2024-5 | Download PDF
Clegg, Ellen, and Dan Kennedy. What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2024, 264 pp., 29.95 (paperback). Reviewed by Darren Johnson, Department of English & Communications, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, darren.johnson@mcla.edu
The ambitiously titled What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate by veteran journalists Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy is, ironically, a printed book, like the printed newspapers the book also assumes are dead on arrival – by the time they print, their news feels “old” in our now 24/7 media culture.
That isn’t exactly said in this book – and, sure, you could get “What Works in Community News” as a long-form e-edition via Kindle or similar – but the book’s almost sole focus on digital media entities is saying print-is-dead by omission.
What Works in Community News captures a moment in time–this brief period we’re going through where both print and digital newspapers exist. Perhaps you can liken it to times when both horse-drawn carriages and cars shared the road or when both silent films and talkies were simultaneously in cinemas.
Can we assume that printed media may be soon dead, that it’s the Blockbuster to streaming Netflix? Probably someday, maybe soon, or print will exist in some boutique format, like how some young people are still into vinyl records and shooting on film today.
But, for now, if we are talking monetization and startups, print is still a very viable route, and one could also say that most digital-only media startups may generate funding but are otherwise houses of cards. All of the big names in digital-first news publishing are now floundering, some spectacularly–though many had a windfall of seed funding.
Because of the nebulous nature of digital startups – for example, something called The Messenger, aiming to be a national online paper, recently fell apart in less than a year despite raising $50M – I can’t expect most of the lesser-funded startups mentioned in the anecdotes in “What Works in Community News” to be around in, say, five or 10 years. Frankly, a lot of the “success stories” in this book aren’t all that impressive; many of these startups are more akin to hobbies, unable to raise enough capital to pay journalists a real wage.
Like the authors, I have a foot in the academic and publishing worlds. Of course, because I teach journalism and advise a student newspaper, a campus radio station, and a podcast studio, my skills are completely up to date. Few of my students will end up working at print newspapers, even though the campus paper still has a print edition. I get that.
But, at the same time, print is a part of the monetization equation, so to ignore it in a book about media startups is odd. While it isn’t a trendy topic for podcasts and social media virality, there are some people still taking the blue-collar approach and putting out a tangible product. And we’re not just talking 100-year-old legacy papers, but new ones. I see these people at the local newspaper printing plant, picking up their print bundles of joy. I’d love to see stories about them.
What Works in Community News isn’t helpful for me as a publisher because–even as I accept that the future is digital–the anecdotes about the various types of digital startups out there aren’t fleshed out enough to work as a “how to” manual to replicate. Listed are general ideas about how these digital entrepreneurs are doing it–free models, paywalls, ad-based, donor-based, non-profit, niche, e-newsletters, grant-funded, angel-invested–but the problem with talking to business owners about their businesses is, of course, they are going to cheerlead. They must be publicly optimistic because employees, investors, and subscribers need to believe in the effort.
The book also isn’t useful for me as a college instructor or advisor. Will any of these subjects become classic case studies for students to learn from? Not likely. I’d also worry about the near $30 cover price, as students nowadays look for cheaper/free textbook alternatives.
Is the book a good cheerleader for this transitional moment in time we are in–the time when print goes the way of the silent movie, giving way to full color and Dolby stereo? Sure. It captures that gritty spirit of where small, digital pioneering publishers are right now. But so do some really good podcasts on the subject. Do we need this commentary in a 264-page linear, non-visual format?
Some chapters are a bit over-long about media entities that are marginal at best, while other chapters are shorter and could be expanded. Some chapters feel outdated because they are based on previous work these authors had done. Sometimes, mere podcast transcripts are pasted into the copy.
Clegg and Kennedy are very important figures in new media analysis. They accomplish this most effectively through podcasts, blogging, social media posts, and other digital avenues, attracting many well-deserved views and likes.
But because of that, this book already felt old despite its 2024 copyright because I’d heard most of the stories in it–or at least similar stories–before, online.
So, yes, print newspapers also are suffering this dilemma, and that irony isn’t lost on this reviewer, but it’s hard to dismiss tangible media when it’s apparent even this printed book sitting in front of me has its own monetization strategy.
Eventually, the printing presses may rust out and dry of ink, and many communities that only have print publications will suffer unless such publishers have a practical roadmap to monetize online. I don’t think anyone – even the subjects featured in this book– has a reliable path to digital success, and that’s apparent when reading their stories, which are oftentimes modest and uncertain. While I applaud the tireless and insightful work of Clegg and Kennedy online, I do feel the book is a missed opportunity to offer practical, step-by-step solutions for everyday news outfits to make a complete digital transformation and be able to hire real journalists at a living wage to tell our modern stories at the same local level print newspapers had for centuries.
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