1. Monthly archive
  2. February 2018

February 2018

A Crazy Idea for Funding Local News: Charge People for It

[Commentary] There may be another way to save local news. The plan, for any would-be entrepreneur brave enough to try it, goes like this: Hire some very good journalists; just one or two are O.K. to start. Turn them loose on a large metropolitan area — try San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston or any other city going through waves of change, and whose local press has been gutted by digital disruption. Have your reporters cover stuff that no one else is covering, and let them ignore stuff that everyone else is covering.

Los Angeles Times owner will sell paper, ending a long-troubled relationship

The Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Times is expected to announce it is selling the newspaper in a surprise move that probably spells the end of its long-troubled relationship with Southern California’s leading news outlet. The buyer is Patrick Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles-area physician and a major shareholder of the paper’s current parent company, Tronc. Soon-Shiong is the billionaire founder and chief executive of NantHealth, based in Culver City (CA). He will also buy its sister newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Cities Are Getting Smart, and Feds Can Help Make Them Smarter

Instead of forcing cities to reinvent the wheel with every new project, federal agencies can bring them to the table to share what works and what doesn’t work in areas like cybersecurity and privacy, said Sokwoo Rhee, the associate director of the cyber-physical program at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).

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