Local newspaper Cambridge Day will now operate as a nonprofit, following an acquisition announced last month. The publication was largely operated by its sole founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief, Marc Levy ‘93, during its decade-long service to hyperlocal issues in the Cambridge and Somerville area.
Following the purchase, Levy will now become the company’s sole employee as senior reporter and editor, under the direction of the new board of directors for Cambridge News Inc., the organization behind the deal.
Emerson affiliate faculty and alumni Niko Emack joined the board alongside Interim President Raffi Freeman and executives Richard Harriman, Mary McGrath, and Amira Valliani, who represent differing backgrounds from business and entrepreneurship to media creation and community relations.
Levy founded the paper as part of an experiment in addressing news deserts across the country, he said in an interview with The Beacon.
The downsizing of local presses like The Cambridge Chronicle and constraints of publishers like The Boston Globe, or the student-run Harvard Crimson, leave a journalistic vacuum for the Day to fill.
However, local news publishing hasn’t been easy for Levy either, who said the paper struggled before bringing Freeman on as a business partner during its incorporation while still a for-profit entity.
“You need someone who’s able to really aggressively go out and seek that money,” Levy said. “I never really had that [before Freeman].”
Freeman, citing sponsorships and advertising as additional revenue streams for Cambridge Day, said the paper’s philanthropic fundraising ability through non-profit donations could be another piece in ensuring financial viability.
“Given how much advertising revenues have dropped off for the industry generally … philanthropy is going to play a critical piece in providing revenue,” Freeman said.
Additionally, funding for Cambridge Day may potentially come from the city government in the future.
However, Levy says he doesn’t know that “the nonprofit model is going to be the answer [to preserving local news.”
“I don’t want the number of nonprofit journalism venues to outpace the number of foundations that are giving money,” Levy said. He added that sometimes larger nonprofits tend to “suck up all the oxygen in the room,” and leave smaller nonprofits with little funding, making it a complicated approach.
For Emack, who was born and raised in Cambridge, the shift to nonprofit status and public funding is something he hopes will “give people a sense of ownership,” in the media they consume, in addition to strengthening the trust between consumers and reporters.
“When newspapers or news organizations are owned and funded privately, how can we then expect them to be objective when they … have to consider the interests of the people that generate money for them,” Emack said. He cited Jeff Bezos ending the presidential endorsements from The Washington Post as an example of these tensions.
Emack said he hopes the acquisition will help the paper further unify voices in the community and tackle issues important to the population.
“Right now Cambridge is very siloed,” Emack said. “People … especially post-COVID aren’t connecting as much as they used to.”
Freeman said the diversity of perspective and background on the board was a key consideration in its formation and will help the goal of uplifting underserved voices and making the organization more effective.
“We wanted people that were broadly representative of the community,” Freeman said. “I think we all bring different senses for why building a strong, resilient local paper is important to democracy … and to the strength of a community.”
Emack reminisced about a past when hyper-local coverage in Cambridge abounded. For him, the hyper-focus of Cambridge Day on the people of its community provides an opportunity to cover the things that locals can speak to and restore former levels of community reporting.
“I think Cambridge has plenty of people who are hyper-focused on individual topics and ideas,” Emack said. “To lean on that … I think it’s going to create a lot of opportunity for the paper.”
As Cambridge Day begins its new chapter, for Levy this remains one aspect of journalism that is important for success.
“I think that there’s a significant market for … old-fashioned traditional journalism where you’re doing a service to the community,” Levy said. “You will have people appreciating the fact that it exists at all and that people are reconnecting.”
