JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Juana Summers.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And I'm Mary Louise Kelly sitting here chatting with someone whose voice many of you may recognize. Hi, David.
DAVID GREENE: Hey, Mary Louise. It's good to see you.
KELLY: It's good to see you. It's been a while since I've seen you in a studio inside NPR headquarters.
GREENE: It has. It's been way too long. It's surreal to be here. It's really...
KELLY: Yeah.
GREENE: ...It's really something.
KELLY: All right, y'all are hearing David Greene, who, as many of you will recall, did the same job I do now - for years - but in the morning as host of Morning Edition. He has been up to all kinds of stuff since he stepped away from that post in when was it?
GREENE: Beginning of 2021.
KELLY: Wow.
GREENE: Yeah.
KELLY: OK, so coming up on a few years now. And we have called him back to chat about his newest job, which is in local news. David is taking over LNP. That's his hometown paper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is relaunching it as a nonprofit. He's hoping to build a model that other newspapers can build on. So this is going - what? - way back to your roots. You were an intern back in the day at LNP?
GREENE: I was. I grew up in Lancaster. My mom taught at Franklin & Marshall College. We lived right across the street. I - we read the Sunday News, the New Era and the Intelligencer Journal every day.
KELLY: Do you remember your first - I don't know - front-page byline?
GREENE: I don't remember my first front page. I remember one of my first stories. The editor sent me out at around 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night to cover a barn fire in Amish country. And I was standing there with the owner of the barn and chatting, and he was like, very casually, I think we should step back. I was like, OK. I'll just start moving backwards in the grass.
KELLY: (Laughter) Yeah.
GREENE: The entire side of the barn comes crashing down in this, like, flames. I go back to the newsroom just covered in ash, thinking that there's going to be some level of sympathy. And Marv Adams, who was the - my editor at the time, and he looked at me and didn't say anything about the ash covering my body. It was just, like, 6 inches?
KELLY: (Laughter).
GREENE: It's like, you want me to write 6...
KELLY: He's like, how many columns you get?
GREENE: Yeah, yeah.
KELLY: Yeah.
GREENE: That was it, yeah.
KELLY: Meet your deadline, kid.
GREENE: Just go write the story. Like, yeah, I don't - I'm not noticing this.
KELLY: (Laughter).
GREENE: Yeah, but my roots go back that far, and I care deeply about this paper and this community.
KELLY: So this paper. To say you're walking into a challenge sounds like it's putting it mildly. What kind of shape was this newspaper in?
GREENE: So about two years ago, the Steinman family - that has been committed to local vibrant journalism for generations - they gifted the paper to WITF Pennon, which is, you know, one of our great public radio stations and public media companies. And this was supposed to be, you know, great for both organizations. And I've been working with, obviously, the leadership at Pennon WITF, and they've been amazing, I think, realizing that there have been a lot of lessons learned, that they were not in a good position to run a newspaper. They just...
KELLY: They were weighing options that I gather included complete restructuring...
GREENE: Or bankruptcy.
KELLY: ...Filing for bankruptcy.
GREENE: Yeah. And the idea of LNP going bankrupt, to me, was just something I could not accept. I mean, you know as well as I do what is happening in this industry right now. I mean, we've lost 40% of our local newspapers over the past 20 years. There are 50 million Americans who are without reliable local news right now. And when you're losing your local news outlets, I mean, that's when we're all being driven into our echo chambers and not talking to each other as neighbors anymore. So I was - the idea of this happening in Lancaster, where I grew up, I couldn't accept it.
KELLY: I am compelled to point out you're an amazing journalist. I know this firsthand. You've done all kinds of things. You have made documentary films. You were NPR's White House correspondent. You were our Moscow correspondent. I filed with you from Moscow.
GREENE: Yeah.
KELLY: Have you ever run a newsroom? Like, have you ever led an all-staff meeting?
GREENE: No, no. And, I mean, I've been to a lot of all-staff meetings, like you.
KELLY: (Laughter) So have I.
GREENE: I mean, we've been to them together. And you know what we do. We ask really hard questions...
KELLY: Yeah.
GREENE: ...Of leadership. So yeah, the first all-staff meeting. You know, we were in...
KELLY: When was it?
GREENE: It was a couple days ago, and it was really - it was a lot emotionally. I've never been on that side of things. Like, I'm looking at people who are relying on me to sort of set the vision, to lead, but also relying on me for 401(k)s, health insurance. And so, you know, I was trying to give a message of, you know, reassuring that nothing is going to change immediately and hope that they were ready to invest in this new nonprofit model and mission, which they largely seem to be, which is really cool because they've been through so much.
KELLY: Well, and sell me. What's the vision? I mean, and it's particularly since you said you're taking the reins from a public media company. I mean...
GREENE: Yeah.
KELLY: ...What can you do that they couldn't?
GREENE: In the simplest terms, it is a three-legged stool. Like, the whole problem that has made the newspaper industry so damaged and so unsustainable is ad revenue, subscription revenue are just not supporting things enough to go on. That's why...
KELLY: Right.
GREENE: ...We're seeing so many newspapers close. If you add a philanthropic leg and just change the culture so people feel like, you know, this is ours. There are a lot of people and a lot of smart people in our industry who have thought about ways to funnel philanthropic money into local news organizations, and I just felt like all the ingredients to pull this off are there in Lancaster, so let's do it.
KELLY: I read LNP's own story. It did quote two local Republican officials who sound skeptical. One of them said the current values of the editor at the paper are at odds with the community they serve.
GREENE: Yeah.
KELLY: How do you go about rebuilding trust that sounds like has been damaged?
GREENE: That is - if there's one thing keeping me up at night right now, it's that because our entire industry is - I mean, we are facing an existential crisis. I don't have to tell you that in these political times. I'm embracing this, so I - those lawmakers and local officials who said those things, they also said, you know, they're willing to give David Greene and his new team a chance. I can't wait to talk to them.
There's also concern I've already heard from the community who have said, like, what does David mean by rebuilding trust? Does that mean that it's just going to be, you know, pumping out Republican talking points to get people back from the right trusting the media? That's not what it's going to be. I think what it is going to be is being transparent about who we are. I've encouraged the entire staff - reporters, everyone else - to be out in the community, to remember that we're all neighbors, I mean, to talk about the work we're doing, to be listeners. We're going to start a community advisory panel, bringing people in and saying, you know, what do you want to talk about? What do you think we should be covering? What's important to you?
And this is what - I feel like I'm in this fight, Mary Louise, not just for Lancaster - and that's where the priority is - but, like, for you and me because the trust has to be rebuilt closer to home. Like, that's where people are going to remember, like, oh, I disagree with my neighbor, but, like, we go to PTA meetings together, we go to church together, we go hunting together. So, like, why can't we actually talk about stuff together? And the role that I think LNP can play in being a hub for that kind of civil discourse and civic engagement, that's when we're going to be pulling something off that's special.
KELLY: Because if people trust their local newspaper, news outlet, then maybe it increases the chances that they trust what people are doing on the national, international. Well...
GREENE: Exactly.
KELLY: ...And that link's been broken.
GREENE: The work is important, and they're going to be listening to you and me and, you know, and our shows and trust us again, too. But the work has to start, I think, closer to home.
KELLY: David Greene, my former NPR colleague, now what's your new title? Interim publisher...
GREENE: Interim publisher.
KELLY: ...Of LNP In Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
GREENE: You got it.
KELLY: Thanks, David.
GREENE: Thanks, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Good luck.
GREENE: Thank you.
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