Latest news with #Henrichsen
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New WSU report sheds light on health of Washington's news industry
May 3—For more than three decades, journalism advocates worldwide have celebrated May 3 as World Press Freedom Day. The day marks the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration of 1991, which promoted a free and independent press in Africa. It is meant to celebrate the importance of a free and independent press and raise awareness of the threats journalists around the world face. "World Press Freedom Day is a great reminder about the importance of journalism and some of the issues that are facing journalists today," said Jennifer Henrichsen, an assistant professor at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. "Whether physical or digital attacks or partisan politics, we know that journalism has been in crisis for a long time, and both at the national and international level." According to a Pew Research study published in 2021, newsroom employment in the United States has fallen by 26% since 2008. According to data compiled by the Local News Initiative at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, more than 3,200 newspapers have gone out of business since 2005, with more than two per week folding, on average. While the decline of the journalism industry nationally has been well-documented, Henrichsen and a group of professors at the Murrow School recently published the most complete review of the health of journalism in Washington. The report, "From News Deserts to Nonprofit Resilience: Assessing the Health of Washington's Local News Ecosystem," examines the decline of Washington state's news industry, and offers suggestions to policymakers about what could be done to revive it. "This is the most comprehensive study to date of Washington and is also a benchmark for us in the state," Henrichsen said. "So our intention is to survey outlets moving forward to try to get a sense of trends." The report surveyed news outlets and interviewed journalists and civic leaders to study the health of journalism in Washington, and found a system in decline. "Unfortunately, the reports of local news crises across the state, anecdotal or research-based, seem to be mirroring what we found in Washington state as well," said Pawel Popiel, an assistant professor at Murrow College. According to the findings, only 170 outlets across the state provide daily news coverage, with about half of these outlets running on an annual budget of $250,000 or less. The report found that two counties — Skamania and Ferry — qualify as news deserts, which means they lack a consistent and credible news source for local information. Additionally, five counties only have one news outlet, while five others only have two outlets. "So it's actually a problem facing Washington writ large, to a large extent, because the number of outlets is important for understanding the types of media diversity that exist in a particular area," Henrichsen said. The lack of outlets providing local coverage also means there's a lack of media diversity, according to Popiel. Media diversity, he said, is essential for competitive coverage, a wider array of opinions and to ensure a built-in resilience in the system. "This is a problem that plagues both rural and sort of sparser areas as much as urban ones," Popiel said. Other outlets throughout the state, the study found, struggle to hire and retain staff due to declining budgets, which can be partially attributed to a decrease in ad revenue. The lack of staff to adequately report on a coverage area means that outlets are often left to make tough decisions when deciding what to cover. For example, an outlet may have to choose whether to cover a local school board meeting or report on a car crash that is causing a delay across town. "You have to make really hard choices when you have so few staff," Henrichsen said. "And that, of course, has implications for the type of information that gets covered and the type of information that people can obtain to go about their daily lives." The report, which was meant to provide a snapshot of the journalism industry, examined data collected between November 2023 and December 2024, which means a recent announcement that the Cowles family plans to donate The Spokesman-Review to a recently formed Spokane-based community nonprofit organization was not discussed. "The nonprofit model provides hope and optimism to many who care about the future of local journalism because it can provide a sustainable funding model that allows for enhanced accountability reporting," Henrichsen said. But the model isn't a "silver bullet," she said. "Nonprofit outlets also face challenges and closures, as evidenced by the recent shuttering of the prominent nonprofit startup, the Houston Landing, and require ongoing innovation and attention to audiences, if they are going to be sustainable and successful long-term," Henrichsen said. The plan calls for Publisher Stacey Cowles and his family's Cowles Co. to transfer ownership of the newspaper and award a $2 million matching grant to the nonprofit, called the Comma Community Journalism Lab, which was founded by current Spokesman-Review Executive Editor Rob Curley. While the report examined the decline in Washington's news industry, it also offered suggestions for policymakers to support it. Those include ensuring that local journalism is "viewed as a public good which is necessary for a healthy democracy," Henrichsen said. The recommendations also include making news subscriptions and business advertising in local outlets federally tax deductible, providing outlets tax credits to hire reporters, and providing direct subsidies to news outlets. "When you think about the threats facing local news from resource constraints to dwindling subscriptions to a sort of collapsing talent pipeline that draws journalists in to a public that may not be informed about the journalism crisis to legal and other attacks against journalists themselves and news outlets, the range of solutions has to be comprehensive to fully address what is ultimately a structural, systemic problem," Popiel said. In recent years, federal and state lawmakers have sought to throw the journalism industry a lifeline, to varying degrees of success. This year, the Legislature considered imposing a surcharge on large search engines and social media companies with a gross income of $5 million or more, with the tax capped at $6 million a year. The Office of Financial Management estimated the tax would raise $27 million in fiscal year 2027, and an additional $102 million between 2027 and 2031, with the funds distributed to print, digital and broadcast media outlets. While the proposal died in committee, the report examines "how additional funding mechanisms are necessary to try to ensure that this crisis of resources can be ameliorated so that journalism can be strengthened in the state," Henrichsen said. A program that has found more support from lawmakers is a two-year fellowship program through the Murrow College. Under the program, journalists in the early stages of their careers are placed in newsrooms throughout the state, including The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Public Radio, to cover underreported beats, which include voting rights, housing and rural issues, among others. In 2023, the Legislature appropriated $2.4 million for its operation, and the state budget currently under review by Gov. Bob Ferguson includes additional funds for the program, though it would receive about half of its previous funding level. "The true measure of journalism isn't whether it pleases people in civic life, but whether it empowers them with information," said Ben Shors, chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Production. "So that's sort of the baseline that we need to understand, that a free and functioning press is not a luxury in civic life in Washington state, it's a necessity, and it requires maintenance, and it requires investment, and it has to not just for the journalists who work in those jobs, but for the citizens who live in those communities." Editors note: This article has been updated to reflect that Pawel Popiel is an assistant professor, not an associate professor.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Burnside Bridge earthquake project delayed until 2028
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Despite the ever-looming threat of a major earthquake hitting the Cascadia Subduction Zone, efforts to reinforce Portland's Burnside Bridge have been delayed. Multnomah County leaders decided to extend the design phase for the years-long until 2028 — a year behind schedule. Hwy 26's 'The Bump' sends cars airborne as locals fight for improvements Officials said the decision comes during a period of uncertainty on a federal level. By delaying the bridge's construction, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said the county will be able to find more opportunities to cut costs. 'The County remains committed to resilience projects like the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge Project, which are critical for our region,' Vega Pederson said. 'This seismically resilient bridge will not only provide much needed infrastructure, it will be an immediately usable lifeline route for emergency responders in the wake of a major earthquake, increase multi-modal transit options and help us meet climate goals for the long term.' The project, which began in 2019, has worked with several groups – including – for aesthetic plans, structural components, costs and long-term maintenance needs. In September, the county announced that an had been approved. Multnomah County Transportation Director Jon Henrichsen told KOIN 6 News they had been counting on grant funding but are now unsure whether they can expect federal money during the Trump Administration. 'Agencies are being reduced. Agencies that oversee the project and the regulatory environment of the project, including the environmental regulations that the project is built in, are experiencing changes in their mandates,' Henrichsen said. 'So we're kind of waiting to see how all that works out.' Henrichsen said the bridge project — with an 895 million dollar budget — will be difficult to get done without the help of federal money. Multnomah County is dealing with money issues of its own, though he also added that the transportation's budget will not be impacted 'We can't really start construction until we have enough money to complete the whole bridge, because we're building the new bridge, on the same alignment as the existing bridge,' he said. 'We're going to have to take the existing bridge out of service. Once it's gone, it's gone. And we can't risk not having enough money to put the old bridge back in place.' Eugene limited edition sneaker shop owner, CFO plead guilty to $80M fraud scheme The project aims to replace the Burnside Bridge with a bridge that will withstand a Cascadia Subduction Zone quake, which is expected in the zone every 300-500 years. According to Multnomah County, the project is necessary because no vehicular bridges that cross the Willamette River would be usable after the 'The Big One.' As of 2025, the only bridge currently thought capable of surviving the shock is the Wapato Bridge connecting Portland to Sauvie Island. Jan. 26, 2025, marked the 325th anniversary of the most recent earthquake — a massive magnitude 9 quake spanning Northern California to British Columbia. However, Henrichsen said the delay does not mean the project is not a priority for the county. 'It's not unusual for a big project like this to experience delays, or to get the timeline pushed back a bit because they're complex,' he said. 'But it doesn't have anything to do with the importance of the project to Multnomah County. It's really just the situation that we're in.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Borderlands Mexico: Cartels a barrier to growing cross-border trade, expert says
An international trade expert sees promise in Mexico's approach to enhancing trade but says organized crime remains an obstacle. On Jan. 13, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum unveiled Plan Mexico, an ambitious initiative aimed at ultimately lifting her country from 12th place to among the top 10 economies in the world. Plan Mexico includes a portfolio of $277 billion in national and foreign investments to be distributed across 2,000 projects in sectors such as the automotive, pharmaceutical, aerospace, agribusiness, electromobility and textile industries. The initiative also includes increasing Mexico's share in global exports to 15%, reducing the time to approve investment projects in the country from 2.6 years to one year and solidifying the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to help North America compete against Gonzalez Henrichsen, co-CEO of The Nearshore Co., praised the plan as a step in the right direction for trade across North America but said it fails to address the issue of organized crime in Mexico. 'Plan Mexico has positive initiatives, good initiatives. I'm glad that the government is looking at this, but some questions are how it is going to be executed,' Henrichsen told FreightWaves in an interview. 'One thing that I was surprised that the Mexico plan does not talk about, or at least it doesn't seem to be addressing, is the cartel issue, which is really the elephant in the room.' The Nearshore Co., based in Brownsville, Texas, is an international trade and development firm that helps companies set up shelter operations in Mexico. A trade spat between the U.S., Canada, Mexico and China has emerged in the past several weeks over President Donald Trump's use of tariffs against those countries as a way to hold them accountable for what he said is the growing flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants across U.S. Trump administration hit imports from Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs at midnight on Tuesday, alongside an additional 10% tariff on goods from China imposed Monday. On Thursday, Trump paused the 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico until April 2. 'We're talking about tariffs, but everything you read and hear from the politicians is this link between the tariffs to the cartels. The cartels are actually involved in both issues that the Trump administration keeps talking about, which is fentanyl, the drug trade, and in the immigration issue,' Henrichsen said. 'In my view, for nearshoring in Mexico to take off as we all once imagined it would, if we want to improve [Mexico's] chances of this being a success story for the next decades, we need to address the things that are in the Plan Mexico, plus the cartel situation.' The U.S. and Mexico have cooperated in the past to curb cartel crimes, including the Mérida Initiative, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think tank. 'In 2008, the United States and Mexico began implementing the Mérida Initiative, a counternarcotics cooperation framework that provides Mexico roughly $400 million a year in assistance, including military aircraft, surveillance software, and airport inspection equipment. Meanwhile, drug-related killings soar; in 2009 alone, more than 9,600 people are killed in connection with organized crime,' the Council on Foreign Relations said in a report. In 2023, President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to boost bilateral efforts to curb manufacturing and distribution of fentanyl. 'The two leaders also discuss how to manage the nearly 2.5 million irregular border encounters recorded in fiscal year 2023, the most on record,' the Council on Foreign Relations said. In recent weeks, Mexican authorities have made some moves to crack down on illegal border crossings and curb organized crime in the began using members of its Army at border crossings in Laredo and Pharr, Texas, to inspect cargo trucks and passenger vehicles before they enter the United States. Last week, Mexican authorities sent 29 drug cartel figures, including a man involved in the 1985 killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, to the U.S., The Associated Press reported. U.S. Border Patrol recorded about 8,450 apprehensions of migrants who crossed into the country unlawfully along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to preliminary government data obtained by CBS News. February's total could be the lowest monthly apprehensions recorded by border agents since at least fiscal year 2000. Henrichsen said if Mexico can clamp down on organized crime and make good on other initiatives as part of Plan Mexico, it would improve foreign investment opportunities, not just in Mexico, but across North America. 'Companies do call us and they are interested in Mexico,' Henrichsen said. 'They say, 'I want to try putting a business there, but I want to try it with you as a local partner, because I've never run a facility there.'' Henrichsen said his firm recently talked to a company that has operations in China that is seeking to diversify its supply chain because of geopolitical uncertainties around the world. 'They have already opened another operation in Vietnam, and they have an operation in the U.S., in Texas, and they want to be diversified between several countries. This is an example of a company that is looking to structure their supply chain for the next 20 years,' Henrichsen said. Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) plans to build a battery factory and storage facility near Houston, according to Electrek. Austin, Texas-based Tesla will take over a 1 million-square-foot building that it already held the lease on at Empire West industrial park near Brookshire, about 40 miles west of downtown Houston. The facility had previously been occupied by freight forwarder DB Schenker, where it handled parts deliveries for Tesla in the region. The Tesla factory will build megapack batteries, along with large-scale energy storage systems for solar and other renewable energy projects. The factory could employ as many as 1,500 workers by 2028. Tesla did not disclose the timeline for the factory, but a tax abatement agreement with Waller County starts in 2026. RK Logistics Group opened its second facility in Austin, Texas, aimed at providing supply chain management solutions for semiconductor, automotive and lithium-ion battery companies. The 84,000-square-foot logistics center is in north Austin at 2120 Grand Avenue Parkway. The 15-dock-door temperature-controlled warehouse provides secured storage, inventory management, order assembly and kitting, order fulfillment, and expedited and dedicated transportation solutions, according to a news release. In 2023, RK Logistics opened a 200,000-square-foot warehousing and distribution center in Kyle, about 20 miles south of Austin. RK Logistics Group, based in Fremont, California, is a 3PL that targets high-tech companies. The company has 17 facilities in five states totaling 1.7 million square feet of warehouse space. Law enforcement in South Texas recently discovered 1,500 pounds of methamphetamine concealed in pallets containing blueberries from Mexico, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The Pharr Police Department contacted the DEA on Tuesday with information that pallets containing methamphetamine were at a distribution warehouse in Pharr, Texas, Eric Castaneda, assistant special agent with the DEA, told KRGV. Police worked with the DEA to seize the drugs. The load containing the blueberries originated in the Mexican state of Michoacan and was destined for Atlanta, Castaneda said. Authorities did not say if any arrests were made when the methamphetamine was seized. The drugs had a street value of $4.8 million. The Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, which connects Pharr to Reynosa, Mexico, is one of the busiest border crossings in the country for fresh produce from Mexico. The post Borderlands Mexico: Cartels a barrier to growing cross-border trade, expert says appeared first on FreightWaves.
USA Today
26-02-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Forget designer bags. In the book world, it's all about which advanced copies you carry
Forget designer bags. In the book world, it's all about which advanced copies you carry How the galley brag became an influencer tool and upended books marketing strategy High atop a shelf, away from her messy child and dog, sits one of Cassandra Henrichsen's prized possessions: an advanced reader copy of 'Katabasis.' Out from Harper Collins in August, Henrichsen's copy of R.F. Kuang's new fantasy novel doesn't even have a cover design, but still comes with bragging rights. She received number 193 of the 200 early copies doled out. In the lead-up to a book's publication, publishers print a certain number of early copies, also called advanced reader copies (ARCs) or galleys. Think Miranda Priestly's twins with the "Harry Potter" manuscript in "The Devil Wears Prada." While these copies historically went to booksellers, press and the author's personal network, book influencers are now an increasingly important part of the strategy to create early buzz. The 'in' crowd: What makes a galley brag? The term 'galley brag' is a particular phenomena of the BookTok generation. In an age where readers collect deluxe editions like infinity stones and line up outside of stores hours on release day, securing a copy months before the book even goes on sale is the ultimate gold star bragging right. Posting about it is even sweeter satisfaction. 'A galley brag,' HarperCollins editor Ezra Kupor writes in his newsletter of the same name, 'is when you post a photo of a status galley on your Instagram or your Twitter. It's kind of a tip of the hat saying: look what I got.' As soon as Henrichsen heard that Kuang was publishing a new book, she began immediately posting TikToks about it. She had received ARCs from Kuang's publisher, Harper Voyager, before. She hoped her genuine excitement (and knowing the author's work well) would give her a better shot at securing that coveted galley. And then it came. 'I was already shaking in my boots opening the package,' Henrichsen told USA TODAY. 'But actually knowing that I got one of 200 copies was really exciting.' The envious comments came swiftly: 'Hey so what time do you usually leave the house and do you have like, dogs inside?' one reader joked about stealing the copy. 'How does it feel to be God's favorite,' wrote another. How 'Intermezzo' sparked envy, became the galley brag of 2024 I, dear reader, am not above a galley brag. When I got an early copy of Sally Rooney's 'Intermezzo' over the summer for work, you can bet I flexed it every time I read in public. And I wasn't alone. 'Are You Cool Enough for the Latest Sally Rooney Novel?' reads an Esquire headline from September. 'Truly having an out of body experience over here. Someone may need to check my pulse,' wrote Maddie Taylor, a reader from Maine, when she secured her early copy. Taylor designed cookies with the 'Intermezzo' cover as a plea to publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) in addition to her formal email request. They later commissioned her cookies for the release party. But while the roll out may have seemed exclusive to outsiders, it was actually the biggest ARC distribution FSG had ever done, says Sheila O'Shea, SVP and director of marketing and publicity. They released 2,500 early copies, working to honor as many personal requests (like Taylor's) as they could before they ran out. The biggest portion went to booksellers, she says. 'We did it with purpose … to actually create the most amount of people reading it as possible in advance of the on sale,' O'Shea says. 'We were so excited to share the manuscript and to share the work and we were hoping that people would fall in love with the book the way we had.' 'We weren't holding back,' she adds. The importance of the ARC cannot be understated, publishing marketers told USA TODAY, not just because of the early eyes but because of the community it creates. When FSG threw a release party for 'Intermezzo,' I spent the night talking Rooney with influencers that received the treasured ARCs. 'The community of a book, in a way is what you're creating when you're putting it out to market,' O'Shea says. 'It's not about creating exclusivity. That was not our intention there. It was to create the most amount of people we could get reading the book and the community of people that we knew love Sally Rooney.' In other instances, the galley is crucial to establish that in-crowd status for smaller authors. Knopf Associate Director of Marketing Matthew Sciarappa saw success after promoting Kaveh Akbar's debut 'Martyr!' – a National Book Award finalist – by sending copies alongside handmade zines from Akbar and tote bags with the book's snappy, memorable design. 'It was this big swag package all themed toward a book that nobody knows about,' Sciarappa says. 'My goal with that was to signal the importance, that you should be excited about it in the same way that you're excited about your favorite author's next thing.' In the age of social media influencing, marketers adapts The result of growing influencer-publisher relations is an earlier marketing timeline, says O'Shea, who notes that previously much of the public conversation about a book started after it went on sale, not before. Many publishers, including both Penguin Random House and Macmillan, now have influencer programs to streamline the connection between passionate influencers and their equally passionate followers. But what happens when ARCs become status symbols like collector's editions with the gold trim and sprayed edges? Can saying 'I had it first' go too far? What about the murky ethics of selling galleys at sky-high prices despite receiving it for free? Henrichsen, who considers herself a book collector, has been on the hunt for an ARC of 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt for quite some time. But on eBay, they can go for over $300. 'Social media, by nature, is built on envy and capital. That is the system, that is what algorithms want you to inhabit,' Sciarappa says. 'To an extent, galleys do tap into that culture.' It's also bled into 'haul' culture – in unboxing videos, book influencers open packages upon packages of gifted early copies. 'You're seeing more photos of the ARCs and there's such a volume of books going out, but sometimes you don't see the review of it,' says Laura Flavin, a senior marketing director at Holt, owned by Macmillan. 'There's no way they're going to be able to get to even half of those books.' Those who receive ARCs are never required to post reviews, but marketers do hope they'll share their thoughts. Part of Holt's intentional strategy, Flavin says, is to target smaller accounts as much, if not more, than ones with hundreds of thousands of followers. It's about quality over quantity – what matters is getting a book into the hands of someone who will hopefully enjoy it as much as the publisher does. But do ARCs translate to more books sold? It's hard to say, though Sciarappa notes it's complicated. His anecdotal rule of thumb is 'it takes three times seeing a book before somebody's willing to buy it.' 'The most successful stories about books and publishing happen without the hand of the publisher,' he says. 'It's when (readers) find that book and fall in love with it and, without any prompting, scream about it. That will sell books. That is the one thing that is going to make things skyrocket.' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, check out her recent articles or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
