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Celebrating Labor Day with fresh Editorial and Advertising Jobs From Around New England

Looking for that next step in your career? Searching for your dream job? What better way to celebrate Labor Day than with some fresh newspaper and journalism job listings throughout New England!

The NENPA job listing page is a great resource to assist in your job search and to post open positions at your organization. NENPA members can post jobs at no cost.

Job listings are updated regularly and often include open positions for journalists, editors, publishers, photojournalists, newspaper ad sales, and more.

Check out some of the latest listings below and follow the links for full job descriptions.

EDITORIAL JOBS

Local News Reporter
The Republican-American, Sunday Republican, and rep-am.com in Waterbury, Conn., seeks a reporter who knows every community deserves quality, important, impactful, and engaging journalism. This opportunity includes a broad range of reporting: town and school news, police reporting, enterprise for deeper dives. Online work, ability to shoot photos, solid clips, and some newsroom experience are a must (solid internships count)…

Staff Reporter
The Portland Phoenix is looking for a reporter who can produce investigative and interpretive stories, write inspiring features, and keep up with local news. The successful candidate should have news writing experience, a relentless curiosity, the ability to attend some night meetings if required, and a reliable vehicle. Familiarity with WordPress, and the ability to produce photos that complete your stories are additional qualifications…

News Reporter
The Daily Hampshire Gazette seeks a full-time news reporter to be part of a hardworking team focused on covering the news of the Pioneer Valley. News reporters share in producing breaking news, community coverage, business, enterprise, investigative, and news feature stories. We all work some evenings, weekends and holidays. Experience with photography and video is a plus, as experience mining a news beat and covering local government. This is a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment requiring strong multi-tasking skills…

Opinion Editor
The Day Publishing Company is looking for a dynamic individual to be the Editorial Page Editor for The Day of New London and theday.com. The position requires strong leadership qualities and collaboration skills and a willingness to take on controversial subjects. The Day has a long history of speaking with a strong voice on issues that impact the local communities it serves, as well as state-wide issues…

Managing Editor
The Provincetown Independent, an award-winning independent newspaper published weekly in print and online, is seeking a Managing Editor. This role involves close collaboration with the Editor to develop each issue and with the Publisher to oversee weekly publishing operations and reports directly to the Editor. The Independent covers the four outermost towns on Cape Cod…

Reporter
Providence Business News, southern New England’s leading business publication, is looking for an enterprising, energetic reporter to help cover one of the nation’s most diverse business communities. From finance to manufacturing and health care, and government to tourism and technology, Providence and the surrounding region provide an endless variety of stories…

ADVERTISING JOBS

Advertising Sales Consultant
Are you a sales professional who can balance sales & service to existing accounts with hunting & closing new business? Pioneer Valley Media Group is seeking a professional with one to two years of outside sales experience, digital marketing skills, and an understanding of how the evolving media landscape impacts today’s business owners. A family-owned company, we publish the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Greenfield Recorder, Athol Daily News, two weeklies, and several websites, delivering the hyper-local news that citizens want, as well as the audience that businesses need. We also have a comprehensive digital services product portfolio, making Pioneer Valley Media the ideal partner for our local business community!

Advertising Sales Representative
Beaver Dam Partners Inc. is the Wareham, MA-based publisher of Wareham Week, Sippican Week, and Dartmouth Week and their companion WeekToday websites. The three papers profitably reach a combined weekly audience of nearly 50,000 readers in five towns. Beaver Dam is now ready to take itself to the next level by hiring its first full-time employee dedicated to advertising sales…

Advertising & Marketing Account Executive
Addison Press is a family-owned and operated independent news organization based in Addison County, Vermont. Our dedicated team publishes the weekly Addison County Independent as well as the Brandon Reporter, each working to serve valuable local news and information to the communities we live and work within. We value our long-held relationships of trust and confidence with our news and advertising contacts and proudly work every day to help our local community thrive. We are seeking a full-time advertising account executive interested in diving into the community…

Advertising and Marketing Representative
The Enterprise is a media company whose mission is to report local news and information to the citizens of the communities in which we live and work. Their trust embodies and reflects the value of our brand. Our business is, in the best sense, intensely local. The Enterprise is hiring an advertising and marketing representative. We are seeking a self-starter ready to seek and close new business and service existing accounts. In this fast-paced industry, it’s important that this person be organized, hardworking, and, most importantly, eager for success…

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Perspective: Protect assembly and petition by preserving listening at public meetings

Gene Policinski First Amendment
Gene Policinski, Freedom Forum senior fellow for the First Amendment. You can reach Gene at gpolicinski@freedomforum.org.

Two of the least-known freedoms protected by the First Amendment — the rights of assembly and petition — are being tested in today’s rancorous, confrontational social atmospherics.

With confrontation comes vexing problems, for both speakers who fear retaliation from opponents and the government officials who often must preside over meetings that run from contentious to violent.

  • At a Salt Lake City area public meeting in May, protesters shouted down a speaker and disrupted the meeting with catcalls and loud insults, forcing the Granite School District board to adjourn.
  • In Loudoun County, Va., this summer, protests erupted over a proposed school policy of protection for transgender students. The online news operation LoudounNow reported disruption at a June board meeting led to the public being expelled and an arrest for disorderly conduct. At an August meeting, small groups were admitted for comments, requiring some to wait outside in a rainstorm, with no general audience present — a new policy adopted after the June disorder.
  • In Anchorage, Alaska, hours of public testimony to a school board about mask policy repeatedly were interrupted by shouting audience members. Alaska Public Media reported that at least one person cursed at the board, with some shouting to board and administrators, “You’re going to jail!”
  • Anti-mask demonstrators heckled masked people, including doctors and nurses, leaving a Williamson County, Tenn., school board meeting Aug. 10. One man was followed to his car and had a person shout at him, “We will find you” and “We know who you are.”

DEMOCRACY REQUIRES ROBUST BUT PEACEABLE DISCUSSION

To be sure, more of us than seen in recent decades are speaking out peacefully, from those opposed to what they see as heavy-handed government enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions to Black Lives Matter supporters calling for police reform.

Passions run high. The words, like the issues, are strong and challenging. But the process of self-governance calls for degrees of patience, tolerance and often — in the final push to a workable policy — compromise. The First Amendment itself provides protection when we “peaceably assemble” and “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

No strangers to the hot tempers, provocative speech and outright violence that accompanied political turmoil in their day — think Revolutionary War — the nation’s founders felt compelled to provide protections in the amendment for two contrary ideas: We can speak in tones, terms and words that provide for what the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964 called “robust, uninhibited and wide open” discussion of public issues. But then the founders provided that conceptual counterweight word just before assembly and petition: “peaceably.”

SPEAKING HAS A COROLLARY: LISTENING

While the First Amendment allows no government judgment about the content or viewpoint of what we say, we ought to be worthy of its protections by having something worth saying.

And it follows that if it was worth saying, it’s worth hearing — if only to be better prepared with a counterargument.

Far too often today, that entire thread that supports our core freedoms is lost in the heat of the moment — or in intentional disruption that, no matter how loudly one proclaims patriotism or waves a flag, is just as anti-American as any foreign foe.

We have “robust” public discussions on small and large issues, not just to vent our emotions as a kind of civic therapy, but to parse approaches, proposals and legislation and determine that which best serves the greatest number of our fellow citizens, hopefully in the shortest amount of time.

The “heckler’s veto” and intentionally packing meeting rooms with vocal opposition to intimidate public officeholders are tactics as old as time, but that does not make them valid in a participatory democracy.

WHERE FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS END

Federal and state courts through the years have held that the public has a right to attend and speak at government meetings — but also have upheld the authority of public officials to set reasonable “time, place and manner” rules to ensure orderly sessions or deal with intentional disruption.

Such rules walk a fine line between protected free speech on matters of public interest and allowing government to carry out its responsibilities. Courts consistently have said government officials cannot restrict speakers because of their viewpoints, however controversial or critical.

“… when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views.” – Benjamin Franklin

But free speech protections do not cover threats of immediate violence — which may well include protesters threatening harm to speakers in the parking lot following a meeting. Even more importantly, such threats have a multiplier effect, likely chilling speech far beyond the specific target. A new survey by the Freedom Forum, to be released Sept. 22, finds significant numbers of our fellow Americans today fear retaliation if they voice their opinions.

Let’s turn to Franklin again: As he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, he reportedly was asked what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

For more than two centuries, we have kept that republic in no small degree because we have freely spoken to each other, secure from government interference or punishment — benefiting from that shared wisdom Franklin noted.

And, just as certainly, we have kept that republic because so many times we also have listened.

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Are you telling your own stories?

Jim Pumarlo is the former editor of the Red Wing (Minn.) Republican Eagle. He writes, speaks, and provides training on community newsroom success strategies. He is the author of “Journalism Primer: A Guide to Community News Coverage,” “Votes and Quotes: A Guide to Outstanding Election Coverage” and “Bad News and Good Judgment: A Guide to Reporting on Sensitive Issues in Small-Town Newspapers.” He can be reached at www.pumarlo.com and welcomes comments and questions at jim@pumarlo.com.

I circulated a column celebrating community newspapers earlier this year in recognition of Sunshine Week. Its publication prompted a few comments.

One reader, who hailed from a Minneapolis suburb, read the column in his local paper. He wrote, in part:

“I enjoyed the message about the relevance and importance of trained journalists. My issue that I struggle with journalism or journalists in general after this latest election cycle is the intentional bias in the reporting. Politically I lean more conservative, and I am very sensitive to the majority liberal bias in the mainstream commercial media. It seems that it is no longer even avoided or denied, but even accepted as a given. … How and why should we trust our journalists to ever be fair and honest in their craft when this bias exists?”

Journalists climb this wall every day, I replied. Community newspapers are far from perfect, I added, but said I find it disappointing and misleading when community press gets branded under the broad brush of “the media.”

He thanked me for my perspective, relating it to his experience in local versus state or national politics. “At the local or community level where we see and greet each other on the street, there is a higher level of accountability and authenticity required than when there is distance that divides us. I will look for that value proposition in my local community newspaper.”

A great exchange, I said to myself, but with only one reader. How do we reach the masses?

My challenge to editors and publishers: Are you telling your own stories? Are you having regular conversations with readers and explaining news decisions?

Newspapers play a vital role in the everyday life of a community and its citizens. We take pride in delivering stories that readers like to read and stories they should read, but it’s not without guidelines for what does and does not get published.

Then we frequently fall short in explaining policies. Too often the standard response to an inquiry is simply, “Sorry, but it doesn’t fit our guidelines.” Or, “We’ve always done it that way.”

I cannot overstate the value of communicating regularly with readers on your operations. Brainstorm among your employees – go beyond the newsroom – and you’ll generate more than enough topics to address.

What’s your policy for column submissions?

What are your guidelines for weddings, engagements, open houses?

Why don’t youth sports leagues receive as much attention as varsity sports?

Who don’t you publish photos of all check presentations?

What qualifies as news and what constitutes an ad when it comes to business reports?

How do you handle news from civic clubs?

These topics, and many more, can be addressed at most any time.

Some topics might warrant an explanation in regular cycles. Election season is a great example. Do you implement special guidelines for letters to the editor? Or how about a response to the frequent cry: What gives you the right to offer editorial endorsements – “to tell us” who to vote for?

Other columns are prompted by specific circumstances. In one instance, I responded to a complaint that our review of a school play was too negative. 

Another reader told us it was in poor taste to run a photo showing a beer bottle at an election night victory party in the sheriff’s race. I alerted the winning candidate, and explained our decision-making, letting him know I was going to address the comment in a column.

We also were questioned on how we reported sensitive subjects, too. In these cases, you should give pause as to whether and when you should explain your policy. There is a time and place for writing about your guidelines on suicide reports – and you most definitely want to discuss the circumstances with the affected individuals in advance of writing anything.

Community newspapers are increasingly challenged in today’s fractured media landscape and in the atmosphere of “fake news.” Being transparent in your operations is most important to remain relevant to readers and advertisers.

I wrote a weekly column for 20-plus years as editor of the Red Wing Republican Eagle. My intent was not to convince readers that a decision was the right way or the only way to handle a report. Rather, my goal was to help them understand our rationale and to know that decisions were not made on a whim.

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The Berkshire Eagle acquires new printing press

In a heartfelt letter to readers on August 21, Fred Rutberg, president and publisher of The Berkshire Eagle affirmed the companies commitment to the community and local journalism and announced that The Eagle has bought and will be installing a newer-model Goss Community SSC Magnum newspaper printing press.

The new press will produce a higher-quality look with better color photographs, graphics, and advertisements for their readers.

The Eagle’s current Goss Urbanite press, which has printed more than 30 years of Berkshires Eagles, will be dismantled in September. The new press should be up and running in the fall.

Read the letter

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More than 50 publications participate in Vaccine Hesitancy Initiative with The Boston Globe

In an effort to clear up misinformation about vaccines, The Boston Globe ran a special front-page section on August 18 that comprehensively debunked myths about vaccines and identified other barriers to vaccination in our community.

The Globe also published an editorial that addressed vaccine hesitancy in our communities and recommends the next steps to encourage vaccination.

NENPA worked with The Boston Globe on this coordinated effort to promote the initiative to combat Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy to newspapers around New England. We asked them to support the initiative by writing their own editorial on August 18 that addresses vaccine hesitancy for their community and The Globe made additional special section materials available to New England newspapers (content, charts, social media, etc.)

It’s not too late to participate! NENPA continues to support this effort and is encouraging newspapers in New England to run an editorial in the upcoming weeks.

Over 50 publications have already participated, many from New England, and the campaign was supported by media companies around the country too. We have linked to many of the editorials in New England, let us know if we missed yours at info@nenpa.com.

Participating Publications

Miami Herald
The Ellsworth American
Columbia Gorge News
The Gadsden County Times
Martha’s Vineyard Times
Express News Group
Pamplin Media Group
Grosse Pointe News
YourArlington.com
The Day, New London, CT
Chicago Sun-Times
North Shore News Group
TucsonSentinel.com
Examiner Media – website: theexaminernews.com
The White River Valley Herald
Essex Media Group (The Daily Item)
HolaDoctor.com
Providence Business News
The Valley Independent Sentinel
Journal-Courier, Jacksonville, Illinois
Annals of Family Medicine
The Lakeville Journal Company
National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions
Quartz
Moultrie News/Evening Post Publishing

Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel
Bangor Daily News
New York Press Association
The (Toledo) Blade
Addison County Independent/Brandon Reporter
The Keene Sentinel
Voice Media Ventures
The Valley Breeze
Kentucky Health News
The Town Common
Newsroom Coaching & Consulting
The Moultrie Observer
manchesterinklink.com
Eagle Times
Mountain Times
El Planeta
The Maine Monitor
Idaho Education News
The Berkshire Eagle
The Courier-Gazette, The Camden Herald and The Republican Journal
El Mundo Boston
Vermont Standard
Boston Globe
Albuquerque Journal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boston Business Journal

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Strong focus on trust is critical to future of news

Build trust or lose readers, listeners, and viewers. That’s the challenge facing news organizations these days, says a key speaker for Radically Rural’s Community Journalism Track.

“You can’t change what people think in general about journalism, but you can recognize that peoples’ suspicions about and frustrations with national journalism are often valid,” says Joy Mayer, longtime journalist, professor, and founder of Trusting News. 

Mayer, who will kick off Radically Rural’s community journalism sessions at 10:30 a.m., Sept. 22 at SHOWROOM in Keene, N.H. and live-streamed online, will discuss the mission and work behind her organization since its genesis in 2016. The New England Newspaper and Press Association is helping to sponsor Mayer’s and other sessions at Radically Rural.

During her extensive years working in newsrooms and talking to her students, Mayer has watched as the narratives surrounding the media became more and more muddled in the minds of consumers across the country. The national political landscape and perception of national media have become increasingly polarized and tense. As a result, the burden has fallen on local journalists to take into account and be responsible for what their readers, viewers, and listeners think about what journalism is. 

“There’s plenty of irresponsible, partisan, unhelpful things done in the name of journalism,” says Mayer, pointing to the mass distrust of the media in the U.S. “But, too often, journalists say, ‘there’s nothing I can do about it because people have their mind made up, and I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and hope it gets better.’” 

To address these attitudes, from those who produce news to those who consume it, Mayer and her team have developed strategies that local journalists can utilize to tell a better story about what goes on behind newsroom doors. These new methods for interaction invite readers to see their local journalists’ efforts as distinguished from a larger, national conversation of distrust. 

“We see local journalists struggling with sources who don’t want to talk to them and a lot of myths and assumptions circulating about the business model of local newsrooms,” says Mayer. “It is time to move past these misconceptions in rural communities and promote a strong sense of pride in local news.”

The Trusting News Team believes that newsrooms need to understand the causes of user distrust before effectively taking ownership and prioritize earning back confidence in their work. At its core, Trusting News trains newsrooms to commit to standards of transparency and ethics, dedicate staff time to understanding distrust, explain the purpose, decision-making, and processes of journalism, and actively invite and respond to audience feedback and questions.

While trust is hard to measure, Trusting News is constantly engaging in research that helps news organizations better understand where mistrust stems. At Radically Rural, Mayer will share newly published insights from her most recent research. 

Trusting News invited newsrooms to talk to right-leaning readers in their own communities and was able to collect 91 in-depth interviews that share what people say about their local news and not just the media in general. Journalists who conducted those interviews now have important lessons to share and strategies to deal with that research.

Mayer, who teaches professional journalism both online for the NewsU program and at in-person seminars at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., also goes by the title of audience engagement strategist. 

She will be joined at Radically Rural by Lynn Walsh, assistant director, Trusting News; Peter Huoppi, director of multimedia at The Day of New London, Conn.; and Crystal Good, publisher/founder, Black by God – The West Virginian. 

Mayer and her panel hope to discuss ways in which local newsrooms can empower staff to engage and defend the integrity of the brand they are creating together. The discussion will include topics of race representation in the newsroom, how to work and engage more openly with the community and what it’s like to be a person of color consuming local news.  

Mayer hopes to see journalists, local news consumers, community leaders and organizers, law and policymakers, and government leaders in her audience for her session.

For more information on Radically Rural’s Community Journalism Track and its other sessions, go to www.radicallyrural.org NENPA members can register to attend online or in-person using the code NENPA for a discount.

Story contributed by Annika Kristiansen.

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July Obituaries 2021

CONNECTICUT
Stephen Dubicki Sr.
Robert M. Duchow
Nancy Rae Dunn
Rocco L. Leo
Henry Eaton Nichols III
MAINE
None Reported
MASSACHUSETTS
Bernice Eubanks Kefel
Paul F. Manning
Paul J. Salters
Bruce Pulsifer Smith
Helen Long Smith
Robert L. Turner
Margaret V. Vieira
Gary A. Weed
NEW HAMPSHIRE
None Reported
RHODE ISLAND
David B. Howard
Irene T. Swiney
VERMONT
Catherine Frost Linehan
Frank Paul Stuart
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Join a coordinated effort by newspapers to combat vaccine hesitancy on August 18

Attention New England Publishers and Editors,

NENPA is working with The Boston Globe to promote a coordinated effort to combat Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and we are asking for your support.

Newspapers around New England will be writing an editorial that addresses vaccine hesitancy for their community. The Boston Globe has offered to make additional material available to New England newspapers (content, charts, social media, etc.)

Please read the letter below from Marjorie Pritchard, Deputy Managing Editor, Globe Opinion, and click on the link to fill out a form to join the campaign, and you will be sent links to the content when it’s available. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Linda Conway
Executive Director
New England Newspaper and Press Association
l.conway@nenpa.com

Dear Colleagues,

We all know how to end the coronavirus pandemic: Get vaccinated. But we also know that reality has run into resistance from millions across the nation who are hesitant to get the vaccine.

In an effort to clear up misinformation about vaccines, The Boston Globe will run a special front-page section on Aug. 18 that will comprehensively debunk myths about vaccines and identify other barriers to vaccination in our community. The package will include stories, charts, and a diagram on how to respectfully talk to people about their vaccine concerns.

We will also publish an editorial that addresses vaccine hesitancy in our community and recommends the next steps to encourage vaccination. We’d love it if you would join us by writing your own editorial for Aug. 18 or your regular publishing day that week.

As trusted members of our communities, we can each address our individual community’s concerns and hopefully persuade people to get vaccinated. Publishing on the same day would send a powerful message to the nation that civic journalism can help solve this public health crisis. Please join us. It’s our last best shot.

We can also provide our news content and social assets if you would like to include them in your coverage.

Thank you,

Marjorie Pritchard
Deputy Managing Editor, Globe Opinion
marjorie.pritchard@globe.com

Join Vaccine Hesitancy Campaign

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Special projects energize staff, community

Jim Pumarlo is former editor of the Red Wing (Minn.) Republican Eagle. He writes, speaks and provides training on community newsroom success strategies. He is author of “Journalism Primer: A Guide to Community News Coverage,” “Votes and Quotes: A Guide to Outstanding Election Coverage” and “Bad News and Good Judgment: A Guide to Reporting on Sensitive Issues in Small-Town Newspapers.” He can be reached at www.pumarlo.com and welcomes comments and questions at jim@pumarlo.com.

I fondly characterize newsrooms as organized chaos. That definition has aptly described operations for the past 18 months with the impact of COVID-19. The story has demanded constant attention, and there are likely fewer reporters to handle the task due to the economic toll of the pandemic.

As we begin to return to some level of normalcy, it’s a great time to recharge – to brainstorm special projects that have unfortunately gone by the wayside. The initiatives are a great way to energize your staffs and simultaneously deliver great content.

Special projects, you say? We are barely treading water handling daily chores.

The reaction is understandable. Mention big projects and the mind-set often focuses on in-depth series that can take weeks to plan, research and write, and then will be published over multiple days. Newsrooms, no matter their size, should strive to do those enterprises, even if produced only once a year.

But special projects also can mean generating more substantive reports in everyday news. These reports can be just as “big” in terms of providing expanded coverage. And they can be done without overwhelming newsrooms strapped for time and resources.

Broadening your definition of big projects also presents opportunities for fresh approaches to stories done year in and year out.

A few examples:

Annual reports on a variety of topics are regularly presented at meetings. Statistics are often regurgitated with little interpretation. As an alternative, review reports for the most compelling highlights. Tell a story by putting names and faces behind the representative data. It’s a great way to introduce individuals not regularly showcased in your news columns. A sidebar can detail the overall statistics. 

Pursue second-day coverage. How many times do you cover spot news, and then drop a story? There’s often more to be told by probing beneath the surface. These stories are also a great way to distinguish your newspaper from outside media that sweep into a community for the big story and then are rarely seen again. Supplementary and complementary coverage is especially worthwhile and effective when reporting on sensitive and challenging stories that may initially prompt reader complaints of sensationalism. 

Local governments pore months over data preparing annual budgets. Newsrooms too often simply give blow-by-blow meeting reports. Instead, connect early with the appropriate folks at city hall, the courthouse and the school district to develop a series of stories that offers meaningful analysis of numbers.

By all means, newsrooms still should take the time and initiative to pursue the once-a-year projects. Remember, if you’re going to devote the time and effort, you want to identify those packages that will strike a chord with readers. Solicit citizen comments and suggestions on topics that will resonate with your audience. Your newspaper can play a valuable role in researching and advancing conversation on challenges facing the community.

As you explore in-depth projects, pay attention to the calendar. Are there times of the year where workloads might be lighter and it’s easier to devote extra resources? Planning and organization are especially important. Online project management tools can help to assign and schedule responsibilities. Using one place to check all your tasks keeps everyone running at the same pace.

I pose a challenge to all news operations in little projects and big projects alike. Everyone should strive to deliver the chicken dinner – and the steak extravaganza, too. No matter how big your newspaper, don’t forget the little things. And, no matter how small your newspaper, take the time to pursue the big projects, too. The combination keeps you relevant to readers and advertisers.

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Your help is needed to ensure passage of Local Journalism Sustainability Act

On Thursday, July 22, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate to H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA). This is a bipartisan bill that seeks to help local newspapers sustain financial viability through a series of three tax credits. New England Sen. Edward Markey [D-MA] also co-sponsored the LJSA on July 27.

NENPA stands with America’s Newspapers and supports the passage of this legislation and calls on all members to ask their senators and Congressional representatives for their support.

America’s Newspapers is making an editorial cartoon and editorial (or adapt the editorial and make it your own with information from your local market) available for reprint to their members and other newspapers.

Both the Senate and House versions of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act offer a series of three tax credits aimed at sustaining and providing a pathway to viability for the local journalism industry in the years to come.

The first credit works to incentivize annual subscriptions to local papers that primarily produce content related to local news and current events and can also be used for non-profit publications. The second credit is a five-year credit for local newspapers to employ and adequately compensate journalists. The last of the three credits is a five-year tax credit that incentivizes small businesses to advertise with local newspapers, as well as local radio and television stations.

View a one-page flyer about the Senate bill HERE

View the full text of S. 2434 HERE

View a one-page flyer about the House bill HERE

Learn more at https://newspapers.org/ljsa/

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