For decades, local media companies believed a simple formula: build the audience and the advertising would follow. But Gordon Borrell says that equation has quietly broken down as the local business landscape — and the people making marketing decisions — have fundamentally changed. Service-based businesses, in-house marketers and AI-driven tools are reshaping how advertising dollars are spent and who controls them. The result, Borrell warns, is a tougher marketplace where traditional media must rethink how they sell if they want to remain relevant to today's advertisers.

Access more at this episode's landing page, at:

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/borrell-why-local-media-advertising-got-harder-to-sell,261030

Investigative journalism has never been easy. But according to the latest State of Accountability Journalism report from the University of Florida's Collier Prize, the reporters doing that work today say the obstacles are growing even as their commitment to watchdog reporting remains strong. Shrinking newsroom staffs, rising costs for public records and increasing resistance from government agencies are making investigations harder to pursue. Yet many journalists say the very pressures threatening accountability reporting are also reinforcing why it matters. As Collier Prize director Rick Hirsch put it, "this is a hard business. If you're going to stick in it, you've got to be committed and believe in the impact that it can have."

Access more at this episode's landing page, at:

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/commitment-over-capacity-why-investigative-journalism-persists-despite-shrinking-newsrooms,260965

Rebuilding the statehouse beat: Inside The Center Square's growing newswire model

The decline of traditional newsroom staffing has thinned one of journalism's most important beats: statehouse reporting. As fewer reporters cover legislative chambers and the policy decisions shaping taxpayers' lives, new models have emerged to fill the gap. Among the fastest-growing is The Center Square, a nonprofit newswire focused on government accountability reporting that publisher Chris Krug says was built to address what he sees as a structural hole in the American news ecosystem.

Access more at this episode's landing page, at:

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/rebuilding-the-statehouse-beat-inside-the-center-squares-growing-newswire-model,260877