The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is now accepting applications for its new Equity & Belonging Newsroom Transformation program, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Newsroom Transformation Program leverages an embedded coaching model to help news organizations better inform underserved communities and establish workplace cultures of belonging. Our goal is to help newsrooms become more equitable and inclusive in their reporting, workplace, and communities they serve. The team of consultants piloting the program curriculum will work closely with Maynard Institute facilitators who are steeped in the Fault Lines® training methodology. Two media outlets will be selected through the application process.

Is your news organization ready to establish a more equitable workplace and provide better coverage of underserved communities? This program is an opportunity to make transformative changes to stay relevant to and reflective of your community by making structural changes to your business models and organizational culture.

Now accepting applications through October 7, 2022.

Learn more at The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

The National Press Foundation is offering a new journalism fellowship: Your Body, Their Data? Reporting on Privacy, Tech and Biometrics.

This training will equip journalists to cover technical, legal, and policy developments on the new frontier of privacy — and turn them into stories that will resonate with audiences.

The application deadline is October 10, 2022, apply at this link.

From wearables and life-saving medical devices to apps that track location health, fitness, sleep and menstrual periods, consumers’ bodies are being tracked and quantified as never before. And yet, the data is not theirs alone. “Smart” devices that can be attached to our bodies – or implanted or ingested – are coming to market faster than lawmakers can regulate and the public can grasp their implications.

Whether your beat is Silicon Valley or Washington, U.S.-based journalists working in any medium are invited to apply. The fellowship covers hotel, airfare to Washington D.C., and most meals.

Before the pandemic, about 1 in 5 Americans wore a smartwatch or fitness tracker, according to Pew Research Center. That number has only grown since, with market penetration expected to increase by about 6% by 2024, according to Statista. But smartwatches are only a fraction of the devices that monitor the human body and transmit their data as part of the Internet of Bodies (IOB). Products range from pacemakers to insulin pumps, ingestible pills to implantable brain microchips being developed by Elon Musk’s Neuralink and the U.S. military.

Medical devices are regulated by the FDA, and the companies that produce them must comply with HIPAA and cybersecurity guidelines. But who owns patient data is often unclear. Many apps and devices are unregulated, allowing their biometric or behavioral data to be stored, sold, hacked or mined. A host of states have introduced or passed various types of data-protection measures but as of yet, there is no federal data privacy law.

The Supreme Court abortion decision has poured new fuel on the debate. The My Body, My Data Act of 2022 was introduced in the House in June to protect personal reproductive or sexual health information. A month later, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) with bipartisan support. This “data minimization” bill, if passed by the full House and Senate, would be one of the most significant internet civil liberty bills in U.S. history, advocates say.

A 2022 poll found that 56% of voters want Congress to pass a data privacy law, while another found that 70% of Americans agree that controlling who can access their digital personal information has become more challenging.

During the fellowship, we will discuss where these stories will go in 2023 and beyond.

Speakers are likely to include federal regulators, scientists, lawyers, doctors, privacy experts, lawmakers or their staff, and those who work in Big Tech or oppose it.

As always, National Press Foundation sessions are on the record and allow ample time for Q&A.

U.S.-based journalists working in any medium (print, TV, radio, digital, podcast) are invited to apply by Oct. 10, 2022. Employed journalists will need a letter of support from their editor. Freelance journalists should submit a letter from a news outlet interested in publishing their work.

For questions, please contact program manager Alyssa Black at ablack@nationalpress.org.

Support for this training comes from Arnold Ventures and Medtronic. NPF is solely responsible for the content.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2022 Yankee Quill award. The award is administered by the New England Society of News Editors Foundation, and it recognizes the efforts and dedication of those in New England who have had a broad influence for good in the field of journalism.

Recipients are inducted into the Academy of New England Journalists upon receiving the Yankee Quill award at a celebratory dinner (date and location to be announced this fall).

The 2021 honorees were:

• Paul Bass, New Haven (CT) Independent
• Tom Condon, Hartford (CT) Courant.
• Melvin B. Miller, Bay State Banner, Boston, MA
• Marianne Stanton, Inquirer and Mirror, Nantucket, MA
• Terrence L. Williams, Keene (NH) Sentinel
• William Monroe Trotter, Boston (MA) Guardian, (historical figure)

Selection for the award is not based on a single distinguished achievement. Rather, the Yankee Quill recognizes the effort and dedication of those in New England who have had a broad influence for good in the field of journalism. In other words, it is not based on a certain achievement in reporting, writing or editing or on the fact that someone runs a good newspaper or broadcast show or station. Instead, it honors a lifetime of contribution to the profession.

Nominations may range across the entire field of journalism — including daily and weekly newspapers, radio and television news coverage, and other forms of media that meet the tests of journalism.

Members of the Academy of New England Journalists, along with the representatives of several New England media associations, will select the persons to receive the Yankee Quill Award this year.

The link to the nomination form can be found by clicking here.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, October 7, 2022.

Nominations may be emailed to: L.Conway@nenpa.com or hard copies may be mailed to:

Yankee Quill
c/o NENPA
PO Box 2505
Woburn MA 01801

For further information contact:
George Geers, academy chair, gnews@empire.net, (603) 785-4811
or Linda Conway, academy clerk, l.conway@nenpa.com, (781) 281-7648

A fast-growing newspaper company is entering New England with its purchase of four local weekly papers in Massachusetts.

CherryRoad Media is buying The Landmark in Holden, the Leominster Champion, the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and The Grafton News from Gannett.

The sale, which a Gannett spokesperson said will close late next week, means the company’s plans to close The Landmark and print its final edition Sept. 15 have been scrapped.

“When we heard about the potential closure of The Landmark, The Grafton News, the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and the Leominster Champion, we reached out to Gannett to see if they could be saved,” CherryRoad Media CEO and founder Jeremy Gulban said. “The bond between these newspapers and the numerous communities they serve is strong. We are excited to engage with Gannett to enable the continued operations of these newspapers as part of CherryRoad’s growing family of community newspapers.”

CherryRoad Media will own 71 newspapers in 12 states with this purchase and that of three Michigan weeklies recently.

CherryRoad Technologies, the parent company of CherryRoad Media, offers technology solutions such as cloud hosting and other network systems, was started by Gulban’s father in 1983. Jeremy Gulban reportedly took over operations in 2008, and they entered the news industry in 2020.

Compiled from reports in Telegram & Gazette and Mediapost

COMMUNITY JOURNALISM PROGRAM

Sept. 21 I 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Covering the Divide: An exploration of how news organizations can better serve communities that are split over politics, the pandemic, guns, policing, voting and more.
Moderator – Elizabeth Stephens is the executive editor for the Columbia Missourian and the community newspaper chair at the Missouri School of Journalism. She is an associate professor and has led audience engagement and digital efforts at the Missourian. In her role as digital director at KOMU, she oversaw digital strategy and trained digital producers. Previously, she worked as an editor at SNL Financial in Charlottesville, Va., and copy desk chief at the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer. She holds both a master’s and bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri.
Panelists – Tony Baranowski, manager, special projects, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa; Sara Konrad Baranowski, deputy managing editor at the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa; and Peter Huoppi, director, multimedia, The Day, New London, CT, and co-producer of the documentary, “Those People.”

Sept. 21 I 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Better Judgment: How innovative newsrooms are changing their coverage of cops, courts, climate and other intersections of justice to provide fairer, more equitable news reporting.
Moderator – Cierra Hinton, publisher, Scalawag. Hinton has an undying love and passion for the complicated South, which she brings to Scalawag where she oversees operations and planning. According to its mission, through journalism and storytelling, Scalawag works in solidarity with oppressed communities in the South to disrupt and shift the narratives that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few.
Panelists – Paul Cuno-Booth, freelance journalist and reporter on several alternative justice projects in New Hampshire. Molly Born, West Virginia multimedia producer and educator, now documenting West Virginia’s history and future. DaLyah Jones, freelance journalist and former Director of Engagement and investigative reporter at the Texas Observer.

Sept. 22 I 2:00 p.m.  – 3:30 p.m.
Crazy Good – 50 ideas to make you a better journalist
Jeremy Caplan, director of teaching and learning at City University of New York Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Caplan teaches classes, workshops and webinars on entrepreneurial and digital journalism. He is a former Ford Fellow in Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Poynter Institute, a Wiegers Fellow at Columbia Business School, where he earned his MBA, and Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia Journalism School, where he earned a master’s degree in journalism.