Tag: Walt Potter
RJI sends Potter Digital Ambassadors to enhance digital efforts at community newsrooms all over Missouri
Over the course of one week in early January, the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute once again sent students to community newsrooms all over Missouri as part of the Potter Digital Ambassadors Program.
2 Kansas City area news outlets show different paths toward nonprofit sustainability
The Beacon is 3 years old. The Northeast News of Kansas City is more than 90. They are part of a surge in nonprofit news outlets and funding.
A new ‘Potter Listening Tour:’ Local newspapers can still work, even with different paths
A different kind of “right sizing,” grants and donations, and tinkering with the balance of online and print are some of the ways.
RJI helps rural Missouri newspaper hit its digital stride with Potter Digital Ambassadors program
Small-town community newspapers are seeing a resurgence as regional chains reclaim them from national conglomerates and re-center them on local news. But some of the same factors that make these rural communities attractive markets also present roadblocks to building a modernized local news machine.
Potter Digital Ambassadors visit five weekly newspapers to boost outlets’ multimedia, social media
The Potter Digital Ambassadors program recently paired five college journalism students with rural Missouri newspapers to help implement multimedia and social media strategies. This was the inaugural year of the program, which is underwritten by Missouri School of Journalism alumnus and newspaper editor Walt Potter. The ambassadors, all from the Missouri School of Journalism, had … Continued
Small paper, small city undergoing big changes in Virginia
For a century, the Culpeper Star-Exponent — whose predecessors date to 1881 — served a small community that changed relatively little. Today, the newspaper is dealing with rapid change in its central Virginia market. Since 1980, Culpeper County has more than doubled its population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, mostly with commuters to the … Continued
Serving Hispanic readers is a matter of trust
A recent issue of Nuevas Raices, the Harrisonburg, Virginia, weekly newspaper that serves Hispanic readers in the Old Dominion, had just one small coupon ad. “We don’t trust them,” explains owner Fernando Gamboa, who says his 14,000 readers worry the coupons, standard in U.S. papers, won’t be redeemed. His readers have grown up in countries … Continued
Potter resumes newspaper listening tour this month in Virginia
Walter B. “Walt” Potter Jr., a retired newspaper publisher who works with the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, will tour community newspapers again this spring. A year ago, Potter visited Missouri weeklies and small dailies during what became known as the Potter Listening Tour. He wrote a series of … Continued
Listening to community newspapers with Walt Potter
A retired newspaper exec looks to give back to the community newspapers that raised him with an ear to the ground for change.
Lessons learned and questions raised during the Potter Listening Tour, Part 2
As an old hand in print newspapers, I was struck by the contrast between the often days-long reporting process I remember and the instantaneous production I strived for during the tour (I posted to Facebook and Twitter). I had to create my words almost at the same time I was recording the words of my … Continued