Amid the wipeout of local news publications, Brookline.News is just beginning

Local news has been declining in recent years through decreased coverage as well as shuttered newsrooms. It's been happening all across the country, including in Greater Boston.

After the Brookline Tab’s print edition officially shut down in May 2022, a group of town journalists and businesspeople came together to revive local news in the town. Sam Mintz, the founding editor of Brookline.News, and co-founder Ellen Clegg joined All Things Considered host Arun Rath to discuss their new venture. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: Tell us about what’s happening this week as we speak. This is your first formal publishing week, right?

Sam Mintz: Absolutely. We are launching the publication this week. I’ve been hired as the founding editor to lead the editorial vision that Ellen and a great group of people in Brookline have been crafting and creating and fundraising for over the last year or so. We’re launching our newsletter on Wednesday, April 12, and we’ll be writing about the anniversary of the marathon bombing in 2013 and the effect that had on Brookline. From there, we’ll be diving right into covering the town elections of May 2. So we’re launching, we’re really excited and it’s a very cool project. I’m glad to be a part of it.

Rath: Ellen, tell us a little bit about the newsroom structure, the people that you have, and a bit more about what you’re covering.

Ellen Clegg: You mentioned the relentless decline of local news, and that really encapsulates what’s happening. The local news crisis is national. I’ve been researching a book with Dan Kennedy at Northeastern [University], and it’s coast to coast. It came to Brookline last year, and Gannett Media shut down 19 weeklies in Massachusetts alone last year.

We’re starting digital-only with a newsletter on April 12. We’re building reader engagement even as we speak. We have a steering committee and a board of directors. I think it’s important to note that we’re nonprofit; there will not be a paywall.

Rath: Dan Kennedy and I have talked about this decline on the show. I’ve got to think, in the context of this massive decline, it’s got to be difficult to start up a new news organization. Has it been a difficult climb?

Clegg: Well, it takes community support. It takes funding. It takes members who are interested. It takes readers. We’re excited about where we are. We’ve been talking to people in Brookline at all levels. We’ve been doing fundraisers and house parties where we talk to Brookline residents about what’s going on.

Rath: Tell us a bit more about this funding. You’ve mentioned having fundraisers. How do you get this public entity going?

Clegg: We’re talking to NPR at the moment, and the NPR model is a great one. Nonprofit status allows us to have diverse streams of revenue, from grant funding to generous donors to membership models to even sponsored content. Perhaps events are in our future, as well. All of those come together to allow us to be a sustainable business.

Rath: I’d like to think that with public broadcasting as a model, ideally, Sam, that kind of model can give one real editorial independence. Do you think that’s the case?

Mintz: Absolutely. I mean, it’s really exciting to be able to be starting a new publication without the burden of a corporate structure of a parent company — that I’m used to being involved with in journalism — that has decades or years of built-in baggage and ideas about how to cover things. I’m really excited about that.

At the same time, I don’t think we’re going to be looking to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the kind of stories we’re writing. You know, I think what people want is old-fashioned local news, in a way. We’ll be covering town government with all of its boards and committees, elections and politics, stories in business and arts and culture and all the things that local newspapers used to do. So in one way, it’s something new. And in another way, I think the business model is what’s new, and the editorial side is what people have been missing.

Rath: Have you been — as much of a reaction as you’ve been able to get, because you’re just getting going — but are you hearing from people that there is a hunger for those kinds of stories that there’s no outlet for right now?

Mintz: Absolutely. I think people have really missed having a strong local news presence in Brookline. You know, I have these conversations with people where they describe what they want. They say, “I want someone who’s going to write about a local election and frame both sides of the issue and get all the context.”

I sit there and think that that’s what local news does, and people don’t necessarily realize that because they’ve been lacking it for a while.

Clegg: Local news is so important. This is where we live our lives. This is where we shop. This is where we educate our children. This is where we elect local officials who may someday move up the pipeline — maybe not — but they have a direct impact on how we live. We want to report on all those things.

Rath: Looking at Brookline, in a way, it was shocking to think that Brookline could become one of these local news deserts. I mean, it’s a place with great libraries; it’s where John F. Kennedy lived; all of this great stuff that we know about Brookline.

At the same time, without it, I wonder the way they’re able to get this going with community support there. I’ve got to think about other communities that might not have the same resources. What lessons do you think there are for Brookline that might apply to other communities out there that are going through the same thing?

Clegg: We’ve found that every community is different in its makeup and its ability to support a nonprofit entity, so I think it depends on the community. I’ve been in Memphis, which is taking an approach in which they’re looking for funding from national groups. It’s a low-wealth community, and they’re trying some innovative things. I’ve talked to people in many other communities in Massachusetts and New England, and everyone’s looking at something slightly different. But we’re all comparing notes.

Rath: That’s interesting. So it really depends on where you are.

Clegg: Right.

Mintz: I think the other thing to add is that we plan to be very collaborative. This is where part of what I would call a wave of nonprofit outlets popping up in Massachusetts and around the country. I know that Ellen and the board have already had conversations with many of these other nonprofits trying to do the same thing in communities that are similar and communities that are different in Massachusetts. As editor, I’m definitely going to be looking for opportunities to share notes and potentially even share content and talk about how we can succeed together.