The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is closing
After a historic three-year strike, staffers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette returned to work in late November. Now, the 239-year-old paper is shuttering.
The Knight Foundation scrubs DEI section from its ‘About’ page
One of the biggest funders of nonprofit journalism in the U.S. no longer publicly lists an explicit section about “diversity, equity, and inclusion” on its mission page.
The Objective’s favorite media reporting and criticism of 2025
A non-comprehensive list of The Objective’s co-directors and readers’ picks for media coverage and commentary this year.
The local news contract is broken. Civic media can fix it
Darryl Holliday on how City Bureau's Documenters' program models the new social contract needed for local news and the civic media system emerging today.
The resurrected American Penal Press Contest honors incarcerated journalists
2025 saw the revival of the historic journalism awards, once called the Pulitzers of prison newsrooms, after a 35-year hiatus.
Media policy: Local news for the people
Five key policy-making principles and concrete proposals to support civic information needs.
To save the free press, newsgathering must be reclaimed as a public trust
Michael Swerdlow on the necessity of publicly funding the news media.
The decline of local journalism removes a future for the industry
Hyperlocal and local journalists like me tell stories for smaller communities that may not have “national significance”, but are important to the people in these towns and areas.
Thinking beyond ‘DEI’ to make equitable media
Andrea D. Wenzel on reimagining an equitable, cooperative, and sustainable local media system amid overlapping crises.
Libraries are a locus for civic change
Jennie Rose Halperin on the need to invest in underexplored partnerships between civic media makers and libraries as a clear place of change.