news reporter essay

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How to Write a News Report

Last Updated: April 18, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 976,069 times.

A news report is similar to a news article. It is the basic facts of a story that is currently happening or that just happened. Writing a news report is easy if you report on the subject clearly, conduct good interviews, and write in a style that is clear, concise, and active.

Sample News Reports

Collecting Information for the Report

• Ask around for story ideas, especially government officials and public relations representatives. [1] X Research source
• Scan the news to see what is already happening. This could lead to you finding other story ideas that are related.
• Search your city or county's website or directory for local events that are coming up.
• Attend city council meetings to find out if there are any local issues happening in your area.
• Sit in on trials at the courthouse and see if anything interesting happens that you could report on.

• Write down everything you see and everything that takes place.
• Record and take notes of any speeches that occur at events. Make sure to get the names of the speakers.

• If the story is controversial or political, make sure to get both sides of the issue.
• Prepare sample questions, but don't necessarily stick to them. [2] X Research source
• Think of an interview as a conversation. [3] X Research source
• Record the interview.
• Make sure to get the full names (spelled correctly) of anyone you interviewed.

• Make sure you review your transcriptions to make sure they're accurate. You don't want to misquote someone.

A good story will guide you in the right direction. "Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself."

Writing the News Report

• The headline should be attention grabbing, but not exaggerate or mislead.
• Capitalize the first word of the headline and any proper nouns after that.
• If you're having trouble coming up with a headline, you might try writing it last instead. It may be easier to think of a headline after you've finished your article.
• For example, your headline might read: "Armed robbery at Portland farmer's market"

• An example of a byline: Sue Smith, Staff Reporter
• An example of a placeline: EUGENE, ORE. [5] X Research source

• Don't include people's names in the lead (save that information for later), unless everyone knows who they are (i.e. President Obama).
• For example: A Seattle man was caught selling stolen cars at his auto shop on Tuesday when a police officer posed as a customer.

• For example: Mary Quibble has been the director of the children's theater for six years. “I love the children and how much they care about these performances,” Quibble said. “There are 76 kids in the programs. They range in age from 7 to 16 years old.”

• For example: The woman ran out of the house at 11 p.m. when she heard the burglar enter, police said.

• Speak in past tense when writing a news report.
• Start a new paragraph whenever there is a new thought (this might mean you have paragraphs that are as short as a sentence or two)
• Write your news report in AP Style. [7] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• Keep your writing short and clear. Thanks Helpful 70 Not Helpful 16
• Write what happened, not your opinion. Thanks Helpful 53 Not Helpful 24
• Always include attributions. Thanks Helpful 44 Not Helpful 22

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://medium.com/@blazej.kupec/how-journalists-find-stories-and-write-articles-2174e902591c
• ↑ http://pages.uoregon.edu/sponder/j641/Interview.htm
• ↑ https://walkwest.com/art-writing-headlines/
• ↑ https://www.producer.com/opinion/placelines-2/
• ↑ https://training.npr.org/2016/10/12/leads-are-hard-heres-how-to-write-a-good-one/
• ↑ https://writer.com/blog/a-comprehensive-guide-to-the-ap-style-of-writing/

About This Article

To write a news report, first use key words about your story to write a clear, accurate headline that’s easy to understand. Then, write your byline, which includes your name and title and the date of your report. Put the location of your story on the following line, written all in caps. Next, summarize the who, what, where, when, and why of your report in a couple of sentences. Finally, provide more detailed information from the scene and your interviews with witnesses and key players. Be sure to include quotes and attributions in your report. To learn how to collect information from the scene of your news report, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Essay: a young journalist’s reflections on finding a job, her voice, and bringing her community along with her.

Oct 4, 2022

Protest at San Bernardino City Hall around working conditions and environmental standards at Amazon warehouses. credit: Fabian Torres

Editor’s note: 

In 2021 we published an Information Ecosystem Assessment documenting the news and information needs of California’s Inland Empire (IE), a region with more than 4 million residents, the majority of them Latinx.  This report was the result of 18 months worth of listening to the community and has led to our now three-year long effort to build civic media opportunities and amplify IE voices.  

Our original assessment showed a local demand for coverage highlighting environmental and public health topics. We also learned that people in the IE wanted more local voices involved in contextualizing these issues. 

With support from the Ford Foundation, and in partnership with NPRs California newsroom and local NPR affiliate KVCR , we launched a community-driven editorial project called, “Unfiltered IE,” with the expressed goals of having local media makers pitch us stories that likely have gone untold, or haven’t been told from a local perspective. 

To do this work we needed to hire a community editor who could implement a process that didn’t have a precedent. Someone who could not only guide nine local media makers, many of them with limited professional experiences, journalistically, but a talent coach, a sounding board, and someone with a sympathetic ear and deep understanding of what it’s like to be an aspiring media maker in the Inland Empire. 

Thankfully IE native Yvette Vargas answered the LPC call, and we’ll cede this space to her now to share what it’s been like to be our first ever community editor. – Jesse Hardman

Photo of air pollution over the Inland Empire. credit: Fabian Torres

by Yvette Vargas 

Depending on who you ask, my town, Fontana , is known for many things: a former agricultural industry, the birthplace of the Kaiser Steel Mill and Hell’s Angels, aggressive winds, and a once “rough town” with an “unsavory reputation in the eyes of San Bernardino County.” I tend to  gravitate to Fontana native and writer Mike Davis’s words in City of Quartz when he describes our hometown as “the product of an extraordinary, deeply emblematic local history [… as a ] junkyard and [a] utopia for successive tropes of a changing California dream” (375). He’s talking about the Inland Empire’s population of predominantly Latino immigrants and Black families, many of whom now toil in logistics warehouses, people responsible for your products arriving promptly at your local shopping markets or your doorstep. He’s talking about my parents who started a trucking company after moving to Fontana from a one bedroom apartment in Baldwin Park, California. My favorite memories as a kid were playing catch with a baseball in the loading docks or on the windy days, we would fly a kite after business hours behind the warehouse.

Davis was also talking about me. My parents wanted me to have a bigger “California dream,” and for me that became film and media. I remember walking out of my toddler bed and heading to the living room where my Dad was watching the movie Back to the Future, the iconic scene of Doc and Marty McFly testing the Delorean at the Twin Pine mall.

A bond started between me and my dad that night around pop culture and movies. After migrating from Mexico when he was 10, he began to tune in to the sights and sounds of what was happening in the US. He got hooked on Blondie’s iconic song “The Tide is High,” and he and his cousins started sneaking into movie theaters. When I was old enough, he started passing his love of art, media and narrative on to me, and it became my dream.  

My journey to actually getting my first work in media, the LPC community editor job, is a bumpy one. I am part of the generation that was told STEM education is more important than liberal arts education (and in many ways it is still being told). The idea was this: if you come from a low income background, STEM will get you out of that situation. I was told by many teachers that I was “too smart” to focus on media arts and stick to STEM. I used my STEM pedigree and good grades to get into UC Irvine, but then reverted to my dream, and studied film and media studies and comparative literature.  

LPC Community Editor Yvette Vargas (right) convenes with LPC staffer Quinn Mays at the Garcia Center For The Arts in San Bernardino. credit: Jesse Hardman

As graduation neared I was excited to test the waters and find work in media. 2020 was going to be my year, and then, not only was graduation canceled, but it felt like my future was canceled too thanks to the pandemic. Trying to hang on to hope, I went back home, finish my last quarter at UCI virtually, and started applying for media work. For nearly a year and a half I was told by media companies that I had too much experience for internships, and not nearly enough experience for full-time work. Even retail jobs like Target and restaurants told me I was overqualified. The path for a young aspiring media maker, me, from a region like the IE, to get some real experience in media felt impossible. 

Despite my frustration, I was seeing some interesting signs of life and opportunity in the IE. Local folks with media skills were creating their own startups. One of my favorite sites, The Frontline Observer , posted an Instagram story highlighting a community editor position with something called the Listening Post Collective. I thought, “Who is this? And I cannot believe a position like this exists in the IE?!?”’ Alas, reading the job description, I was discouraged: 5-6 years of job experience required. The haunting remarks of previous hiring managers lingering in mind. Being numbed with little to no faith, I submitted an application expecting that I would get an immediate rejection or ghosted. 

When I finally got the call from LPC about the community editor position, I was in tears: happy that I finally got a job that reflected what I wanted to be involved with, media that represents my experience and my region. When the LPC team handed me my assignment to produce media projects revolving around environmental health in the Inland Empire, I knew I was definitely ready to rise to occasion and to prove myself. I may not have the years of experience, but what I lacked, I made up for in knowing this topic through my lived experiences and knowing my community. 

My first task was finding nine or ten local media makers who had stories they wanted to tell about environmental and community health in the IE. I knew that our applicant pool was not going to be traditional: independent media makers, self-taught media makers, academics, immigrants, full-timers, etc. All of them came from a broad range of experiences and backgrounds, and most were still looking for a break, some experience, and to get paid something for their creative talents. Approaching this through a traditional media process like show me your resume or show me your clips, would have been a disaster. Instead, I said, “show me your big idea,” and “what’s a story you are uniquely able to tell about where you’re from.”

Turning these great ideas into actual stories was full of challenges: closing knowledge gaps around journalism and media, scheduling meetings after work hours (most applicants had other day jobs to make ends meet), educating people on the editing process, and using platforms that people didn’t have a ton of experience in to name a few. In the end, grantees created moving narratives, honored their vision and authenticity, learned about data and where to find it, and generally picked up journalistic principles and applied them to their stories.   

The idea of story grants in the IE is unheard of. As an added layer, getting the opportunity and being paid for it – unimaginable! I was shocked to learn how much it meant to one of the grantees who actually had a lot of journalism experience, that the grant amount we gave him exceeded anything he’d ever gotten before for his work. 

As our project wraps up, I am motivated to continue being an advocate for investing in people’s talents, especially those who are least likely to get opportunities or have been told that they don’t deserve them. I’m also reminded of how I felt before getting this job opportunity: hopeless. Now, with this experience, I feel like all of these challenges are coming together to make me a leader. Growing up in the Inland Empire challenges one’s perceptions of success, we’re often left wondering if it really is “a junkyard of dreams.” Despite the challenges, I am starting to embrace the idea of taking scraps and turning them into fine metal.

Subscribe to our newsletter , keep an eye on our website , or visit our IE specific IG page to get updates on our Unfiltered IE project and other amazing LPC work. 

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Journalism is a stressful career, but work doesn’t have to be miserable

CareerCast’s annual ranking of the most stressful jobs came out Wednesday, and journalism gigs occupied more than one of the top 10 spots for the second year running . This year, broadcaster placed in the eighth spot, and newspaper reporter placed in the ninth spot after an online poll that included 834 self-selected participants.

I spoke with Katie Hawkins-Gaar , Poynter’s digital innovation faculty member, about the report via email. Our conversation touched on the inevitable stress that comes with being a journalist, and what we can do about stress that isn’t inevitable.

So CareerCast’s annual list of the most and least stressful jobs is out. Journalists made the list again. Is this at all a surprise? What does it say about our industry?

I’m not surprised, unfortunately. Journalists are under a lot of pressure. We work long, sometimes unpredictable hours. We cover stories and topics that can take a mental toll and are hard to leave behind at the office. We are expected to do more with fewer resources. On top of it all, our industry is in a state of uncertainty, which means that job security and workplace morale aren’t so great.

You and our co-worker Ren LaForme have put a lot of effort into teaching people ways to be happy at work, or at least fulfilled and not stressed. While deadline and breaking news stress is part of the job, what’s something journalists reading this can do right now to cut down on the other stresses we face, including industry uncertainty and workplace issues?

You’re right — there are plenty of times where breaking news happens and a journalist is expected to work much longer hours at a quicker pace than usual. Interestingly, most journalists seem to really relish those experiences: Adrenaline kicks in, there’s a clear sense of purpose, and newsrooms and teams tend to work well together in those situations.

It’s important to reclaim the moments when breaking news and deadline reporting aren’t happening. Make a concerted effort to work normal hours and, on the rare slow news day, give yourself permission to leave the office early and enjoy life. If you’re a boss, lead by example and give your direct reports explicit permission to do the same. If you’re not in a management position, sit down with your boss and ask her expectations for working hours. Get more clarity around the hours you and your teammates are expected to work, and start a healthy conversation around that elusive work-life balance.

What can journalists do about unnecessary stress within their organizations? (Too much email comes to mind, or too many meetings.)

Two of the most common sources of stress we hear from journalists are emails and meetings. There are way too many and, ironically, they’re getting in the way of actually doing work.

There are some digital tools and hacks for reclaiming control over your inbox and calendar. We adopted Slack at Poynter last year and it’s led to a noticeable reduction for internal email, especially for simple messages like “There’s cake in the break room,” which can get buried in the mountain of email. Now those announcements live in our #is-there-food channel. Setting aside specific times of day to read and respond to email — and do nothing else — is helpful, too. If you’re just chipping away at your inbox all day long, it can seem like a Herculean task.

If you suffer from too many meetings, one of the best approaches can be to purposefully block off time in your calendar to get work done. Treat that time exactly the same way you would a meeting; don’t move it for something else. Another approach is to schedule or recommend 45-minute meetings instead of hour-long meetings, giving you that remaining 15 minutes to focus on tasks. If you’re in charge of scheduling meetings, look for opportunities to streamline or reinvent them. And if you suffer from meetings where people are unfocused or drained of energy, try taking the first five minutes to play a quick game or play a song. It might seem silly, but it can do wonders for changing the energy in the room and getting everyone on the same page, I promise.

When I managed a team at CNN, I would lead a yearly exercise where we spent an hour in a conference room and listed all of the items we were responsible for on a whiteboard — everything from posting a certain number of tweets a day to emailing a daily story roundup. Then we’d identify the tasks we could cut and brainstorm more streamlined approaches for the things we needed to keep. Afterwards, we’d all feel a little less stressed and excited about trying out some new (and hopefully improved) approaches. Doing this exercise as a team helped everyone to feel a sense of ownership; it wouldn’t have been nearly as cathartic of a process if I just announced that we were suddenly switching things up.

You’re on the road a lot teaching and already this year have had two back-to-back week-long workshops. What helps you manage stress and what doesn’t work?

Coloring! I’m one of those people on the adult coloring book bandwagon and thrilled to welcome others along. It’s such an easy and effective way to turn off my brain for a few hours, and it especially helps on days where I didn’t get as many opportunities for creativity as I would like. ( These postcards are my current obsession.)

Searching for relief through alcohol and unhealthy food can be a short-term solution, but it can leave me feeling pretty crappy the following day and ultimately add to the stress I was trying to reduce. I try — and I’m not always successful — to embrace healthier ways to combat stress, like taking a gloriously long bubble bath, reading a book or going to bed a little earlier than usual. An extra half-hour of sleep seems like the ultimate treat.

As for stress in the moment? Going for a walk has long been my go-to remedy for when stress starts to escalate during the workday.

I sometimes feel like a hypocrite sharing stress-reduction tips because it’s something I struggle with, but I think the more we share with each other, the less alone we feel.

Last year, you and LaForme launched #Happynewsroom, a week devoted to injecting some fun into the culture of news outlets everywhere. Some people loved the idea and shared it with their colleagues, but some people didn’t feel like newsrooms are a place for happiness. I don’t think you’re advocating for drum circles and hair braiding, but instead telling people that they don’t have to hate what they do, where they work or how they work. How do you describe this process for people now? Why should we be concerned about making lists like these every year?

Our “Fun at Work” and #happynewsroom efforts didn’t appeal to everyone , in part because journalists are under so much stress and uncertainty, and fun seems like the last thing we have time for. That said, both Ren and I feel like this topic is hugely important and are looking for other ways to spread tips and approaches like these. We’ve rebranded our efforts as “40 Better Hours” and have some exciting projects ahead this year to reach people and workplaces of all sorts.

Journalists are some of the most passionate, driven and creative people out there, and I hate that our profession always seems to land on lists like these. Some of the stresses are part of the job, but I’m confident there are other ways we can make our workdays less miserable. The better we do with taking care of ourselves, the better we’ll do in reporting stories that matter and resonate with our audiences and communities. We can do this.

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Writing news reports

Newswise values.

This lesson focuses on  all  of the  NewsWise values .

Learning objective

To inform and engage an audience (first draft).

Learning outcomes

Write a first draft of a news report, using the structural and language features of news reports.

Explain how a news report meets the four NewsWise values.

Evaluate a peer’s news report, providing feedback on the language and structural features used.

Starter/baseline assessment

Pupils spend five minutes reviewing their pyramid plan, to remind themselves of the order of information in their reports, while also referring to their original news report plans for detailed information.

As a class, recap the structural and language features of news reporting. How will you begin your news report? Which information will you include in the middle section? How many quotes will you include? How will you end your report? What do you need to remember about using paragraphs in news reports?

Learning activity

Pupils write the first draft of their news reports, using the planning sheets which they created in previous lessons.

Give pupils deadlines throughout the session to replicate the newsroom experience. You may wish to split the sections of the report into separate tasks with a deadline for each one, eg: 5W introduction; quotes and reported speech from interviews; additional research on the topic; final paragraph.

Refer back to the class News report toolkit, as well as the Model news reports and News reporting language word banks from lesson 11 to support pupils to write in an authentic news report style and structure.

See Creating a newsroom for further ideas on how to create a newsroom in your classroom.

Note: pupils do not need to add ‘page furniture’ at this point - this happens in  lesson 15 .

Pupils share their news reports with a partner, providing feedback to each other based upon the following questions: which language features have they included in their news report? Have they begun their news report with a 5 W introduction? Have they included  interesting  information? Have they started a new paragraph for every new point? Is the news report  balanced ? Do you think it is a  truthful  and  fair  report? Why?

Questions for assessment

What is the purpose of your news report? 

Who is your audience? 

What do you need to include in your news report? 

How will you make sure that your news report is truthful, fair, balanced and interesting?

Core knowledge and skills

In this lesson, pupils write the first draft of their news reports (without the ‘page furniture’). 

Conduct the lesson as a writing lesson, in line with your usual practice. Remind pupils of the structural and language features of news reporting by referring to your class’s ‘news report toolkit’.

Use success criteria to remind pupils of the key features of a news report, including: inverted pyramid structure - beginning with the most important information, moving on to additional interesting details and quotes, finishing with what might happen next/similar stories that have happened before/a really good quote that sums up the story; 5 Ws introduction, starting with Who or What, not When; short paragraphs; concise, formal language; written in the third person and past tense; reported and direct speech; relative clauses.

Lesson plan pdf

Creating a newsroom in your classroom

News report toolkit

Inverted pyramid structure

5 W introductions

Model news reports

News reporting language

Curriculum links

Selecting appropriate form, grammar, vocabulary and punctuation; using paragraphs to structure ideas; building cohesion     

Reviewing and editing writing

Peer-editing   

Finished NewsWise?

Next lesson

Lesson 14: Subediting news reports

Previous lesson

Lesson 12: Recognising news report language

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An NPR editor who wrote a critical essay on the company has resigned after being suspended

FILE - The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) stands on North Capitol Street on April 15, 2013, in Washington. A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal reviews resigned on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal views resigned on Wednesday, attacking NPR’s new CEO on the way out.

Uri Berliner, a senior editor on NPR’s business desk, posted his resignation letter on X, formerly Twitter, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended for five days for violating company rules about outside work done without permission.

“I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems” written about in his essay, Berliner said in his resignation letter.

Katherine Maher, a former tech executive appointed in January as NPR’s chief executive, has been criticized by conservative activists for social media messages that disparaged former President Donald Trump. The messages predated her hiring at NPR.

NPR’s public relations chief said the organization does not comment on individual personnel matters.

The suspension and subsequent resignation highlight the delicate balance that many U.S. news organizations and their editorial employees face. On one hand, as journalists striving to produce unbiased news, they’re not supposed to comment on contentious public issues; on the other, many journalists consider it their duty to critique their own organizations’ approaches to journalism when needed.

In his essay , written for the online Free Press site, Berliner said NPR is dominated by liberals and no longer has an open-minded spirit. He traced the change to coverage of Trump’s presidency.

“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” he wrote. “It’s frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”

He said he’d brought up his concerns internally and no changes had been made, making him “a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love.”

In the essay’s wake, NPR top editorial executive, Edith Chapin, said leadership strongly disagreed with Berliner’s assessment of the outlet’s journalism and the way it went about its work.

It’s not clear what Berliner was referring to when he talked about disparagement by Maher. In a lengthy memo to staff members last week, she wrote: “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions. Questioning whether our people are serving their mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful and demeaning.”

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo revealed some of Maher’s past tweets after the essay was published. In one tweet, dated January 2018, Maher wrote that “Donald Trump is a racist.” A post just before the 2020 election pictured her in a Biden campaign hat.

In response, an NPR spokeswoman said Maher, years before she joined the radio network, was exercising her right to express herself. She is not involved in editorial decisions at NPR, the network said.

The issue is an example of what can happen when business executives, instead of journalists, are appointed to roles overseeing news organizations: they find themselves scrutinized for signs of bias in ways they hadn’t been before. Recently, NBC Universal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde has been criticized for service on paid corporate boards.

Maher is the former head of the Wikimedia Foundation. NPR’s own story about the 40-year-old executive’s appointment in January noted that she “has never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization.”

In his resignation letter, Berliner said that he did not support any efforts to strip NPR of public funding. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote.

David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder

Why I want to be a reporter Essay Example

• Pages: 3 (634 words)
• Published: July 14, 2016
• Type: Essay

I do not remember exactly when this dream appeared and changed my previous dream. But the fact is, this is the most powerful dream that I have. A lot of questions that asked me why someone like me want to be a reporter. In addition, I am a graduated from vocational high school which focus obviously different with this dream so, people would just say that it is not my thing. Not to mention, the long-term deals with my parents who really questioned the prospects of success of becoming a reporter just made it harder to me.

They have the stereotype that being a reporter is the one who has income less balanced than busyness obtained. However, Bring a camera and record interesting events or be in front

of the camera and delivers the news which is not factual or directly from the scene, it's such a cool thing, but for me, not the prestige like that which is all I wanted from being a reporter. Lots of other things that I want rather than just look cool and have the privilege of the reporter, and these are the reasons why I wanted to be a reporter. Being a reporter certainly be pursued with a lot of deadlines and timing.

Besides can improve the discipline that I have, it can also be a good thing for me to be able to improve the mental that I have. Why? Due to a reporter schedule at least I can forge myself harder and harder every day with pursued deadlines news that must be written to the media. When mental matters has started t

improve, then the second thing that I want is to improve my communication skills. In communicating I am still far away to be called as a good communicator. Therefore, by becoming a reporter I could train myself to have the ability to communicate well.

Surely, what is called communicate here is the skills of reporter to be communicate well with his/her interviewee. With many kinds of people met during the information gathering activities, will train me in thinking about the questions and a lot of talked and it surely will train my communication skills. A different point of view also make me believe that being a reporter is my thing, because being a reporter is one of the most challenging job in the world. Why? Because not all fun and convenient things it is covered by a reporter.

Sometimes a reporter had to risk his life in a place that is prone to conflict or even being in conflict. Professionalism and loyalty to the profession requires a reporter to dare in things like that. Surely something like this would improve my life, not just strengthen general mental, but the whole. The last reason may sound hypocritical, when a lot of reporter like it to travel for free while covered their news, but I can say that I am little bit different, not just enjoying the trip I also want to be more familiar with the culture and society. Not only the culture and people of Indonesia but also around the world.

How? By covering a variety of interesting stuff from all over the world of course. However, this kind of activity is

the most difficult to achieve by a reporter, because traveling activity by the reporter is only done by a senior reporter who knows how to adapt and communicate. So, I think from being a reporter I just not be able to give a factual news but by becoming a reporter I also could make myself be a better person for future in this profession, like improve the base skills of a reporter and learn a lot of things while myself enjoy the privileges and activities from being a reporter.

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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Tracey Slaughter becomes first overseas winner of Calibre Essay Prize

Maryana Garcia

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In her newest published essay Why your hair is long and your stories short , award-winning author and University of Waikato senior lecturer Tracey Slaughter explores memories of her mother’s hairdressing salon, where she grew up. The essay has been awarded the prestigious Australian Book Review’s Calibre Essay Prize, a $10,000 honour that has never been given to an overseas writer before. Slaughter spoke to the Waikato Herald about the difficult journey behind her words.

Tracey Slaughter first learned about domestic violence sitting on the lino floors of her mother’s salon, watching hair drift down around her.

“It was a storytelling space,” Slaughter told the Waikato Herald .

“It’s where my fascination with stories came from. I did a lot of listening.”

Slaughter said the salon was a place of female community with a strong sense of support.

“It was also a dangerous place. I learned disturbing lessons about what it means to be a woman, in particular the story of domestic violence.

“That was the story that I felt needed to be told in a truthful way.”

But it was also a story that almost never made it to the page.

“To just sit down and tell the story of domestic violence is heavy and when I had tried before, I failed,” Slaughter said.

“Domestic violence goes on being a traumatic truth in so many women’s lives.

“My early encounters with it and with its impact on female psychology - there were some lessons there that it’s taken me a long time to unwind.”

Then, after winning the Landfall Essay Prize in 2015, Slaughter’s writing began to take a different direction.

“When I gave myself permission to work in essay form rather than story mode, it really sprang to life,” Slaughter said.

“I wanted to dig into both the good things but also the harrowing realities of the past.

“It’s been a real journey.”

Then, once she had finished the piece, Slaughter wasn’t sure it was ready to be read by anyone else, let alone be entered into a prestigious overseas writing competition.

“I was just a hair’s breadth away from not sending it in.

“It was very unconventional, very fragmented, very personal. I thought my chances were near zero.”

Slaughter said she has never managed to look at her work from a distance.

“It’s quite extreme, the mind state I still get into. I wanted to send it in as an act of faith, to back myself.”

In the end, Slaughter’s risk paid off.

Her personal essay, Why your hair is long and your stories short, stood out against 567 entries from 28 countries to win first place in the Australian Book Review’s Calibre Essay Prize competition.

Slaughter is also the first overseas writer to be awarded the prize.

“I was absolutely astounded when I got the call that I was in the shortlist. That in itself was enough of a shock.”

Slaughter missed the first phone call announcing her win.

“They called while I was teaching. I saw the Australian number and thought, ‘What is this?’”

Slaughter called the number back.

“I was blown away,” Slaughter said.

“I just feel so blessed in that it feels like such a confirmation of the direction that my work is moving in.”

The Calibre Essay Prize was begun by the Australian Book Review in 2007 and has been open to overseas writers since 2015.

Now in its 18th year, the prize encourages writers of all kinds to explore one of the oldest forms in literature while its 5000-word limit and $10,000 prize set it apart from other essay writing competitions.

Australian Book Review editor and one of this year’s Calibre Prize judges Peter Ross said the response to Slaughter’s essay was “enthusiastic”.

“For me it is one of the finest essays in the history of the Calibre Prize,” Ross told the Waikato Herald.

“It is certainly the most innovative and lyrical.”

Ross said the essay deserved a wider New Zealand audience.

Judges Amy Bailieu, Shannon Burn and Beejay Silcox said in a joint statement that this year’s entries “delighted” them.

“Among them were essays exploring the ethics of AI and the repercussions of war, reflections on loss, climate change and family.”

The judges’ statement said Slaughter’s essay stood out because it was “sharp as good scissors”.

“A beauty salon becomes a refracting point for the dark complexities of womanhood,” the statement said.

“[It is] as evocative as it is decisive.”

Maryana Garcia is a Hamilton-based multimedia reporter covering breaking news in Waikato. She previously wrote for the Rotorua Daily Post and the Bay of Plenty Times .

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Former NY Times reporter mocks paper's 'disinformation' watchers who viewed her as a problem

Nellie bowles, who quit the new york times in 2021, takes at aim at 'new' progressivism in new book.

Nellie Bowles On How She Broke Away From Being A Part of Cancel Culture

Nellie Bowles joined The Brian Kilmeade Show & discussed how she was a willing part of cancel culture to realizing the movement went too far and how it ties into her new book "Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History"

"Disinformation experts" populated the New York Times ’ newsroom, according to a mocking account by a former reporter.

Released on Tuesday, Nellie Bowles’ book "Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History" opened with her describing the situation behind the scenes in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests.

During this time, she described a "main group of in-house Narrative Enforcers" through "Disinformation Experts" that began viewing her as a "problem" for questioning increasingly radical positions such as defunding the police.

One of the experts, "Todd," was a heavy presence in a #Disinformation Slack channel which featured "some hundred members" who posted conservative news stories "as a sort of group disinformation watch."

Bowles previously worked for The New York Times back in 2020. (Getty Images)

EX-NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER CLAIMS PAPER HELD REPORT ON KENOSHA ARSON, LOOTING UNTIL AFTER 2020 ELECTION

"Sometimes people would ask about whether something is Bad, like a picture of some people holding three fingers up—Hey is this white supremacy? (It wasn’t.) He’d post TikToks that were apparently disinformation—like a video made by some nurses making fun of Covid restrictions. He’d drop in tweets calling out right-wing internet activity from accounts with names like @socialistdogmom."

She continued, "Todd was there in Slack to remind everyone that the idea Covid might have come from a lab was a conspiracy theory. He was the authority on these things."

Bowles wrote that she was convinced to incorporate a "disinformation analysis" in her profile piece on the conservative video channel PragerU.

"I needed to chide PragerU for the sin of getting people questioning and for the fact that when you search for Republicans on YouTube, you can also eventually find yourself being recommended videos from people further to the right," she wrote.

Bowles also mocked the paper’s blatant shift from journalism to activism with an open disdain for Republicans.

Former New York Times reporter Nellie Bowles sheds light on some of the paper's inner workings in a new book. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo)

"Most of the new guard at the paper had come there for that revolution. They entered the building on a mission. They weren’t there to tell dry news factoids so much as wield the pen for justice. It was a more beautiful vision of the role of journalism for such a beautiful time, more compelling for the writer and for the reader. Yes, it was a little confusing to do reporting for a place that was so sure everyone was good, except of course, conservatives, who were very very bad and whose politics only come from hate," she wrote sardonically.

"Asking for coherence is White supremacy. I figured it out. I loved my job."

RENEWED SPOTLIGHT ON ‘ILLIBERAL BIAS’ AT NEW YORK TIMES AS PUBLISHER FEUDS WITH EX-OPINION EDITOR

Fox News Digital reached out to The New York Times for a comment.

The book was scathingly reviewed in the New York Times by Laura Kipnis, who compared Bowles to "attention-grabbing grifters" and claimed the book was an attack on progressives in favor of conservatives.

"Bowles is more of a dull blade, ridiculing her former colleagues by saddling them with laughably vacuous thoughts and dreams — their ‘beautiful vision of the role of journalism for such a beautiful time,’ for instance. What twits!" Kipnis wrote.

She continued, "[T]he book’s central fallacy is that idiocy on the left requires moving to the right. It doesn’t. It’s eminently possible for people with brains to make distinctions and stick to their principles, if they have any. And, by the way, you’re not going to find any fewer authoritarians and idiots by switching sides."

Nellie Bowles quit the New York Times in November 2021. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Dropbox/Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Bowles announced that she was leaving the paper in 2021. She currently writes for the media company The Free Press alongside her wife and former Times journalist Bari Weiss .

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Lindsay Kornick is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @lmkornick.

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Michigan editor who chronicled Ottawa Co. upheaval fired after trying to staff 'ghost' papers

A west Michigan newspaper editor who earned kudos for her blow-by-blow coverage of Ottawa County government’s takeover by right-wing activists last year said she has been fired by her employer, Gannett Co.

The removal of Sarah Leach as group editor of the Holland Sentinel and two dozen other newspapers came after she vented to a journalist at the nonprofit media site Poynter that Gannett's promised hires for news positions had not materialized for months, as selected job candidates waited on offers. 

Without outing Leach, the Poynter reporter asked Gannett whether they had indeed “ paused” an initiative to restaff the company’s smallest daily papers , some of which had dwindled to just one or no local news reporters. 

Days later, Leach was summoned to a video call with her supervisor, accused of sharing proprietary info with a competitor and abruptly dismissed, she said. She suspects Gannett reviewed her emails internally to identify the leak. 

When asked about this, a company spokeswoman declined to comment on personnel matters. 

“I was asked, ‘Why did you do this?’ And I just stared at the screen for a long time because it was difficult to process what this moment was,” Leach recounted.

“I admitted that I had a phone call with this person, you know, because I am dying. I have been asking for resources, and I'm doing my best to try to serve these communities to the best of my ability, and I feel like I can't. … Then I was informed that was my last day.”

Leach oversaw news operations at the Holland Sentinel and 25 other newspapers across four states — 15 in Michigan, eight in Wisconsin, two in South Dakota and one in Minnesota — the largest group within Gannett’s Center for Community Journalism division. 

She handled budgeting, hiring, goal-setting and managed overtime. Short-staffed on local editors, she was also editing and managing reporters at three of the newspapers herself: the Daily Telegram in Adrian, the Hillsdale Daily News and the Monroe News. 

Gannett is a publicly traded company and the nation's largest newspaper publisher. It also owns the Detroit Free Press and manages the Detroit Media Partnership, which runs the combined business operations of the Free Press and The Detroit News. The News, however, is separately owned by MediaNews Group.

Leach's dismissal also comes as the Holland Sentinel, her home base, is covering what is probably one of the biggest local stories in the newspaper’s 127-year history — the rise of the conservative group Ottawa Impact, borne out of political ire over pandemic restrictions in Michigan’s fastest growing county, population 300,000.

In the 2022 election, members clinched a majority of the 11 seats on the county board of commissioners. Their reign over the last 16 months has left the local government in a state of upheaval and controversy , with the commissioners moving to oust top bureaucrats like the administrator and health officer, axing the DEI department and prompting five lawsuits against the county. 

Leach jumped in last January to help cover the crush of Ottawa Impact news when the Sentinel was down to just one full-time reporter. She soon became the face of the paper’s coverage, striving to explain to the community the unprecedented nature of the board’s sweeping new decisions and their potential effects. 

A trio of retired journalists in the community elevated Leach’s work for the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting last fall, with the nomination citing the 130-plus stories she’d written. The nomination letter also noted the Sentinel's subscriptions had surged 38% at that point in the year, making it the fastest-growing website in Gannett’s division for small newspapers. 

One significant obstacle noted by the nominating committee is that Ottawa Impact commissioners generally refuse to answer questions or be interviewed by mainstream news reporters, though Leach tried to fairly represent their views anyway, according to the committee. 

“More than any other journalist she has held our local elected officials accountable. We need her to preserve democracy in this town,” said Milt Nieuwsma, a retired journalist and author who was part of the nominating committee.

“It’s almost like David and Goliath battling it out against the Ottawa Impact people. What’s ironic is we’re starting to see the results of her work now a week after she’d been fired. If she’d won the Pulitzer, it would have even more ironic. ” 

Nieuwsma was referring to Tuesday’s recall election, in which Ottawa Commissioner Lucy Ebel, an Ottawa Impact Republican, lost to Democrat Chris Kleinjans by 20 percentage points, according to unofficial results. 

Greg DeJong, former chair of the county commission, said the work by Leach and the Sentinel to keep residents informed about Ottawa Impact’s “shenanigans” led to the public outrage that prompted Tuesday’s recall. DeJong, a Republican, lost his seat in Ottawa Impact’s 2022 takeover of the commission. 

“She absolutely tried her best to hold this new board accountable and get other people’s opinions and perspectives. Some people say she’s always beating up on Ottawa Impact, but she reached out to them time and time again,” DeJong said of Leach.    

“It makes me think who from Ottawa Impact got to those people (at Gannett) and made this happen? I scratch my head, thinking, did they get to one of the decision-makers? They had the clout to do it.”

'She tells the truth'

The commission’s new leadership has blasted Leach, with Chair Joe Moss on social media calling her coverage “lies from Leach” and the “epitome of Drive-by Media,” denigrating the Sentinel as a “radicalized left-wing rag.” Moss did not respond to a call from The News. 

Vice Chair Sylvia Rhodea has called the paper hyper-partisan and “fake news.”

“Truthful journalism is dead in Holland, Michigan,” Rhodea tweeted in March. 

Leach also has been criticized outside Ottawa Impact circles. The communications director for U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, a Holland Republican, said the congressman’s hometown paper hasn’t provided fair coverage over the years.

Brian Patrick said Leach has favored Democratic candidates and ignored substantive stories, including major legislation Huizenga passed in Congress and even the opening of his new district office down the street from the Sentinel last year after district lines changed. 

“She has done a disservice to the community in recent years by running a biased paper,” Patrick said. “Hopefully the Holland Sentinel can be restored and regain its title as a newspaper that serves and represents the entire community."

In response, Leach said the paper hasn’t heard from Huizenga in a long time. “It’s not like he advocates to have that connection with the paper,” she said.

Others praised Leach for “dogged” reporting. In November, she scooped , for example, that the county had made a $4 million settlement offer in exchange for the resignation of the health director and her deputy, following a year-long feud. A public outcry ensued.  

Leach recently was a runner-up for the Michigan Press Association's Michigan Journalist of the Year, and her reporting on Ottawa Impact won first place in the association’s public service award for small daily newspapers. 

“If Joe Moss were to talk to you, he’d be jumping up and down for joy that Sarah has been released from her duties,” said Field Reichardt of Grand Haven, a Republican and long-time Ottawa County resident who serves on the road commission.

“Her reporting has been comprehensive, highly detailed and balanced to the degree that it can be, considering the Ottawa Impact people won’t talk to her. She tells the truth, and she doesn’t exaggerate. She has had an amazing effect on attitudes and opinions. ”

Reichardt noted that local grassroots groups that formed in response to Ottawa Impact often shared Leach’s articles and acted on the information within.

“I think Sarah will continue to be a factor,” Reichardt said. “She is so respected that many people will be seeing what she’s writing, wherever that is.” 

Managing 'ghost' papers

Leach, 46, of Grand Haven spent 14 years at the Sentinel, taking over as the editor in chief in 2013. She still “fully supports” the staff of Holland's daily newspaper, calling them “very skilled” journalists. She stressed the paper is more than just its Ottawa Impact coverage.

“But we do have to have a conversation here about whether local journalism is being served adequately in these communities,” Leach said. “Community newspapers are being starved to death in a variety of ways, either for lack of interest from their ownership, or lack of commitment of resources. We have to find a better way.” 

With Gannett, she oversaw five “ghost” newsrooms with no news reporters for over a year, and other newsrooms with just one local news reporter, including seven papers in Michigan like the Battle Creek Enquirer.  

There are likely hundreds of ghost papers nationally with virtually no news staff or original reporting — that is, “newspapers in name only,” said Tim Franklin, senior associate dean at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and director of the Medill Local News Initiative. The school’s State of Local News project found newspapers closing at a pace of 10 a month last year.

Research has shown these low-information counties see turnout in local elections go down, the number of candidates seeking public office declining and one study even found corruption rising in these areas — all because the community doesn't have as much information about what's happening with few or no watchdogs “minding the store,” Franklin said.

Franklin applauded Gannett for investing in metropolitan newspapers such as the Indianapolis Star and the Arizona Republic, which are contributing the vast majority of revenue and profits for large media companies. But that leaves smaller community publishers, who are not the big moneymakers, “in a real bind,” he said. 

“They’re really scraping by,” Franklin said. 

Gannett has been shedding newspapers in the last year or two, so a possibility is some of these publications end up being acquired by local owners, investors or community foundations, which could be a net positive, Franklin said. 

“But if that happens, the concern is that some of these just get shut down, which would be a tragedy, both for the journalists involved and for the communities,” he said. 

Asked whether it plans to hire for the positions that Leach had wanted to fill, Gannett spokeswoman Lark-Marie Antón pointed to the company’s online jobs page and said it’s “actively recruiting for multiple roles throughout the region.” 

The company also said it has hired 120 new content roles in both metro and community markets across its network since the start of 2024, “and we remain committed to adding resources to support our newsrooms, including those in Michigan.”

Antón did not respond when asked for a breakdown between hires at metro versus community papers like the Holland Sentinel.

Asked about Ottawa Impact news after Leach’s departure, Antón pointed to an article on Tuesday's recall results and said Gannett’s “talented team of journalists will remain at the forefront of this important coverage, delivering timely and impactful news our readers depend on."

A 'shocking' dismissal

Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst for Poynter, published a story last week on Gannett’s “pause” on its hiring initiative for small newsroom positions, fed in part by his conversation with Leach. Gannett had pressed him about where he got his info, but he didn’t reveal that, he said.

It was the first time in 58 years of journalism that Edmonds can recall a source getting fired for talking to him, he said. 

“It’s kind of shocking. This was kinda done in a whistleblowing spirit,” Edmonds said. “And this wasn’t like a critical cornerstone of their secret strategy but about an issue in one of the smaller parts of their operation. To come down with the atomic bomb of firing somebody with no severance seems hypocritical and unseemly for a news organization.” 

Leach is confident she will land on her feet. She plans to keep working as an independent journalist in the community, covering Ottawa Impact. She’s started her own Substack site that readers can subscribe to and is setting up freelance agreements with publications like the Washington Post and the Grand Haven Tribune, she said. 

She was distressed by the timing of the disruption, however, coming amid one of the biggest election seasons for the county, with all 11 commissioners on the ballot later this year. 

“Communities need to start valuing information and realize they need to pony up some money to subscribe because journalists need to eat,” she said. “Sitting through an eight-hour public meeting isn’t information you can get from a Facebook newsgroup or from your neighbor.”

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As national wastewater testing expands, Texas researchers identify bird flu in nine cities

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As health officials turn increasingly toward wastewater testing as a means of tracking the spread of H5N1 bird flu among U.S. dairy herds, some researchers are raising questions about the effectiveness of the sewage assays.

Although the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says current testing is standardized and will detect bird flu, some researchers voiced skepticism.

“Right now we are using these sort of broad tests” to test for influenza A viruses in wastewater, said epidemiologist Denis Nash, referring to a category of viruses that includes normal human flu and the bird flu that is circulating in dairy cattle, wild birds, and domestic poultry.

“It’s possible there are some locations around the country where the primers being used in these tests ... might not work for H5N1,” said Nash, distinguished professor of epidemiology and executive director of City University of New York’s Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health.

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The reason for this is that the tests most commonly used — polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests — are designed to detect genetic material from a specific organism, such as a flu virus.

But in order for them to identify the virus, they must be “primed” to know what they are looking for. Depending on what part of the virus researchers are looking for, they may not identify the bird flu subtype.

There are two common human influenza A viruses: H1N1 and H3N2. The “H” stands for hemagglutinin, which is an identifiable protein in the virus. The “N” stands for neuraminidase.

The bird flu, on the other hand, is also an influenza A virus. But it has the subtype H5N1.

That means that while the human and avian flu virus share the N1 signal, they don’t share an H.

If a test is designed to look for only the H1 and H3 as indicators of influenza A virus, they’re going to miss the bird flu.

Marc Johnson, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the University of Missouri, said he doesn’t think that’s too likely. He said the generic panels that most labs use will capture H1, H3 and H5.

He said while his lab specifically looks for H1 and H3, “I think we may be the only ones doing that.”

It’s been just in the last few years that health officials have started using wastewater as a sentinel for community health.

Alexandria Boehm, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and principal investigator and program director for WastewaterSCAN, said wastewater surveillance really got going during the pandemic. It’s become a routine way to look for hundreds if not thousands of viruses and other pathogens in municipal wastewater.

“Three years or four years ago, no one was doing it,” said Boehm, who collaborates with a network of researchers at labs at Stanford, Emory University and Alphabet Inc.’s life sciences research organization. “It sort of evolved in response to the pandemic and has continued to evolve.”

Since late March, when the bird flu was first reported in Texas dairy cattle, researchers and public health officials have been combing through wastewater samples. Most are using the influenza A tests they had already built into their systems — most of which were designed to detect human flu viruses, not bird flu.

Flu season is over, but there is a viral surge in California wastewater. Is it avian flu?

Samples from wastewater plants across the nation show an increase in multiple flu viruses. Some experts worry that H5N1 bird flu might be to blame.

May 13, 2024

On Tuesday, the CDC released its own dashboard showing wastewater sites where it has detected influenza A in the last two weeks.

Displaying a network of more than 650 sites across the nation, there were only three sites — in Florida, Illinois and Kansas — where levels of influenza A were considered high enough to warrant further agency investigation. There were more than 400 where data were insufficient to allow a determination.

Jonathan Yoder, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Infectious Disease Readiness and Innovation, said those sites were deemed to have insufficient data because testing hasn’t been in place long enough, or there may not have been enough positive influenza A samples to include.

Asked if some of the tests being used could miss bird flu because of the way they were designed, he said: “We don’t have any evidence of that. It does seem like we’re at at a broad enough level that we don’t have any evidence that we would not pick up H5.”

He also said the tests were standardized across the network.

“I’m pretty sure that it’s the same assay being used at all the sites,” he said. “They’re all based on ... what the CDC has published as a clinical assay for for influenza A, so it’s based on clinical tests.”

But there are discrepancies between the CDC’s findings and others’.

Earlier this week, a team of scientists from Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the Texas Epidemic Health Institute and the El Paso Water Utility, published a report showing high levels of bird flu from wastewater in nine Texas cities. Their data show that H5N1 is the dominant form of influenza A swirling in these Texas towns’ wastewater.

But unlike other research teams, including the CDC, they used an “agnostic” approach known as hybrid-capture sequencing.

“So it’s not just targeting one virus or one of several viruses,” as one does with PCR testing, said Eric Boerwinkle, dean of the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health and a member of the Texas team. “We’re actually in a very complex mixture, which is wastewater, pulling down viruses and sequencing them.”

“What’s critical here is it’s very specific to H5N1,” he said, noting they’d been doing this kind of testing for approximately two years, and hadn’t ever seen H5N1 before the middle of March.

Blake Hanson, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health and a member of the Texas wastewater team, agreed, saying that PCR-based methods are “exquisite” and “highly accurate.”

“But we have the ability to look at the representation of the entire genome, not just a marker component of it. And so that has allowed us to look at H5N1, differentiate it from some of our seasonal fluids like H1N1 and H3N2,” he said. “It’s what gave us high confidence that it is entirely H5N1, whereas the other papers are using a part of the H5 gene as a marker for H5.”

Boerwinkle and Hanson underscored that while they could identify H5N1 in the wastewater, they cannot tell where it came from.

“Texas is really a confluence of a couple of different flyways for migratory birds, and Texas is also an agricultural state, despite having quite large cities,” Boerwinkle said. “It’s probably correct that if you had to put your dime and gamble what was happening, it’s probably coming from not just one source but from multiple sources. We have no reason to think that one source is more likely any one of those things.”

But they are pretty confident it’s not coming from people.

“Because we are looking at the entirety of the genome, when we look at the single human H5N1 case, the genomic sequence ... has a hallmark amino acid change ... compared to all of the cattle from that same time point,” Hanson said. “We do not see that hallmark amino acid present in any of our sequencing data. And we’ve looked very carefully for that, which gives us some confidence that we’re not seeing human-human transmission.”

The Texas’ team approach was really exciting, said Devabhaktuni Srikrishna, the CEO and founder of PatientKnowHow.com, noting it exhibited “proof of principle” for employing this kind of metagenomic testing protocol for wastewater and air.

He said government agencies, private companies and academics have been searching for a reliable way to test for thousands of microscopic organisms — such as pathogens — quickly, reliably and at low cost.

“They showed it can be done,” he said.

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Susanne Rust is an award-winning investigative reporter specializing in environmental issues. She is based in the Bay Area.

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