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What Works: The Future of Local News

Nov 26, 2024

Dan and Ellen talk with Sonal Shah, the CEO of the Texas Tribune, a pioneering nonprofit newsroom. Shah, a Houston native and first-generation immigrant, took over as CEO in January 2023 after co-founder Evan Smith decided to move on.

Shah is part of a major transition at the Tribune, and brings broad experience in...


Nov 25, 2024

Dan and Ellen talk with Scott Brodbeck, founder and CEO of Local News Now.

Many of the news entrepreneurs on this podcast lead nonprofits. Local News Now is a for-profit. Scott owns and operates local news websites in three big Northern Virginia suburbs: Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax County.

Dan has a Quick Take...


Oct 18, 2024

Dan and Ellen talk with April Alonso, co-founder and digital editor of Cicero Independiente outside of Chicago.

Cicero Independiente and MuckRock won the 2024 Victor McElheny Award for Local Science Journalism, awarded by MIT's Knight Science Journalism Program, for an investigation of air quality called "The Air We...


Sep 30, 2024

Dan and Ellen talk with Sophie Culpepper, a staff writer at NiemanLab who focuses on covering local news. She co-founded The Lexington Observer, a digital local news site covering Lexington, a town of 35,000 outside Boston. For two years, she was the nonprofit news outlet's only full-time journalist. She covered public...


Sep 18, 2024

Dan and Ellen fall into their third season of What Works with an interview with Mark Henderson, an old friend of the pod and a pioneer in online media. Mark is a journalist and technologist with decades of experience in news. He is the founder and CEO of The 016, a first-of-its-kind news publisher and distributor...