A new newsletter: Meet the Media

MEET THE MEDIA

Exploring the news landscape in New Hampshire

By Rosemary Ford | Granite State News Collaborative

Welcome to the first edition of Meet the Media, a new newsletter from The Granite State News Collaborative. In this space, we plan to highlight the important work our partners do to keep New Hampshire readers, viewers and listeners informed.
For more information about the Granite State News Collaborative, please visit our website. It details our past and present projects, including our coronavirus coverage, our race and equity project and "The State We're In" news series.
Feel free to share this newsletter! And we hope you'll subscribe.
For questions, comments and other concerns, contact Editor Rosemary Ford.

Help us continue to provide in-depth, accountability and investigative journalism to our communities.

From now until Dec. 31, we are aiming to raise $15,000 for our 2022 reporting projects.
Are you with us?

NEW HAMPSHIRE'S MEDIA LANDSCAPE

As journalists working in a variety of mediums—from print to radio and television — we do our best to tell the stories of the people, places and institutions that make the Granite State unique. One area we could improve in is telling our own story.

Across the United States, newsrooms have shrunk by26 percent since 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. New Hampshire newsrooms have seen the same sort of job losses. In some parts of the country, news outlets have closed altogether,causing government costs to rise.

Though our audiences remain large, active and engaged, our business model has been challenged by new technologies and the pandemic.

To adapt to this ever-changing environment while still delivering vital information to the public, we've been trying a host of new initiatives.

In this newsletter, we plan to talk about those projects and demystify some of the people behind your local news organizations.

Do you have any ideas about future topics or issues you would like to see covered here? Shoot a note to Editor Rosemary Ford.

ABOUT OUR PARTNER: THE CONCORD MONITOR

For more than 150 years the Concord Monitor has told the story of New Hampshire, with a special focus on the capital city and its environs.
While papers around the region have been gobbled up by large corporations, the Monitor remains part of a local, family-owned chain.
"If you pay attention to the media landscape, that is a bit of an anomaly," said Steve Leone, who serves as the paper's publisher as well as the vice president for news for parent company Newspapers of New England.
For readers, it means that the Monitor and its fellow papers take pride in their local knowledge and focus.
"We are in the communities we cover," Leone said. "That's an important part of who we are and our identity."
Like many media organizations in the region, the staff at the Monitor has shrunk over the last 15 years. Most of those jobs were lost to attrition — but the Monitor does have a plan to bring them back.
Leone noted that the business model for newspapers — relying on subscriptions and advertising — has changed a great deal in the last decade or so, but the need for news hasn't.
"What our communities want is local reporting," he said. "The need hasn't changed. The business model has changed."
The organization is looking for ways to evolve that business model into something that will work for the next 150 years. Part of the method is exploring fundraising opportunities geared toward local coverage.
Some of that has already started at the Monitor. The paper has worked with Report for America — an organization that helps bring reporters to newsrooms through splitting salaries and fundraising with news organizations.
That experience helped when the pandemic hit and advertising — every newspaper's main source of income — completely dried up. Business in general dried up, across industries.
Many newspapers, across the world, had to layoff staff across departments to stay open.
Leone called it a scary time.
The Monitor turned to the Local Media Association for help fundraising $50,000 to keep the newsroom up and running during one of the biggest stories in a century.
"That got us over the hump at an important moment," he said.
The latest news initative with a philanthropic bent at the Monitor is an environmental reporting lab, to boost coverage of the issue in the Granite State.
The long-term project will focus on climate change, energy policy, renewable innovation, wildlife and more.
The environmental reporting lab, created through the help of fundraising, is a bit of a departure from the traditional ways newspapers have funded coverage. Leone sees it as a possible path to future for newspapers balancing their financial needs with the public service aspect of their work.
"There is a lot of value in having local news coverage," he said. "If it goes away. the community changes. Your taxes go up. Your bond rating changes. ... The likely outcome is increased (government) spending."
"I'm not saying the world stops. I am saying your community isn't as healthy," he noted.
As Leone said in his introduction of the project to readers, "Coverage of these issues and our dedication to government and corporate accountability are crucial to the future of our state and our region. The health of our environment impacts the physical health of our most vulnerable residents, the health of our economy, and the spiritual health of those who see this issue as fundamental to the world we leave to future generations."
The lab would create two new reporting positions, focused on topics related to natural resources and climate change. Currently the paper is fundraising for the project and also collecting thoughts from readers.
"We need to tell these stories and we need the community's support to tell these stories," Leone said.
He also plans to encourage the community to participate in and drive the coverage that comes out of the lab.
Part of the project has already begun, with reporting from David Brooks and engagement initiaties from editor Allie Ginwala. Leone hopes the work will spark fruitful conversations and ideas about the way New Hampshire deals with climate change and the environment.
"I'm not saying journalism is going to solve all our environmental issues," Leone said. "But you can't solve environmental issues without talking about them."

Welcome to the first edition of Meet the Media, a new newsletter from The Granite State News Collaborative. In this space, we plan to highlight the important work our partners do to keep New Hampshire readers, viewers and listeners informed.
For more information about the Granite State News Collaborative, please visit our website. It details our past and present projects, including our coronavirus coverage, our race and equity project and "The State We're In" news series.
Feel free to share this newsletter! And we hope you'll subscribe.
For questions, comments and other concerns, contact Editor Rosemary Ford.

Help us continue to provide in-depth, accountability and investigative journalism to our communities.

From now until Dec. 31, we are aiming to raise $15,000 for our 2022 reporting projects.
Are you with us?

Yes, Count me in!

NEW HAMPSHIRE'S MEDIA LANDSCAPE

As journalists working in a variety of mediums — from print to radio and television — we do our best to tell the stories of the people, places and institutions that make the Granite State unique. One area we could improve in is telling our own story.

Across the United States, newsrooms have shrunk by 26 percent since 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. New Hampshire newsrooms have seen the same sort of job losses. In some parts of the country, news outlets have closed altogether, causing government costs to rise.

Though our audiences remain large, active and engaged, our business model has been challenged by new technologies and the pandemic.

To adapt to this ever-changing environment while still delivering vital information to the public, we've been trying a host of new initiatives.

In this newsletter, we plan to talk about those projects and demystify some of the people behind your local news organizations.

Do you have any ideas about future topics or issues you would like to see covered here? Shoot a note to Editor Rosemary Ford.

"The State We're In" tackled "Funding Local Journalism" in its latest episode. See why local media outlets are turning to donations and philanthropy to fund critically needed journalism in the Granite State.

ABOUT OUR PARTNER: THE CONCORD MONITOR 


For more than 150 years the Concord Monitor has told the story of New Hampshire, with a special focus on the capital city and its environs.
While papers around the region have been gobbled up by large corporations, the Monitor remains part of a local, family-owned chain.
"If you pay attention to the media landscape, that is a bit of an anomaly," said Steve Leone, who serves as the paper's publisher as well as the vice president for news for parent company Newspapers of New England.
For readers, it means that the Monitor and its fellow papers take pride in their local knowledge and focus.
"We are in the communities we cover," Leone said. "That's an important part of who we are and our identity."
Like many media organizations in the region, the staff at the Monitor has shrunk over the last 15 years. Most of those jobs were lost to attrition — but the Monitor does have a plan to bring them back.
Leone noted that the business model for newspapers — relying on subscriptions and advertising — has changed a great deal in the last decade or so, but the need for news hasn't.
"What our communities want is local reporting," he said. "The need hasn't changed. The business model has changed."
The organization is looking for ways to evolve that business model into something that will work for the next 150 years. Part of the method is exploring fundraising opportunities geared toward local coverage.
Some of that has already started at the Monitor. The paper has worked with Report for America — an organization that helps bring reporters to newsrooms through splitting salaries and fundraising with news organizations.
That experience helped when the pandemic hit and advertising — every newspaper's main source of income — completely dried up. Business in general dried up, across industries.
Many newspapers, across the world, had to layoff staff across departments to stay open.
Leone called it a scary time.
The Monitor turned to the Local Media Association for help fundraising $50,000 to keep the newsroom up and running during one of the biggest stories in a century.
"That got us over the hump at an important moment," he said.
The latest news initative with a philanthropic bent at the Monitor is an environmental reporting lab, to boost coverage of the issue in the Granite State.
The long-term project will focus on climate change, energy policy, renewable innovation, wildlife and more.
The environmental reporting lab, created through the help of fundraising, is a bit of a departure from the traditional ways newspapers have funded coverage. Leone sees it as a possible path to future for newspapers balancing their financial needs with the public service aspect of their work.
"There is a lot of value in having local news coverage," he said. "If it goes away. the community changes. Your taxes go up. Your bond rating changes. ... The likely outcome is increased (government) spending."
"I'm not saying the world stops. I am saying your community isn't as healthy," he noted.
As Leone said in his introduction of the project to readers, "Coverage of these issues and our dedication to government and corporate accountability are crucial to the future of our state and our region. The health of our environment impacts the physical health of our most vulnerable residents, the health of our economy, and the spiritual health of those who see this issue as fundamental to the world we leave to future generations."
The lab would create two new reporting positions, focused on topics related to natural resources and climate change. Currently the paper is fundraising for the project and also collecting thoughts from readers.
"We need to tell these stories and we need the community's support to tell these stories," Leone said.
He also plans to encourage the community to participate in and drive the coverage that comes out of the lab.
Part of the project has already begun, with reporting from David Brooks and engagement initiaties from editor Allie Ginwala. Leone hopes the work will spark fruitful conversations and ideas about the way New Hampshire deals with climate change and the environment.
"I'm not saying journalism is going to solve all our environmental issues," Leone said. "But you can't solve environmental issues without talking about them."

What is an engagement editor? Meet Allie Ginwala

Allie Ginwala is a New Hampshire native, born and raised. She split her time between Concord and Manchester growing up, eventually moving over to Durham to attend the University of New Hampshire to study journalism and international affairs.
After graduating, she spent the next three years writing for various New Hampshire publications, including the Keene Sentinel and the Hippo. Then she took a big leap, moving to New York City to earn her master's degree from the Pratt Institute.
While in New York, Ginwala served as the coordinator for The Open Newsroom, an initiative to make local news collaborative. It was a partnership between the nonprofit newsroom THE CITY and Brooklyn Public Library.
In March, she joined the Concord Monitor in the newly created position of engagement editor.
"I was extremely excited not only to be part of the local newspaper I grew up reading but also to help bring community engagement-focused journalism to the Capital Region," Ginwala said.
Here's a little more about Ginwala and what she does:
Q. What is engagement and what does it entail?
A. I like to think of engagement journalism as a combination of community engagement and traditional news reporting that when in practice, results in journalism focused on the news and information readers want and value most. And how do you make sure your reporting matters and has value to readers? You ask them. Involve them in the process. Engagement journalism creates news with communities, not just about them.
Engagement entails a number of practices that many newsrooms can easily take on — Taking the time to listen (lots of listening!) to feedback, questions and ideas from readers. Being proactive and asking for feedback to help guide reporting and coverage is important too. Exploring ways to reach new or underserved members of your communities. Being transparent and explaining why you do what you do.
Q. What does your job involve? What is a typical day like?
A. My job is split into two main halves. I manage all of the Opinion section content, from working with readers on their submissions to editing My Turns and Letters to the Editor to page design. I also oversee the Monitor's engagement initiatives that range from creating and distributing Google forms for reader feedback to running the Reader Advisory Board.
A typical day for me involves a morning of organizing the next day's Opinion section, an afternoon of time dedicated to various engagement and outreach projects, and an evening of proofreading the pages for the following day's paper.
Q. What projects are you working on and what do they entail?
A. One project I'm particularly excited about is our new reader advisory board. It gives a group of readers from the Capital Region a direct link to the newsroom, which we hope will give us a better understanding of what news and information our readers want and value most. We held our first meeting in October.
Nine applicants from our communities were chosen as inaugural reader advisory board members, ranging in age, profession, town and expertise. The board has just gotten started, but we've already felt their impact. Board members have contributed story ideas, weighed in on coverage decisions, and have even started to hear from people in their communities, getting feedback and ideas because they know of that person's reader advisory board member status.
Q. What else should readers know?
A. Asking questions is a good thing. I want to hear from you. The Monitor wants to provide value to all of its communities so if you have a question, a story idea, or you're unclear about something we do or why we do it, please let us know.
One of my favorite things is getting emails from readers who tell me they appreciated the topic of a My Turn and identified with the writer or they read about something happening in their town and decided to take action or they've submitted to the Opinion section and got feedback from their neighbors and friends about it. Those instances of community connectedness and positive action always make my day, and I love to hear about them.
Q. What's the best way to get in touch?
A. Folks interested in submitting a My Turn or Letter to the Editor can find full details in our opinion policy at concordmonitor.com or they can email letters@cmonitor.com.
Anyone interested in our engagement initiatives or with other questions or feedback can reach me directly at aginwala@cmonitor.com.

We're still looking for teachers and classroom educators to join our private Facebook group, Teachers Off The Record. The group is a space for teachers to have candid conversations amongst themselves and with a few members of the media about the biggest issues facing New Hampshire classrooms.

The discussion will guide our Education and Equity series coverage, but no teacher will be quoted without their express permission. If you're a teacher who is interested in joining, please fill out this questionnaire.

If you have any questions, email nour.habib@collaborativenh.org.

P.S. Please share our subscription link to anyone who you think might be interested in receiving this newsletter.

ABOUT THE GRANITE STATE NEWS COLLABORATIVE

The Granite State News Collaborative is a collective of about 20 local media, education and community partners working together to produce and share news stories on the issues that most impact our state. Together we can provide more information to more communities across New Hampshire than we could individually.