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As we near the end of the year, I’d like to thank you for being a Local Edition subscriber and a Poynter reader. Poynter is a nonprofit organization and our work and newsletters are all free and without paywalls. Like many of the places we cover, we count on reader support to sustain our work. For me this year, that includes writing this newsletter each week with the stories of local journalists who’ve continued important work in a critical time. They include the Orlando anchor

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who helped tell the story of a 100-year-old race massacre in her community, the Texas newsroom

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that hired its first Indigenous affairs reporter, and the Portland photojournalist

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who found a little hope while covering the wildfires, protests and the pandemic. We’ve seen the launch of new newsrooms, like West Virginia’s Mountain State Spotlight

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, growth during tough times at Santa Cruz Local

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and a smart shift to better serve the community from The Orange County Register’s food critic

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. If you’re able, please donate $10 to support us

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in supporting local news.

Thank you,

Kristen

If you want to see what’s working in local news, follow the food. Or the food writers and editors. I haven’t meant to cover them as much as I have. I promise I’m not a wannabe food writer. But I’m realizing that food coverage has a few things that are critical for local news:

Devoted and growing audiences

Stories that can’t be told anywhere else

Accountability journalism

I’ve thought this again and again in the last few years, but after talking to three local food writers and editors about the future of food coverage

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, I figured it was time to put it all in one place. Here’s why:

Newsrooms have to learn how to grow loyal audiences. This is not about scale. It is about giving people something they can’t get anywhere else, and something they’re willing to pay for through subscriptions, membership, donations or other kinds of support. L.A. Taco is three years into its membership drive and on the verge of sustainability, editor Javier Cabral

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told me. And at the Miami Herald and The (Charleston, South Carolina) Post and Courier, food coverage drives subscriptions.

These stories can’t be told anywhere else. Food coverage is the best kind of hyperlocal coverage. This team has scattered after the mass layoffs

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at The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, but their food team transformed itself

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to respond to their community on digital and told stories about the kinds of places where people really eat, not the kinds of places food critics like to fuss over. Brad A. Johnson at The Orange County Register pivoted with the pandemic to offer COVID Comfort Ratings

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and help people know what to expect at area restaurants. And Gannett’s American South

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features the work of food writer Todd Price, who told me in February, “We’re looking for stories that somehow illuminate the region.”

They can be fun, but also the kind of work that changes laws and minds and holds people accountable. In 2016, Laura Reiley looked into the farm to table movement

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in Tampa Bay and found, instead, a fable

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. Her project for the Tampa Bay Times, which Poynter owns and with whom I partner on a fellowship project, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist

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. In 2018, then Times-Picayune writer Brett Anderson uncovered sexual harassment

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by a celebrity chef that Eater called a watershed moment. The food editors I spoke with this week talked about this kind of work, too, how food is a frame but not the whole picture. We don’t just need recipes, The Post and Courier’s Hanna Raskin told me. We need people filing FOIAs.

“Again,” she said, “It’s a lot more than just what you make for dinner.”

Pictured from top left, Javier Cabral

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, editor of L.A. Taco. (Courtesy: L.A. Taco) Right, Hanna Raskin, food editor and critic at the Post and Courier. (Courtesy: Hanna Raskin) Bottom left, Carlos Frías, food editor at the Miami Herald. (Courtesy: Miami Herald)

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While you’re here:

How They Lived, my obits newsletter with the Tampa Bay Times, has launched! You can see the first edition

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, subscribe

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and read my piece for RJI about what I’ve learned about writing newsletters

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.

Speaking of newsletters, this is a great look at a pop-up newsletter

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I’ve relied on during the pandemic.

Journalists’ mental health matters

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. Here are some resources

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.

Read about the first paper to call the 2020 election

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.

See what’s working at TAPInto’s franchise of local newsrooms

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.

Report for America announced more than 300 new positions!

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This piece on what the media can expect next year

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made me feel a little hopeful.

Apply for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

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.

Apply for the 2020 Local Media Association’s Digital Innovation Awards

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.

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Remember the humor columnist who started in the pandemic

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? The Tampa Bay Times’ Stephanie Hayes has been syndicated

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!

Congrats to Sharif Durhams, the new managing editor for the News & Observer and Herald-Sun

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!

Congrats to Monica Richardson, the new executive editor of the Miami Herald

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!

I love this piece by Outlier’s Candice Fortman: “Faith is not a business plan.”

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Sign up for the free webinar on covering the COVID-19 vaccines

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.

Read about how the Las Vegas Review-Journal built a podcast out of the archives

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and grew audience.

If you work in news product, tell Tony Elkins how you got there

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.

Congress has passed a bill to create a memorial for fallen journalists

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.

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And finally, remember the hubbub between The Sacramento Bee, McClatchy and the Bee’s News Guild over clicks for pay?

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Looks like McClatchy dropped it

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.



That’s it for me. Last week will be my last Local Edition of 2020.

See you soon!

Kristen

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