Hello, journalists and journalism supporters.

We hope you’re surviving the March weather whiplash, and not letting the deluge of national news distract you from our core work. Local impact of national stories matters! And we hope we can help keep you in the game with:

• Interesting events to grow your skills, including a track for editors to improve their visual reporting
• Jobs, fellowships and guides to grow your career
• Local folks winning awards and doing cool things
• Updates from the research team on upcoming findings of interest 
• Students filling a gap in legislative coverage and knocking it out of the park

And as always, if you can’t see all the good stuff as you scroll, click on the link at the bottom.

The MJC is: Ben Toff, director and lead researcher, Gayle (G.G.) Golden, associate director of student educational initiatives, Regina McCombs, associate director of outreach and training and Meg Martin, associate director of pretty much everything.

JAM table talks generated program ideas on Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: Hannah Reynolds

Last month, we launched our nonprofit and member-supported news cohort (tentatively titled, by the group, the Journalism Alliance Minnesota – or JAM)(which we think is pretty fun). We talked about the community’s most pressing needs, which include finding ways to collaborate and share stories, training, new approaches to revenue and funding, support for leaders and prospective leaders and resources for better understanding our audiences and developing products. If you want to join the JAM, sign up and share your ideas here.

Northern Exposure

Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5 – University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus

The MJC’s annual visual journalism conference is April 4 and 5 this year. It’s designed to build photojournalism skills and community, and it’s open to all photographers and photo students. We’ve got a special track this year for editors and “word folks”  focused on how to grow your audience by improving the visual journalism on your websites and social feeds: Understanding what makes images effective, working with freelancers and putting together fair and thoughtful contracts. We’re hosting a mini-meetup to give editors, producers and news leaders a low-pressure way to connect with freelance photographers around Minnesota. 

Plus, there’s a great lineup! The keynote speakers are Minnesota native and National Geographic photographer Annie Griffiths; photojournalist, educator and expert on journalists and trauma Lisa Krantz; and Chip Somodevilla, Getty photographer based in Washington, D.C. 

REGISTER HERE

The racial reckoning is still happening: A webinar for journalists covering health care 

Thursday, March 20 @ 1 p.m. — Zoom

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the historical racial health inequities preventing people of color from accessing the healthcare system. Reporter Marissa Evans will lead a discussion on the critical importance for journalists to cover racial health disparities and health equity, how to approach race coverage in health reporting, and offering strategies for coverage that is impactful, responsible and respectful.

Rural Housing and Aging in Minnesota: Seizing Opportunities and Innovations

Monday, March 24 @ 10 a.m. — Zoom

This online conversation, hosted by 100 Rural Women, the U of M’s Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation and the Arrowhead Area Agency on Aging, will dive into the realities and implications of one of Minnesota’s current demographic realities. 

Webinar: Serving immigrant communities in the Trump era 

Tuesday, March 25 @ 11 a.m. – Online

Join the Latino Media Consortium, Tiny News Collective and URL Media for a virtual clinic with attorney Erin Victoria on the challenges facing publishers serving immigrant communities under the Trump administration.

Midwest Journalism Conference

Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12 — Bloomington

The Midwest Journalism Conference brings the RTDNA, the Midwest Broadcast Journalists’ Association, the SPJ and the Upper Midwest Chapter of NATAS together annually. The conference has sessions from mental health in journalism to podcasting, AI and cameras in the courtroom. Plus several of the host organizations will hold their annual awards ceremonies.

SND46 Workshop

Friday, April 18 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — Minneapolis

The Society for News Design is hosting a one-day workshop in Minneapolis on April 18 with keynote speaker Dr. Mario R. García. This single-track event will delve into topics spanning all design platforms. It’s an opportunity for attendees to deepen their knowledge, network with fellow designers and learn from industry experts.  

Jobs - Lots of them!

MinnPost is hiring for two roles: A Greater Minnesota reporter and a data journalist.

Iron Range Today is looking for freelancers. Contact editor/co-founder Jerry Burnes if you’re interested. (jerry.burnes@gmail.com) 

The Northeaster is looking for a part-time editor. This biweekly newspaper covers Northeast Minneapolis, Columbia Heights and St. Anthony Village. 

PressForward Minnesota is looking for a coalition coordinator. This one-year role would “support building a coalition dedicated to identifying and championing policy proposals that strengthen Minnesota's diverse local news and media ecosystem.”

The Owatonna People’s Press is looking for a head news reporter, a “newsroom leader who will lead by example, engage with our audience and community on a regular basis, develop and procure content that ensures ‘must read’ status, be organized and efficient, and work harmoniously with other team members in our group of newspapers.”

TPT is looking for several roles on the programming and business sides, including fundraising specialist and managing director of public affairs and civic engagement.

The Timberjay is looking for a new editor/publisher/general manager. From the listing: “A husband-and-wife team that has published one of Minnesota’s most highly-respected community weekly newspapers for the past 35 years is looking for the right individual or couple to carry on the tradition as they begin a transition to new adventures in life. An ownership transfer on very favorable terms is possible for individuals interested in that option or could maintain a management role only. For anyone interested in owning and operating a successful community newspaper in a small town in a beautiful part of the country, this is a golden opportunity.” (Contact Marshall Helmberger at marshall@timberjay.com. )

Current magazine is hosting a public media virtual career fair on April 2. It’s a free event – all you need to do is register and upload your resume to join.

The Land agricultural weekly is looking for correspondents.

ThreeSixty Journalism is looking for an associate director of programming for high school journalism students. And if you know a high school student who’s interested in journalism or media, share ThreeSixty Journalism’s summer camps with them. 

City Cast “is seeking an ambitious, creative Executive Producer to lead daily production for City Cast Twin Cities, a daily local news podcast launching later this year as well as Hey Twin Cities, an accompanying daily newsletter.” 

KAAL-TV in Rochester is looking for a news director.

Twin Cities Business Journal is looking for a cross-platform associate editor.

The Star Tribune is looking for several top-level roles: Editor and senior VP, an opinion audience editor, a head of audience and programming and head of product.

MPR News is looking for a summer intern for its Reverb team, whose work will be kicking off our March 26 webinar on new audiences. MPR’s sister station, The Current is looking for an on-call host, and YourClassical MPR is in search of a senior host/producer.

Scholarships, fellowships and awards

Lots of great opportunities, some with very tight deadlines, so we’ve put them in order of urgency

Nonprofit leaders: Check out LION’s – which stands for Local, Independent, Online News – peer learning groups. You can sign up here to be part of small groups of other nonprofit leaders that focus on serving rural communities, email-first publications, scaling from solopreneurship, serving Spanish-speaking audiences and supporting BIPOC, immigrant and LGBTQ+ news leaders. Deadline: March 21

Writing Tight and Editing Tighter: How to Keep Your Articles Short Enough to Get Read — a free journalism course offered by the Knight Center begins March 23.

The Maynard Institute is offering regional training (tuition-free) for entry- and mid-level editors and managers working in any platform — print, broadcast and digital. It will provide specialized workshops, discussions and coaching to help emerging news leaders to successfully manage teams and news coverage. Deadline: March 28

API is funding a second influencer learning cohort (read about the first one here). Up to 12 participating newsrooms will receive grants to conduct an influencer collaboration experiment and participate in learning calls in May and July 2025. Applications are open March 24-31.

The Pulitzer Center’s Midwest StoryReach program provides freelance or staff journalists “a chance to innovate with your peers and the Center’s team on high-impact projects that combine breakthrough reporting and effective audience engagement.” They are especially looking for topic proposals in health, marine fisheries, human rights, climate and jobs. Deadline: March 31

Medill’s Data-Driven Reporting Project "is designed to support investigations focused on specific geographic areas and/or underrepresented communities.” It’s geared toward small to mid-sized newsrooms (and freelancers). Deadline: March 31

Carter Center health journalism fellowships support “projects tailored to fellows’ experience and interests and should be relevant to the dynamic mental health and substance use landscape in their country or coverage area.” Deadline: April 2

The Firearm Violence Reporting Fellowship lets mid-career journalists stay in their newsroom while giving them time, mentoring and resources to investigate gun violence in their community. Deadline: April 4 

Investigative Reporters and Editors is offering two $10k grants to support public health and disability reporting projects. Proposal deadline: April 6

There is funding available for journalists based in rural areas to attend IRE data boot camp training in August. This fellowship is for reporters at small news organizations who are pursuing data-driven investigative stories that provide a public service for people in their communities. Deadline: May 6

The Solutions Journalism Network has rounded up a list of great opportunities, training and funding for supporting solutions journalism work.

– Meg

There are so many award winners this month!

Congrats to Katie Rausch at the Star Tribune for winning first place picture editor of the year (community) and MaKayla Hart taking third at the NPPA Best of Photojournalism awards – and to the photo editing team for placing in multiple categories. Way to dominate! 

KARE-TV is a Goldsmith semifinalist for their project on the recovery industry in Minnesota, “Recovery, Inc.” Best of luck to A.J. Lagoe, Steve Eckert, Brandon Stahl, Gary Knox and Kelly Dietz.

Also among the Goldsmith semifinalists: Former Minnesota Daily editor Cleo Krejci (UMN ‘20) for her examination of the staffing crisis that is straining Wisconsin’s rapidly-growing assisted living industry.

The Minnesota Star Tribune earns Grand Slam honors, 11 top 10s in Associated Press Sports Editors journalism contest. Congrats to the sports writers and photographers. 

APM Reports wins Brechner Award for FOIA use (with St. Louis Public Radio and The Marshall Project) for their investigative project, “Unsolved.” 

McKenna Ewen Named White House News Photographers Association Video Editor of the Year. McKenna is a UMN alum based here for CNN (and a former StarTribune video journalist). 

And a huge honor for a former Star Tribune designer: Denise Reagan to receive 2025 SND Lifetime Achievement Award.  

Aaron Brown ( aka MinnesotaBrown) joins the Star Tribune editorial board.

Nicole Ki, part of the Reverb team at MPR, is named to Trusting News’ inaugural newsroom advisory committee.

C.J. Sinner, director of graphics and data visuals at the Strib, was selected to participate in this year's Poynter Leadership Academy for Women. 

Sydney Lewis, associate product manager at the Star Tribune, will be part of the latest News Product Management Certification cohort from the NPA.

Former KSTP news director Kirk Varner launches a new chapter with TVND.

A couple podcasts to add to your playlist: The Latest from ThreeSixty Journalism’s podcast covers the students’ experience reporting at the Capitol and Project Optimist announces a new podcast.

And, finally, sad news from Alaska: Radio Mankato owner David Linder died in an avalanche while skiing in southern Alaska. The coverage:

• Minnesota radio station owner among three skiers buried in Alaska avalanche | MPR News.
• Skiers buried in Alaska avalanche had Minnesota ties | Star Tribune
• Radio Mankato owner, 2 others die in Alaska avalanche | KEYC

CityCast is expanding to Twin Cities.

CJR: Trump’s Tariffs Are Causing Chaos for Newspapers. The NAA warned last month about the (then-potential) impact of tariffs on the price of newsprint.

Cardinal News (in southwest Virginia) gets approval to run legal notices. Virginia is the first state in the nation to allow public notices to be published in online-only news organizations as an alternative to local newspapers.

Better News: How Down in the County uses photojournalism to build community in rural North Carolina. If you’re trying to figure out how to improve your visual reporting, check out Prism Workshop’s Visual Toolkit, which has great tips. And, y’know, come to Northern Exposure! (See above for info on a track specifically for news editors.)

Journalists Pay Themselves newsletter:“I stole a bunch of memes and ran them as Facebook ads. How easy and cheap are Facebook ads? I share my experiment results with you!”

Nieman Journalism Lab: “More alarming by the day”: New York Times investigations editor on the legal threats faced by news publishers 

Press Gazette: With launch of AI Mode, Google threatens to bleed news media dry 

Journalism Tips and Guides

Couldn’t make it to NICAR? You can learn a conference’s worth of data journalism through these NICAR tipsheets. 

For early career journalists, or those working with early career journalists, here’s a great guide.

Tom Scheck, editor at APM Reports, shares advice for getting internships (they’re relevant to job hunting, as well!).

This year’s RJI Fellows have built a ton of useful guides. In addition to the visual toolkit (mentioned above) there are tools for data sonification (I’m a sucker for audio in explanatory journalism), a freelancing quick start guide, tools for news leaders to identify gaps and tons more cool stuff. Read about it here or listen to the webinar.

Trust Tips: Use our audience survey to make national news more relevant.

The Invisible Institute houses the National Police Index, now with data for 23 states now including Minnesota. “The National Police Index is a data tool showing police employment history data obtained from state police training and certification boards across the U.S.” 

The Open Notebook: Science Reporting Quick Tips might be helpful if you’re covering funding cuts to scientific research on your beat.

If you’re hearing complaints that money influences your journalism, “Trusting News has published a new kit to help journalists explain their business models to people who might think that funding influences news coverage. It also provides ideas for how to talk about the cost of journalism.” (via API)

From RQ1 this month, several interesting studies (including one from Ben) but two that jump out for this community. One on Converting Online News Visitors to Subscribers: Exploring the Effectiveness of Paywall Strategies and other on with this great title: “That s**t is Hard to Get Away from”: Working Alone in US Rural Journalism 

Send us your local industry news and updates -- and jobs! -- to share with everyone.

– Regina

Our students have been turning out  weekly legislative coverage for Greater Minnesota news outlets since February. Jack O’Connor and Emma Ritter have published stories for Forum News Service  news outlets under the guidance of  Forum’s legislative correspondent Mary Murphy. 

Our in-house Legislative Project has ramped up into a weekly operation directed by former MPR political editor Mike Mulcahy. Three students — Elias Thomas, Yvette Higgins and Samantha Siedow — have been churning out stories regularly for small newspapers to address coverage gaps in communities across the state. KAXE public radio, which serves Northern Minnesota, has been taking their stories and featured the project work here.

Our goal?  To address  coverage gaps in all areas of the state. Stories are running publications that include the Mankato Free Press;  ABC Newspapers in Andover, Anoka, Bethel, Blaine, Columbia Heights, Coon Rapids, East Bethel, Fridley, Ham Lake, Nowthen, Oak Grove, Ramsey, Spring Lake Park and St. Francis;  Henning Publications’ Citizen’s Advocate, New York Mills Dispatch and Frazee-Vergas Forum;  the Kerkhoven Banner and  APG Publications Mesabi Tribune, Owatonna People’s Press, Faribault Daily News, Northfield News, Lonsdale Area News Review, Caledonia Argus, the Stillwater Gazette as well as APG publications in Orono, Mound,  Little Falls, St. Peter, Waseca, Le Sueur, Kenyon, Virginia, Grand Rapids and Walker. 

Summer plans are in the works. Students will soon be selected for the summer Report for Minnesota internship! We are also drafting plans for an additional student-staffed team project to serve Greater Minnesota news outlets. More to come. 

– G.G.

The research team is pushing forward several concurrent research projects this past month and we’re looking forward to presenting preliminary findings from some of them at upcoming conferences. Several members of the team will be in North Carolina next week for the Local Journalism Researchers Workshop where Meagan Doll, Cydney Grannan, and Benjamin Toff will present findings from a study conducted with the Texas Tribune around the experiences of those who attend their many in-person events around the state. This project is ongoing, but the team will publish a briefing note on the MJC website later this spring with some key takeaways.

MJC Director Benjamin Toff will also be presenting in North Carolina on behalf of the Local News Impact Consortium whose four working groups will be sharing progress around the consortium’s efforts to develop shared standards and guidelines for collecting and analyzing indicators around the health of local information ecosystems. Much of this work kicked off at a convening last year at the University of Minnesota in May. 

At the end of the month, members of the team will also be traveling to Austin for ISOJ, presenting work on a separate project on news avoidance and young adults’ news consumption practices on digital platforms like TikTok and Instagram.  The full program is here and  sessions are also live-streamed for those who register for virtual attendance.

These findings will also be the subject of a virtual conversation with the new Journalism Alliance Minnesota (see above) and a presentation the following week in Ann Arbor at a University of Michigan conference on “Democracy’s Information Dilemma.” The team is preparing the first of a few academic papers on these results and will publish briefs on the MJC website summarizing key takeaways for our local journalism community. We’ll share them here as they publish.

– Ben

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