Jan 28, 2020

Flipboard launches local news initiative

Image: Flipboard

Flipboard on Tuesday will announce a new "Local initiative" to gather regional sources and national stories of local interest to users in 23 North American metropolitan areas, including Washington D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, Toronto and Dallas.

Why it matters: Like other tech platforms, Flipboard is investing in local coverage because of audience demand.

Where Flipboard thinks it can be useful is to provide local communities with a curated mix of not just news, but also lifestyle information about local sports, dining, weather, real estate, transportation and more.

Details: Flipboard curators will leverage editorial judgement on top of machine learning to pull in news from each of its local collections from an array of local news sources, including newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, college news sites and blogs.

Some local collections will feature collections of topics that are important to that particular jurisdiction, like Cuba in Miami and wildfires in San Francisco.

Go deeper: A year of media upheaval

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Sara Fischer

Exclusive: Facebook awards $700,000 in local news grants

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Facebook on Tuesday will announce a new round of investment worth $700,000 in various news organizations across the country, executives tell Axios. Many of the new commitments focus on newsrooms that cover diversity.

Why it matters: The investment is part of a greater than $300 million commitment from Facebook to invest in the news, especially local news.

Go deeperJan 28, 2020

Sara Fischer

National newspapers thrive while local outlets struggle to survive

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

While big national newspapers grow stronger, local newspaper chains that have for decades kept the vast majority of the country informed are combusting.

Why it matters: The inequity between giants like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and their local counterparts represents a growing problem in America as local communities no longer have the power to set the agenda for the news that most affects them.

Go deeperFeb 18, 2020 - Economy & Business

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

Between the lines on Chinese strategy: "Use the local to surround the center"

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

In this recurring feature from the Axios China newsletter, I'll interview an expert about a Chinese Communist Party phrase to explain the news.

The phrase: "Use the local to surround the center." (以地方包围中央）

What it means: Building up support for China at the state and local levels in a foreign country so that those leaders may then call upon the national government to adopt policies that are friendlier to Beijing.

Go deeperFeb 12, 2020 - World