Thanks to a new journalism model, 18 newspapers in Georgia will have an opportunity to thrive.
As of Jan. 1, the Georgia Trust for Local News — a subsidiary of the National Trust for Local News (NTLN) — has acquired 18 newspapers in Middle and South Georgia. The model blends the best of nonprofit and for-profit practices to ensure the sustainability of local news.
“The business model is an innovation,” said Lisa Borders, chair of the Georgia Trust for Local News (GTLN) and a board member of the NTLN. “We will use nonprofit philanthropic dollars as a catalyst to bring all of the papers together, but each of the newsrooms needs to be self-sustaining. It is a consortium.”
The Georgia venture was made possible through the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation ($5 million), the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation ($1 million), and the Marguerite Casey Foundation (a smaller undisclosed grant).
“We consider credible, nonpartisan local news essential to strong, healthy communities,” Russ Hardin, president of the Woodruff Foundation, wrote in a text. “We are pleased to support an effort that promises to sustain and strengthen local newspapers in Georgia.”
The venture came about because DuBose Porter, the longtime publisher of the Dublin Courier-Herald Group, had the opportunity to acquire several more newspapers because families wanted to sell.
“We already had about 10 newspapers,” said Porter, who is executive director of GTLN. “Families were shifting out of the space. We had to make sure these newspapers continue.”
A friend connected Porter with the National Trust for Local News, co-founded by Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, who had written a concept paper in October 2020 about the future of media and journalism for Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.
“It became clear to me that the bulk of original reporting was still happening in small newspapers,” said Shapiro, who is CEO of NTLN. “But something like two newspapers close every week. There’s been a catastrophic extinction event happening, and the doom and gloom for those in this space has been extraordinary.”
The governance structure of a national nonprofit supporting local subsidiaries was modeled after the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land.
“In our model, these local affiliates are still supported by the same revenue streams they had — advertisers and subscribers,” Shapiro said. “The goal is [for local affiliates] to be self-sustaining.”
After the concept paper was published, Shapiro and her co-founder Marc Hand began shopping the idea around. They were approached by a company in Colorado that had a chain of 24 newspapers in suburban Denver.
“We incorporated in February 2021, and we owned our first newspapers by May 1, 2021,” said Shapiro, who had support from “incredible funders” in Colorado. “That’s when all the publishers started picking up the phone to see if we would buy their papers.”
NTLN’s next opportunity was in Maine, where it was able to acquire most of the newspapers in the state — 17 weeky and five daily newspapers — in the summer of 2023.
“There’s a growing recognition in this country that local journalism is critical for the quality of life,” Shapiro said. “A lot of owners like DuBose don’t want to see what they’ve built go to dust. Since then, we’ve had way more demand than our tiny organization has been able to meet.”
Porter admitted that he thought he had lost his mind when he was considering acquiring more local newspapers when people were getting out of the business. But he couldn’t bear the thought of newspapers being closed down and turning even more areas into news deserts.
The GTLN model was the saving grace.
“It gives us an opportunity to keep local news local, but also to have an opportunity for a broader market. It’s a way to be sustainable,” Porter said. “The wonderful thing about this is that it’s working. With what we have put together, these papers will survive.”
The 18 newspapers serve a population of 900,000 people in Georgia — about a tenth of the state’s population. By being part of GTLN, the newspapers will be able to enjoy economies of scale — buying newsprint in bulk, sharing printing operations and having wider distribution. The philanthropic dollars also will help the newspapers modernize their operations.
“We will complement the print product with a digital platform,” Borders said. “When everybody else has run away or shut down their print products, we believe there might be another way. The whole idea is local news in local hands.”
Borders, former president of the Atlanta City Council, has had a long track record in philanthropy as president of the Grady Health Foundation, the Coca-Cola Foundation and the WNBA. Borders said Porter reached out to her because he knew she would believe in the cause.
“Absent local news, people become disengaged, disenfranchised and uninformed,” said Borders, who is aware of other initiatives to support local journalism. “We are the ones who seem to have the most traction and velocity.”
According to research published by Northwestern University in December, an estimated 45 million Americans are at risk of losing their local newspaper. More than half of them live in the southeastern United States. Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 21 do not have a local news source, while 116 counties only have one.
For Porter, local journalism is about recording history, preserving honesty in government and democracy as well as supporting truth and facts. But he added that community newspapers also cover lighter topics, such as local sports, current events and people news.
“People love their local newspapers,” Porter said. “What we are doing is preserving community journalism. To my core, I believe this is just such an important thing to do.”
Asked whether GTLN will expand to other news outlets, Porter said: “We’ve got to get our arms around this first. Then we will have a framework for growth.”
In addition to the inaugural portfolio of newspapers, the Georgia Trust will launch a local news source in Macon in 2024. Anchored by support from the Knight Foundation, this effort will leverage a partnership with Mercer University’s Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism.
Jim Brady, vice president of journalism for the Knight Foundation, said its grant will go to strengthening the Macon community and supporting local news. “We are honored to be a founding funder of the National Trust for Local News and to contribute to the growth of sustainable and independent news in Georgia,” Brady said in a statement.
In addition to Porter, the Georgia Trust will be led by Caleb Slinkard, who will serve as executive editor. Slinkard most recently was McClatchy’s Georgia editor, leading newsrooms in Macon and Columbus. Longtime Georgia newspaper executive Pam Burney will serve as general manager.
“Newspapers don’t have to die,” Shapiro said. “They can thrive, and they can serve their communities.”
Newspapers owned by the Georgia Trust for Local News
The Courier Herald (Dublin, Laurens County)
The Albany Herald (Albany, Dougherty County)
The Johnson Journal (Wrightsville, Johnson County)
The Soperton News (Soperton, Treutlen County)
The Montgomery Monitor (Mt. Vernon, Montgomery County)
The Wheeler County Eagle (Alamo, Wheeler County)
The Wilkinson County Post (Irwinton, Wilkinson County)
The Twiggs Times New Era (Jeffersonville, Twiggs County)
The Cochran Journal (Cochran, Bleckley County)
The Sandersville Progress (Sandersville, Washington County)
The Houston Home Journal (Perry, Houston County)
The Leader Tribune (Fort Valley, Peach County)
The Sparta Ishmaelite (Sparta, Hancock County)
The News Observer (Vienna, Dooly County)
The Citizen Georgian (Montezuma, Macon County)
The Star-Mercury Vindicator (Manchester, Meriwether County)
The Harris County Journal (Hamilton, Harris County)
The Talbotton New Era (Talbotton, Talbot County)
I get the Sandersville paper in the mail. A lifetime ago I was the editor for the Johnson Headlight, which was shuttered after another paper was started there.
The Sandersville and Sparta papers have no online presence. If local newspapers are going to survive, they need to be available online.
Staff need to write like serious journalists. Incomplete sentences, using “thru” instead of “through,” and other less than professional standards are disrespectful to the reader, and sloppy. Period.
I hope by joining this organization the quality of reporting will improve.
The problem here is paper. It doesn’t work.
I have been writing for 40 years that local news needs new business models for the Internet Age. We need new partnerships with local businesses to be self-sustaining, and we need to share costs as well as best practices.
Putting money into a dying business may make it hold out a bit longer. But paper magazines and newspapers are dying out with the older generation.