Colorado is often a test tube for local media experiments. The view is that if something can succeed here it might succeed elsewhere.

The state has once again found itself as ground zero for a pioneering project. A company with nationwide plans to reinvent local TV news in the streaming era has chosen Colorado as the pilot state to test it out.

The ambitious idea is called The Local and is being run by a group of people working for a Delaware-based holding company called N2 Media.

They want to eventually create a nightly newscast up to an hour long in each state with statewide, regional, local, and hyperlocal public service journalism. The twist is that they want a streaming service like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Roku, or Max to pay for the content just like a streamer would when it pays beaucoup bucks for a drama like The Crown, Game of Thrones, or Tiger King.

“It’s around $250 billion they’re going to spend on content acquisitions this year,” Todd Landfried, who founded the concept of The Local, said. “And none of it is on news.”

I wrote for Harvard’s Nieman Lab this week about the efforts of Landfried, who used to live in Colorado, and his team at N2 Media as the company is in talks with investors to fund a rollout in California, Georgia, and Kansas after Colorado.

From the story, headlined “The Local aims to reinvent TV news in four states, and beyond”:

Carol Wood, who oversees news operations for N2 Media, is at work building a newsroom of about 15 for a Colorado pilot. She’s scouting for an editor-in-chief and has created a spreadsheet with the names of local journalists she might recruit for other positions.

“You don’t have to have a TV background,” said Wood, who is based in Colorado and specializes in sustainability for local news. “Most of the people on that list do not have a TV background. I see an opportunity to build an absolute local and national dream team.”

Providing local news on a streaming platform would mean higher-quality coverage, too, Wood said. Longer-form stories would depart from the traditional quick-hit format of local commercial TV segments that are “sandwiched” between weather, sports, and commercials.

“The concept is that if there’s a story that deserves four minutes or six minutes of coverage for depth and context in a visual setting — whatever the reporter or the editor thinks that that story needs — we can do that,” Wood said. “There’s not going to be a mandate that it’s a 15-second spot or a 30-second spot and you have to fit that peg into that hole. It’s whatever the story needs.”

The Local would not have anchors, TV studios, satellite trucks, or do opinion journalism, those behind it say — just straight local news reporting with no national or international coverage. To provide hyperlocal content, The Local would seek to contract with community newsrooms across a state, including far-flung rural locales, and pay those newsrooms up to $1,500 per story for their work.

In that sense, the thinking goes, a deep-pocketed streaming service could be giving back to local newsrooms that have been battered by Big Tech.

The Nieman Lab piece goes into the broader thinking behind this effort to get news from the state Capitol to your local city council up next to episodes of binge-worthy streaming shows, films, or documentaries.

The story also spotlights some of the limitations to getting there — the first being raising capital for the pilots and the second being a major streaming service saying yes to the idea.

The N2 Media folks have been spending the past few years hashing out their plans and chose Colorado as their first pilot state in part because of its geography and demographics.

Eric Gonon, N2 Media’s senior vice president of news who worked for CNN and created “Mad Money with Jim Cramer” on CNBC, says he wants the newscast to feel like “Vice News Tonight” meets “60 Minutes” and “CBS Sunday Morning.” Stories could run four minutes long to an hourlong documentary, he said, adding that they wouldn’t chase breaking news. They could shoot video on iPhones and other new video technology.

N2 Media sets its Colorado budget around $900,000. Even without funding, Gonon said he’s ready to pull the trigger and spend three months in Colorado working with local journalists.

In publicity materials for potential investors, N2 Media proposes a “90-day production pilot in Colorado” broadcast on YouTube. Here’s more from the pitch deck:

The goal of the pilot is simple: prove that we can produce a high-quality nightly newscast—with 8 to 10 original stories per day—at scale, across multiple regions, with a repeatable structure and sustainable costs. We launch in Colorado, with bureaus in Denver, Colorado Springs, and Grand Junction.

“If we had to fill a staff today, we could,” Wood said about Colorado over the phone on Wednesday. “I’ve got a lineup of people who are absolutely interested and want to be part of it.” (A recruitment page is here.)

The hope is that once N2 Media lines up funding for the pilot, they’ll do a three-month test run in Colorado with a one-month ramp-up for the journalism team before they go live with stories on YouTube.

If funding comes in for three months, journalists would be contractors, but if the company lands a full year of funding it would be more stable employment, Landfried said. Regardless, he added, they’ll pay for healthcare.

“We want this to be a Colorado-driven news organization,” he said. “We want it to be people who know the communities, know the counties, know the regions, know the issues. We want this to be newsrooms built on people who know the state and know the people.”

Wood said she wants it clear that this project to reinvent local TV news, starting in Colorado, is funding dependent.

“There’s a trigger,” she said. “But I feel we need to have everybody in place — it’s very much a cart and horse — so when that funding does drop, that month of ramping up is not a scramble.”

Trump’s effort to defund NPR and PBS would affect smaller stations across Colorado

This week, Republican President Donald Trump issued what he called an executive order that instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

In the document, Trump said he believed “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

The move follows a previous approach from the White House to hurt public media when he asked Congress to eliminate CPB funding.

“Regardless of which approach, public media leaders in Colorado say it could be bad news for the service in this area,” Colorado Public Radio’s Tom Hesse said on Colorado Matters. “Could mean service cuts, could mean programming cuts, could mean job cuts even.”

Hesse said federal funding goes through the CPB that gives out money to NPR, PBS and also smaller public media outlets including plenty in Colorado.

“It impacts every aspect of how our network operates,” CPR President Stewart Vanderwilt said on the show.

CPR gets about $1.5 million from the CPB, or about 5% of its funding, Hesse reported, adding that Rocky Mountain PBS gets about 10% or $3 million.

But funding from the CPB makes up nearly 20% of funding for KSUT tribal radio in Southwest Colorado.

“Nothing in this executive order alters why we exist: to nurture and protect the public square of the Four Corners region, where people of differing perspectives and experiences can come together — digitally and in real life — to build trust and strengthen communities,” wrote KSUT Director Tami Graham in a message on the station’s website.

In response to the federal attacks, Graham said among other things the rural station has accelerated initiatives to grow its membership and to “increase community philanthropy, business partnerships, and digital revenue so that critical services never hinge on a single funding source.”

Legal experts told Current, a publication that covers the public broadcasting industry, that Trump exceeded his authority with his order.

“A court fight seems inevitable, with the heads of PBS, NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting all suggesting Friday that Trump’s order is illegal,” wrote David Bauder of the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Colorado Republican Rep. Matt Soper, who represents Delta and Mesa counties on the Western Slope, penned a column in the Grand Junction Sentinel newspaper this week about efforts to defund public media.

While he said he agrees with some of it, and that skepticism of the national media has been fairly earned, “the reality on the ground, specifically in western Colorado,” is different.

“Defunding public media — while maybe well-intentioned — will devastate local stations like Delta County’s KVNF or Mesa County’s KAFM,” the Republican Colorado lawmaker wrote. “These stations provide local news, emergency updates and programming raising awareness of regional issues to our communities who would otherwise reside in a media desert. Our local public media prides itself in helping craft the fabric of our western tapestry. A service that is not beholden to any one political party or big-city narratives.”

Colorado is hosting the Collaborative Journalism Summit next week in Denver

Next week, Denver will play host to the annual Collaborative Journalism Summit organized by the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.

Each year, the summit moves from city to city. Organizers choose where based on a city’s level of interest in collaborative media efforts — and their execution of them.

“We’ve been in Philly, Chicago, D.C., Detroit and were supposed to be in North Carolina when the pandemic hit,” said the center’s director, Stefanie Murray. “This year we chose Colorado and Denver, specifically, because of the incredible collaborative efforts we see all over the state.”

For the past several years, Colorado has been a pioneer of an ethos toward collaboration over competition among newsrooms. More than in many states, journalists and newsrooms in Colorado tend to partner often, though they will compete when and where it makes sense. Other states often look to Colorado for inspiration.

Taking place May 15-16 at the Delta Hotels Denver Thornton, the summit is “designed to be a fast-paced event full of sharing and learning,” organizers said. “Both days are typically packed with sessions, so prepare accordingly.”

The schedule includes panels, “lightning talks,” “fireside chats,” keynote and plenary sessions.

Colorado folks can get $100 off by using the code FOURTEENER.

I’ll be on a panel with University of Denver journalism professor Kareem El Damanhoury and Melissa Milios Davis of Press Forward titled “So you’ve mapped your local news landscape — now what? How to keep up the collaborative momentum.” (You’ll probably learn some behind-the-scenes aspects of this newsletter you’re reading.)

Other Colorado journalists and national players will host panel discussions as well. Find out who the keynote speakers are here. If you’re on the fence about attending, the center posted seven reasons to register for it.

Sponsors of the summit include Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, and Gates Family Foundation, which supports the Colorado College Journalism Institute.

‘We are all in on our print program,’ says Charity Huff, 5280 magazine’s new publisher

A few months ago, Charity Huff took over 5280, Denver’s award-winning monthly magazine that Daniel Brogan founded 33 years ago.

The magazine described Huff at the time of the sale as an “ad tech and niche media industry leader.”

This week, she sat for a 20-minute interview with Mike Blinder, who runs Editor & Publisher magazine and called Huff a friend.

In the writeup about it, Blinder described Huff as “a digital strategist, consultant and CEO of January Spring — a company that has helped hundreds of publishers embrace digital transformation.” (Later in the interview, he called her “the queen nerd of the industry.”)

During the Q-and-A, Huff said she was working on a strategic plan and looking for ways to demonstrate how digital transformation can bring success, when someone suggested the company should buy a publication. Huff said she reached out to Brogan and asked if he might be open to selling, and he bit.

Despite being a self-described “digital person” who spent her entire career in the digital space, she acknowledged, “we are all in on our print program.”

Here are some other nuggets from the interview:

• “We are still heavy on our print revenue as our leading revenue source and then behind that is digital,” she said. “Third is our events and then fourth is our subscriptions.”
• “One of the things that we are doing this year is upgrading much of our infrastructure tech around how we’re doing visualization from a reporting standpoint and really leaning into the way in which people are consuming that information and making some of their advertising decisions.”
• In five years, she said, she expects she will “still be publishing a print magazine. It will be fat and robust and the core of what we’re doing. But we are going to make sure that we’re meeting our readers and our advertisers where they need to be.” She said readers can expect a more robust video and streaming strategy and the company doubling down on newsletters and events.
• “5280 is just going to be everywhere in Denver,” Huff said. “Because it is the premier brand and it is the trusted tastemaker for what is happening in this city.”

Watch the entire interview at the video here.

More Colorado media odds & ends

🏆 The Colorado Association of Black Journalists held its annual gala in Denver this week where the organization presented awards. Brittany Winkfield rounded up the winners: Carlotta LaNier won the Civil Rights Award; April Denmon won the Community Service Award; Ski Noir 5280 won the Cultural Competence Award; the Urban League Young Professionals of Metro Denver won the DEI Award; University of Denver won the Higher Education Institution of the Year Award; Jones Law Firm won the Champion of Justice Award; Micah Smith of Denver7 won Journalist of the Year; KGNU Community Radio won Media Organization of the Year; Kevin Hartfield won the Legacy Award. Khaleigh Reed and Francisco Zambrano won shcolarships. Support the CABJ here.

⬆️ The National Association of Black Journalists is inducting former Denver Post Editor Greg Moore into its Hall of Fame while Colorado Public Radio won the NABJ’s Best Practices award, which “recognizes a news organization for exemplary work in covering issues of great significance to the Black community or the African Diaspora and/or for its efforts in increasing diversity among its newsroom staff and management.”

❌ The emails version of this newsletter misstated where a TV show was created and had incorrect numbers about N2 Media’s budget for a pilot.

🛡 The International Women’s Media Foundation, which is on its Newsroom Safety Across America Tour, will be in Denver on May 15 and is partnering with Westword. Sign up here for the event, which plans to include “customized instruction and live-action training covering risk assessment, personal security, legal protection, mental health care, and more.”

🔎 With the legislative session now over, Jeff Roberts of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition rounded up what happened on the transparency and open-government front.

🤔 Five states have now joined California in aiming to support local news by proposing “legislation this year to recoup money from Big Tech platforms, mainly Google and Meta, for revenue gained from publishing local news content,” Hannah Carroll wrote for the Local News Initiative. (Colorado is not among them.)

🎬 Colorado journalist Julian Rubinstein’s documentary “The Holly” has been nominated for a national Emmy Award.

⚙️ Colorado Media Project, which underwrites this newsletter, is looking for “an organized and proactive Administrative/Operations Manager to support our mission of fostering a more sustainable, collaborative, and trusted local news ecosystem for Colorado.” Learn more here.

➡️ Serve with me on the board of the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. “We have four board member positions open, and we hope you will consider helping us determine the chapter’s direction,” the organization wrote this week.

💨 Tom Green is leaving 9NEWS after 43 years in Denver TV. “I have a couple of cool projects that I’ve been working toward, but I’m not sure how much (or even if) I plan to work anymore,” he said. “My guess is I will, but not in a 24/7/365 news environment like I have been doing.”

🎟 The Denver Press Club is starting to sell table opportunities and tickets for its annual gala taking place Oct. 18 at the Hyatt Regency in Denver. Ari Shapiro of NPR is giving a talk called “From War Zones to Red Rocks.”

🆕 Longtime Colorado journalist Gil Asakawa has taken the reins as interim food and drink editor at the Denver alt-weekly Westword while Molly Martin is out on medical leave. “I’ve returned to Westword, where my journalism career started. I was the first music editor,” Asakawa wrote. “I look forward to maintaining this section in Molly’s absence, and to hand it over in good health when she returns.”

⚾️ 🏆 The Denver Post has created the Roy Halladay Award, which the paper plans to present each year “to the top high school senior ballplayer, scholar and citizen in Colorado,” Kyle Newman wrote in the paper. “The inaugural honor will be awarded this year, following the conclusion of the high school baseball season.”

⌨️ Someone posting anonymously for a site called Thornton Observer is reviewing council meetings and public records, including “updates and commentary on civics and community,” and highlighting what residents might want to know about their local government.

🗣 “A reader calls us out, and we consider his point,” wrote Pikes Peak Bulletin Managing Editor Heila Ershadi in a column this week.

⏭ The Pikes Peak Bulletin has picked up Bob Falcone’s “Hiking Bob” column after the Colorado Springs Independent got sold (again). “I will be featured on the first and third weeks each month,” he said. The Indy’s new owner, Dirk R. Hobbs, published his first post-purchase edition of the Southern Colorado Business Forum & Digest, which includes some stuff about the Business Journal and Indy.

💨 Nicole Dorfman is leaving the Daily Camera newspaper. “I’m grateful for my time here but I have been offered another position,” the crime and public safety reporter said on social media.

🏆 Colorado Press Women has nominated Donna Bryson as the 2025 National Federation of Press Women Communicator of Achievement. “Our affiliate strongly agrees with John Daniszewski, who says, ‘I do not think there could be a better choice for this award,’” the organization wrote.

🆕 Tom Mustin said he is “thrilled to host ‘Decode Colorado,’ a powerful new series” on PBS12 in Denver “that dives deep into the stories shaping our state.”

I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, advisor to Colorado Media Project, and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade I reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter, hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.