How a former intern built a dynamic regional newsroom against the odds of an ailing industry By Susanna Ray https://news.microsoft.com/features/how-a-former-intern-built-a-dynamic-regional-newsroom-against-the-odds-of-an-ailing-industry/
Rowlands is known for her ingenuity and her exhaustive network, and before long Bay City News was a bright green dot on a map turning brown from so-called news deserts creeping over vast swaths of the country. In just three years — and during a global pandemic that forced dozens more news organizations to shutter — she has boosted the number of counties her newswire covers around San Francisco, added reporters, hired the company’s first photo editor and won multiple awards. She also created a nonprofit foundation with a local news website that reaches out directly to the region’s 8 million residents, and she gave the whole group a tech makeover.
Rowlands settled on a hybrid business model, pairing the established, for-profit wire service and its large-scale subscribers with a new nonprofit site reaching out directly to readers. The site, LocalNewsMatters.org, has a public-service mandate to provide Bay Area residents with free, community-oriented news stories funded by philanthropic donations, which amounted to $450,000 in 2021.