Chris Krewson's guest appearances

Chris Krewson

The Digiday Podcast

What Works: The Future of Local News

Jessica Lessin

Chuck Todd

Erika Nardini

Gary Liu

Ben Smith

Jeff Taylor

Andréa Mallard

Amy Adams

Rich Kleiman

Kara Swisher

Martha Stewart

John Wihbey

Peter Kafka

Leah Finnegan

Mark Howard

OwlTail

Chris Krewson is the executive director of Local Independent Online News Publishers, better known as LION Publishers. The national nonprofit aims at supporting local journalism entrepreneurs and has some 400 members. LION tapped Chris as its leader in 2019, and he brings significant digital experience to the job. In fact, he's had many prior lives. He was the top editor at Billy Penn, a mobile-first local start-up in Philadelphia launched by the legendary Jim Brady that’s now part of public radio station WHYY. He’s also the former top digital editor for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania.  Dan has a Quick Take on a Poynter Online essay by  Kathleen McElroy, director of the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. Ellen discusses the new Harvey World Herald online site, which fills a need in a news desert just outside of Chicago. And Chris clears up a crewcut pop culture mystery for Ellen.

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskrewson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris Krewson</a> is the executive director of Local Independent Online News Publishers, better known as <a href="https://www.lionpublishers.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LION Publishers</a>. The national nonprofit aims at supporting local journalism entrepreneurs and has some 400 members. LION tapped Chris as its leader in 2019, and he brings significant digital experience to the job. In fact, he's had many prior lives. He was the top editor at <a href="https://billypenn.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Billy Penn</a>, a mobile-first local start-up in Philadelphia launched by the legendary Jim Brady that’s now part of public radio station WHYY. He’s also the former top digital editor for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania.  Dan has a Quick Take on a Poynter Online essay by <a href="https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2022/why-to-buy-a-small-newspaper/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Kathleen McElroy</a>, director of the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. Ellen discusses the new <a href="https://harveyworld.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harvey World Herald</a> online site, which fills a need in a news desert just outside of Chicago. And Chris clears up a crewcut pop culture mystery for Ellen.

What Works Episode 19 |Chris Krewson

The coronavirus recession hit the local news industry hard at a time when it hadn't even recovered from the previous crisis in 2008."We're certainly coming up on or in the middle of something even bigger," Lion Publishers executive director Chris Krewson said on the Digiday Podcast. "So I don't see much hope of them recovering from this one either."Krewson obviously isn't rooting for a slow recovery, even as he predicts one. "That's what we've identified as the trend that we need to be ready to help on," he said.Lion — which stands for local independent online news and has staffers outside Philadelphia and in Vermont, Washington State and Kansas — is aimed at helping small news organizations, whether for or not-for-profit, reach sustainability.To that end, it encourages experimentation and a break with the staid business models that lost out to the ad dollar dominance of Google and Facebook."There's a lot of ways that the future of news is going to look, and we just have to be more forgiving and open and able to see more of these experiments so that we can see which of them are worth continuing and adding fuel to," Krewson said.In Memphis, for instance, two Lion members are adopting different approaches. The Daily Memphian has set up a traditional shop, betting on a subscription model and hiring a few dozen reporters to challenge the Gannett-owned incumbent with broad coverage of metropolitan news, from education to the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies.In a nutshell, "the overhead is high," Krewson said.Not so with MLK50, a smaller team focused on covering "poverty, power and public policy," in its own words. It recently teamed up with ProPublica for high-impact reporting that led to large-scale debt forgiveness in the city."I'm not saying either approach is better than the other. I'm just saying there's a lot of ways to slice the ways that local news can have an impact," Krewson said. "And it doesn't necessarily have to be with 30 plus people replacing what the newspaper used to do, just without print."

The coronavirus recession hit the local news industry hard at a time when it hadn't even recovered from the previous crisis in 2008."We're certainly coming up on or in the middle of something even bigger," Lion Publishers executive director Chris Krewson said on the Digiday Podcast. "So I don't see much hope of them recovering from this one either."Krewson obviously isn't rooting for a slow recovery, even as he predicts one. "That's what we've identified as the trend that we need to be ready to help on," he said.Lion — which stands for local independent online news and has staffers outside Philadelphia and in Vermont, Washington State and Kansas — is aimed at helping small news organizations, whether for or not-for-profit, reach sustainability.To that end, it encourages experimentation and a break with the staid business models that lost out to the ad dollar dominance of Google and Facebook."There's a lot of ways that the future of news is going to look, and we just have to be more forgiving and open and able to see more of these experiments so that we can see which of them are worth continuing and adding fuel to," Krewson said.In Memphis, for instance, two Lion members are adopting different approaches. The Daily Memphian has set up a traditional shop, betting on a subscription model and hiring a few dozen reporters to challenge the Gannett-owned incumbent with broad coverage of metropolitan news, from education to the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies.In a nutshell, "the overhead is high," Krewson said.Not so with MLK50, a smaller team focused on covering "poverty, power and public policy," in its own words. It recently teamed up with ProPublica for <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/we-reported-on-a-nonprofit-hospital-system-that-sues-poor-patients-it-just-freed-thousands-from-debt#:~:text=After%20an%20investigation%20by%20MLK50,patients%20who%20couldn't%20pay." rel="nofollow" target="_blank">high-impact reporting</a> that led to large-scale debt forgiveness in the city."I'm not saying either approach is better than the other. I'm just saying there's a lot of ways to slice the ways that local news can have an impact," Krewson said. "And it doesn't necessarily have to be with 30 plus people replacing what the newspaper used to do, just without print."

'We need to be ready to help': Lion Publishers head Chris Krewson on assisting the local news industry