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Images from documentaries and short films from Documented, DigBoston and Dustin Cohen. (Screenshots)

Three years ago, I spoke with a photographer and filmmaker who wanted to make a short film about local news. Dustin Cohen has seen the challenges facing the industry up very close — his dad was the publisher of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers ([link removed]) , which he sold to Knight Ridder and are now part of Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group.

Cohen saw the staff get cut and the newspapers his dad worked at for 30 years shrivel under hedge fund ownership. It all felt like an old “greed is good” Wall Street movie.

Cohen reached back out at the beginning of this year to share a seven-minute film ([link removed]) he created about The Southern Illinoisan in Cairo, Illinois, as it worked to cover the battle between residents in public housing and state and local government.

Local newsrooms often ([link removed]) include ([link removed]) documentaries ([link removed]) in big ([link removed]) reporting ([link removed]) projects, but films about the people making the news aren’t quite as common.

Today I want to share a few of them with you, including Cohen’s, titled Confluence in Cairo ([link removed]) .

“Yo sé qué es pandemia,” ([link removed]) or “I know what pandemic means,” from Documented ([link removed]) came together during the pandemic in the most innovative way. The nonprofit newsroom covers New York City’s immigrant communities, and the film “started as a callout to Documented readers sent over the summer, aimed at understanding the personal toll of COVID-19 within the City’s Latin American immigrant communities,” co-founding editor and senior reporter Max Siegelbaum said in an email. “Their stories were about loss, community, financial pressures and an overwhelming sense of helplessness. We met and interviewed several readers but many just set voice notes over WhatsApp.”
And in case you’re worried that the defiant heart of alt-weeklies was permanently crushed in the pandemic, watch DigBoston’s “Local Annihilation: How One Scrappy Independent Newspaper Weathered A Pandemic Year.” ([link removed])

DigBoston’s editor-in-chief, Chris Faraone, shared this writeup of the film:

“An alternative weekly that fills coverage gaps typically served by community newspapers in addition to the investigative, longform, arts, and music coverage that alts are well known for, DigBoston has a unique and pretty damn outrageous decades-running history. Local Annihilation isn’t about that turbulence though; rather, this short highlights our most challenging year to date, this past one, in an attempt to reflect on the extraordinary efforts taken to keep one small but driven ship afloat.”
“Essential Journalists: How Coronavirus Changed TV News,” ([link removed]) comes from journalist Marcus Harun and shows how the pandemic “changed TV journalism in unprecedented ways: multi-million dollar productions anchored from kitchens, reporters social distancing, and newsrooms deserted; now we turn the cameras on the journalists to hear the emotional toll it takes to be essential workers.”

“Newstown” ([link removed]) came out last year from Northwestern University professor Craig Duff on the fate of local news where he grew up in Ohio.

And “Storm Lake” ([link removed]) is a documentary about The Storm Lake Times in Iowa. A few screenings are coming up.

What short docs and films about local news am I missing? Please share and I’ll share next week.

While you’re here:
* Let’s start with a correction: Last week I shared news that Report for America had a new class, and I called the reporters volunteers. That’s my former Peace Corps volunteer brain at work. They are not volunteers, they are paid for their work. Apologies!
* Last week I shared some good news about local news. I didn’t mention 6AM City ([link removed]) , which is now in more than 15 markets with more than $5 million in revenue and more than 600,000+ subscribers.
* Remember when I wrote about the Los Angeles Times’ Tyrone Beason and his reporting project ([link removed]) ? The second part, focusing on immigration, is now out ([link removed]) .
* You can support 43 Chicago-area newsrooms ([link removed]) in a month-long joint fundraiser.
* Read about how the digital team at The Seattle Times unionized ([link removed]) .
* And read about this group of residents who are planning to revive local news where they live ([link removed]) .
* Here are the 2021 winners of the American Journalism Online Awards ([link removed]) . Congrats!
* Check out this project from the Reynolds Journalism Institute on The State of Digital News Preservation ([link removed]) .
* I’m looking forward to this new series ([link removed]) from P. Kim Bui and Emma Carew Grovum for Open News. They’re writing a new column “for people who want a different experience for journalists of color in their newsroom. We’re calling it: Sincerely, Leaders of Color.”
* Applications are now open ([link removed]) for a new project from the Facebook Journalism Project that supports its new platform for independent journalism. Apply by May 20.
* Read LION Publishers on how the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service built a team that reflects its community. ([link removed])
* Apply for the BIPOC Media Growth Program from the Facebook Journalism Program and Indiegraf ([link removed]) .
* ICYMI (but I bet you didn’t) Kevin Merida is the new executive editor at the L.A. Times. ([link removed])
* You still have time to send in those pitches ([link removed]) to The Washington Post Magazine for its issue on local news.

That’s it for me! We’re counting down the days until the end of school at my house, when we get to be with family in Missouri we haven’t seen in more than a year. I hope whatever you’re counting down toward comes fast.


Kristen
Kristen Hare
Editor, Locally
The Poynter Institute
@kristenhare ([link removed])

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