voicing concerns about the ethical implications.

By Ross Cristantiello

July 11, 2024

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Local news is in the midst of an extended crisis. 

Since 2005, newspapers around the country have disappeared at an average rate of more than two a week. By the end of this year, current trends indicate that America will have lost a third of its total newspapers in that time. More than half of counties across the U.S. can now be defined as “local news deserts,” places where residents have little or no access to reliable local journalism. The country has lost almost two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005, according to a comprehensive annual report compiled by the Medill School at Northwestern University. 

New, digital-first local news projects are popping up around the country — including in many wealthy Massachusetts suburbs — to fill the gaps left behind. But, per the Medill report, these outlets are not being created frequently enough to keep pace with what was lost. 

It is in this environment that Cambridge officials are mulling a potentially controversial strategy: an infusion of taxpayer dollars to help keep local news operations afloat. 

A new idea

A policy order currently before Cambridge City Council proposes that the city dish out $100,000 a year to a local news fund that would be overseen by an independent third party. This pilot program would last up to three years, with the independent intermediary determining which local journalism outlets are worthy of receiving the funding. It was debated by councilors last month, and could be voted on as soon as Aug. 5. 

“I support using taxpayer dollars to inform the public — as we do nationally with NPR. And the city does by providing support to CCTV.  I am not in favor of editorial control by the city. I believe strongly that democracy requires an independent news source. And with the demise of the Cambridge Chronicle, the city should provide seed funding — startup funding, not permanent — for local news sources,” said Councilor Patricia Nolan, one of the order’s sponsors. Councilor Burhan Azeem is the lead sponsor, and Councilor Joan Pickett also signed onto it.  

Local news in Cambridge took a serious hit in 2022 when Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper publisher, eliminated a swath of print papers and merged nine other weeklies into four regionally-focused publications. Combined with layoffs, once-trusted local news publications across Massachusetts became ghosts of their former selves. The Cambridge Chronicle, the oldest weekly paper in the country, was one of them. Northeastern University professor and media critic Dan Kennedy called it “a grotesque abdication of responsibility” at the time. 

An industry in flux

Jesse Floyd, now editor-in-chief of The Belmont Voice, was a longtime journalist at Gannett who witnessed the stunning contraction firsthand. 

“We seemed to hit an event horizon, and within 12 months, only a few isolated bands of community journalists survived. It had been building to that for more than a decade. Being in the middle of it, it was hard to see that, but for us to go from dozens of fairly healthy papers to a handful was surprising. This is a single company perspective, but we went from troubled but viable to nothing in a blink,” he told Boston.com. 

What happened to the Chronicle was a direct influence on the current Cambridge City Council proposal. In that document, councilors also cited Cambridge Day, a news site that has served the community since 2009 and still regularly publishes Cambridge-specific news. 

Marc Levy, the founder, publisher, and frequent writer behind Cambridge Day, recently told The Boston Globe that he “would not reject the experiment” being mulled over by councilors. He is still somewhat skeptical, but the local news environment in Cambridge is dire enough that he is ready to try a variety of ideas. 

Last year, Levy and the Cambridge Local News Matters Advisory Board raised more than $62,000 in a GoFundMe campaign to support the site, saying at the time that the city was “on the verge of losing one of its last remaining sources of local news.” The site has remained alive, and Levy is now working to convert it to nonprofit status. 

Many of the new local news projects in Massachusetts have taken the nonprofit route and are seeing initial success. Anne Larner, who serves on the board of directors of the Newton Beacon, said that the news site has focused on creating a portfolio of various revenue sources, which has been proven essential after a year of publication. 

In less than a year, the Voice raised a $500,000 start-up fund from 593 people, according to co-president Bob Rifkin. Gift sizes ranged from $5 to $50,000, and more than  40 people contributed at least $5,000. He touted the publication’s “wide base of support in small and large donations” as a foundation for long-term stability. 

“Being a nonprofit forces us to maintain focus on the reader because we rely so directly on them for our daily survival,” Floyd said. “Advertising is important, but the fundraising, the hundreds of people who donate, force us to listen to their needs, to stay on top of the stories.”

Nationally, there is a surge in journalism philanthropy that is helping bolster local news projects, Kennedy said. One of the most prominent is Press Forward, an initiative that is investing more than $500 million in local journalism. 

For-profit publications, such as The Bay State Banner and Dorchester Reporter, have also been able to find success in Massachusetts, Kennedy added. Both publish print editions and serve areas that have “fairly vibrant business districts that buy advertising even though they’re not affluent communities,” he said. 

Overall, both nonprofit and for-profit local news outlets have shown remarkable durability. Kennedy said that he could not think of many that have failed, and there seems to be enough revenue available in Massachusetts to support independent local news. Kennedy maintains a list of outlets that provide “hyperlocal, community-based reporting” in the state. It currently has almost 300 publications listed. 

Skepticism and support

Whether or not journalists in Cambridge will add government funding to their list of revenue sources remains an open question. During a hearing last month, multiple councilors spoke about the importance of local news and expressed support for the intent of the current proposal. But they also showed skepticism about the ethical implications and the legality of such a move.

Kennedy has publicly opposed the idea. 

“Government funding has to be approached with tweezers and rubber gloves,” he told Boston.com. Officials could look to legislation in New York and Illinois for inspiration instead, where tax credits would be used to incentivize publishers to hire and retain journalists. 

Larner also said she had doubts.

“The devil is in the details. While it is great that local leaders in Cambridge understand the importance of independent local news outlets and want to help, it is tough to imagine a solution that includes a direct infusion of local tax dollars that won’t be perceived as compromising a news outlet’s integrity,” she said. 

Solutions at the state or federal level could have a better shot at “maintaining an arm’s length from interference in an outlet’s independence,” she added.

During last month’s hearing, Azeem acknowledged that the proposal would necessarily lead to difficult conversations, but said that he wanted to move preemptively before local news in Cambridge dries up for good. 

“While I would love to live in a world where local news is so important that it has enough profit margins that the city does not at all have to get involved, and that would be the ideal world to live in, we might soon face a world where Cambridge has no local news coverage,” he said.