Local News Matters With Toluse Olorunnipa, Alissa Zhu & Jessica Gallagher
Access to local news is in decline. In the last year, 213 US counties did not have any local news sources and 1500 counties had access to only one local news source. Meanwhile, research shows that communities need a shared set of facts in order to have a healthy democracy. In a lot of communities, high school newspapers and broadcasts are filling the gaps by covering local stories and holding officials accountable. In this episode, we go to the Fall 2025 National High School Journalism Convention in Nashville to meet some of these young journalists!
Host Nicole Carroll, co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board and director of NEWSWELL, is joined by 2025 Local Reporting winners Alissa Zhu and Jessica Gallagher of The Baltimore Banner and 2023 General Nonfiction winner Toluse Olorunnipa to discuss building trust in the communities they cover, the impact of their work and how local stories can (and often do) have national reach.
You can find a transcript of this episode here.
This conversation was edited from the live event at the National High School Journalism Convention in Nashville, details of which are here.
Learn more about Pulitzer on the Road and our upcoming events here.
Learn about the National High School Journalism Convention here.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy these previous episodes from the show: