News and Posts
The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media is proud to host original article series, reports from faculty and researchers, and events promoting collaboration among researchers, journalists and universities. Browse our library of articles, videos, interviews, announcements, upcoming events and more.
Nikki Usher: Newsrooms and the newspaper crisis: space, place, cultural meaning
Newsroom moves and the newspaper crisis: space, place, and cultural meaning The buildings where newspapers were published in the 20th century were often iconic structures. They stood out on the skylines of large cities or became gathering places for local…
Recent Changes in Newspaper Ownership
This is a periodic update of major sales and acquisitions that have occurred since the publication of The New Media Baron and the Emerging Threat of News Deserts. The report by the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and…
James T. Hamilton: What is the value to society of investigative journalism?
What is the value to society of investigative journalism? In his new book, Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism (Harvard, 2016), author James T. (Jay) Hamilton calculates the long-term economic consequence to society when lives are saved and disasters are averted by such reporting.
Students Taught to Think and Execute Like Entrepreneurs to Shape Journalism’s Future
The wave of innovation from the New Lab is the result of a shift in thinking about how students and future journalists should interact with the changing media industry.
Report Released: The Rise Of A New Media Baron And The Emerging Threat Of News Deserts
Over the past decade, a new media baron has emerged, very different from the publishers that preceded them.The rise of this new media baron coincides with immense disruption in newspaper industry.
Executive Summary: “The Rise Of A New Media Baron…”
(NOTE: The text below is an excerpt from “The Rise Of A New Media Baron And The Emerging Threat Of News Deserts,” released Oct 17, 2016. The report — including this summary — was written by Penelope Muse Abernathy and published…
Wesley Hitson, Media Innovation Fellow, helps local media’s “data problem”
The Media Innovation Fellows program at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism places recent graduates at local media companies in North Carolina to help them embrace new technologies and respond to changing consumer needs. The Reese News Lab, managed…
Give a Mouse a Cookie: A Milestone Investment Model for Local Media
A unique look at a proven model for publishers and GMs to successfully fund Innovation from within media companies.
Announcement: Interim Director of Reese Innovation Lab
Steven King to serve as the interim director of the Reese News Lab, which will continue to focus on creating viable media products, using human-centered design concepts and working with local media partners.
VR Experiments: A little sunburn won’t kill you
Journalist and storytellers at every level, especially local and regional publishers, need to be experimenting, practicing and advancing narrative stories and experiences in Virtual Reality. It is acceptable to make mistakes in an effort to advance storytelling in Virtual Reality.
Media Innovation Workshop
In May, the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media hosted the Media Innovation Workshop. Over the course of two intensive days, 20 select participants from a variety of media organizations gathered in Chapel Hill to learn and practice the fundamentals of human-centered design.
Building a 360 Video live streaming system
The reason we were able to watch Neil Armstrong take “one small step for man” is because of an unknown NASA hero, Stan Lebar, who had one very important job — develop a camera and transmission system that could capture video and audio…