Making News

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As the first CEO of the American Journalism Project, Sarabeth Berman ’06 is helping to rebuild the nation’s local journalism ecosystem — one newsroom at a time. Berman, who spent years at the helm of global organizations, now leads the influential nonprofit dedicated to solving America’s local news crisis.

“Local news is suffering from a market failure,” says Berman. “Since the rise of the Internet, we’ve watched a kind of slow-motion decline of American newspapers, and the research on why it matters is very clear. [Without a local news source], communities become less engaged. People become less likely to vote and much more polarized.”

In the past two decades, online ad-buy migration and private-equity acquisition have hit local news hard. According to research, on average, two newspapers close each week. About 1,800 communities have lost their local news source since 2004. Many of the papers still in operation have had to cut staff as owners, often private equity firms, seek to reduce costs. The number of newspaper newsroom employees dropped by 57% from 2008 to 2020, according to a Pew Research study, leaving many newspapers barely able to cover their communities.

The American Journalism Project — an organization dedicated to investing in digital nonprofit local news outlets and reimagining business models to sustain the local journalism landscape — is working hard to solve this very problem. If anyone is up to the task, it is Berman. The Boston native has devoted much of her professional life to moving forward transformative initiatives, from meeting the educational needs of underserved communities throughout the world — supporting Teach for China and Teach for All — to this latest role.

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One of the American Journalism Project’s founders, John Thornton — recognizing a lack of local news coverage in Texas — started The Texas Tribune and provided its initial $1 million in funding in 2008. Today, the Tribune is recognized as a leader in digital-first journalism as well as a national role model for sustainability.

“Now it’s the largest statehouse news organization in the country and has a proven, sustainable business model for nonprofit news,” says Berman. Thornton and Elizabeth Green, the founder of Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering K-12 education, launched the American Journalism Project in 2019 and recruited Berman in 2020.

“We’re now in 33 states,” says Berman. “In the last two years, two organizations in our portfolio won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.” As the presidential campaign kicks into high gear, Berman is convinced that this work has never been more urgent, and she believes the American Journalism Project has devised a way to help save local news.

“Our theory is that we need to reimagine local news as a civic institution, like museums and libraries,” says Berman. “We need to support them the same way we fund these institutions that help weave our communities together but that don’t rely solely on the markets.”

Berman’s commitment to the cause is clear, and through her work, she is helping to make a measurable difference. But news wasn’t always her focus. It was Berman’s love for dance — from ballet to hip-hop — and her fascination with New York City that led her to Barnard. There, she found the intellectual and artistic home she needed and wanted. Her mother, Ruth Nemzoff ’62, attended the College, and Berman found her mom’s love of New York City contagious. So when it was time to apply to schools, Barnard was Berman’s number-one choice.

At Barnard, Berman quickly found her footing, majoring in urban studies with a concentration in dance and a minor in American history. (Berman’s roommate was Greta Gerwig ’06, and Berman produced and choreographed the Varsity Show that Gerwig and Saturday Night Live alum Kate McKinnon CC’06 performed in.)

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“I wanted to take advantage of that classroom of living in New York City,” says Berman. “When you’re an urban studies major, your classes are things like theatre and dance in New York. Going and studying the place you’re living in and really connecting to it, I think that’s what excited me then and has consistently excited me.”

She describes her path from Barnard to the American Journalism Project as a winding one that began with a postgraduate Henry Luce Foundation fellowship at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. After that, it was off to Beijing when Willy Tsao recruited her to manage his dance company. “He was sort of hailed as the father of modern dance in China,” says Berman. “They needed an English speaker who was interested in the arts.”

It was in China that she met her husband, journalist and author Evan Osnos, and began to connect with the world of news. “Foreign correspondents, they all kind of flock together,” says Berman. “I got to really experience the world through the eyes of a reporter by getting to know [Osnos] and then getting to know the community of reporters. You also really see the [contrast between] American values around the press and the Chinese values around the press, which is not a free press but really an extension of the government.”

Berman’s success and expertise in institution and nonprofit building drew the attention of the American Journalism Project’s founders. When the offer to serve as CEO came, Berman — a firm believer that a community that can rely on a trusted local news source is not only better informed but also better served by its government and tends to be less polarized — was ready to take it on.

“The data on polarization is really clear. People become far more polarized in their voting patterns and mindsets in communities that don’t have local news,” says Berman.

She describes the hard work of rebuilding America’s local news infrastructure as important, mission driven, and fun.

“Feeling like you’re actually making progress is fun, particularly at a time in our country where I think folks generally feel quite pessimistic about the state of our civil discourse and the state of our democratic institutions,” says Berman. “It’s really thrilling to be surrounded by [people] who are taking concrete steps to build new organizations, hire more journalists, figure out new business models, and build back the institutions that we know are essential to a functioning society.”