First: The what.

Schmidt's gift will fund 2 of NPR's new regional newsrooms, which are meant to link local affiliates and fuel more ambitious coverage.

It's a $4M vote of confidence in NPR as the future of local/state news. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=805749582&live=1
Now, why do I find any of this interesting?

Right now, it's becoming pretty obvious that, for the most part, we're not going to find a magic business model that saves for-profit state and local news. Non-profit increasingly seems like the future.
But what's the best way to build a nonprofit news ecosystem?

I've oddly spent a lot of time thinking about that (partly because I started my career wanting to be a normal metro reporter, and never really got the chance, because newspapers were a wreck).
The way I see it, there are really two broad paths forward (I'm being a little reductive, but whatever):

1) You build a lot of news orgs that look something like the Texas Tribune.

2) You build out NPR's local affiliates into a much, much bigger force.
The Tribune path has a lot of advantages. You're starting something new, which means you can build a lean, modern news org without a lot legacy costs. The Tribune runs on a budget of about $8 million, according to its last 990. It punches above its weight. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/264527097/01_2020_prefixes_26-26%2F264527097_201812_990_2020013117096179
You can follow @JHWeissmann.
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