Sports reporter John Sorce works at his desk in The Emporia Gazette newsroom in Emporia, Kansas, on Dec. 20, 2023. The newsroom moved in July 2022. The Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper was founded in 1890. (Courtesy: Ann Hermes) 

Photojournalist Ann Hermes found many of the same things at the more than 50 local newsrooms she’s visited in a project documenting those local, often historic spaces before they’re lost to remote work, smart real estate deals and an industry under tremendous strain. 

They include: 

• The First Amendment, printed out on the copy machine, tacked onto walls 

• Photo and print archives piled into corners or basements that no one has had the time to digitize

• People rooted in those places working very hard with very little

Hermes’ work photographing local newspaper newsrooms was featured recently in The New Yorker. I spoke with Hermes about the project.

She is working to capture snapshots of this moment in time when local news is changing and fighting to survive those changes. Local newspaper newsrooms have looked a certain way for generations. That’s changing. She’s smart to capture that, to appreciate the nostalgia involved for what it is, and to want to connect those images back with the communities where they’re taken.

“This is for me a love letter to journalism,” Hermes said. “But I do want it to do more than that.” 

You can read that piece, and see some of her images, here.

While you’re here:

• If you missed our info session on Today’s News for Tomorrow, the IRE/Internet Archive/Press Forward project archiving local newsrooms’ digital work, you can watch it here and sign up here for the first-ever National Summit on Local News Preservation. If you’d like to be considered for TNT, apply here. 

• You can register now for the Institute for Independent Journalists’ 2026 freelance journalism conference, which takes place in March. 

• You have until Dec. 12 to sign up for the Center for Community News’ CCN Champions program. “The program is open to college/university faculty and staff, as well as local media leaders who want to start a news/academic partnership or want to take an emerging one to the next level.”

• And finally, because it’s delightful and I wish I’d thought of it, please enjoy this story from Eater about the woman who wrote a cookbook from the recipes she’s found on headstones around the world. 

That’s it for me. Thank you for reading. Please tell me a fond memory you have of a newsroom you used to work in. Mine, while fuzzy, was a sign taped to the women’s restroom that someone took a red correction pen to because that’s just who we are. 🥰

Kristen