Two large corporate-owned newspapers go nonprofit

By Jill Nolin | Editor

By Ellie Fivas

While some Georgia newsrooms are shrinking or closing down, two of the state’s largest local publications are being reimagined as nonprofit newsrooms. 

The Georgia Trust for Local News announced Wednesday that they have acquired the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer and the Macon Telegraph to join its growing nonprofit media portfolio. With this sale, the organization — a subsidiary of the National Trust for Local News — now operates 21 local newsrooms across the state. 

Both newspapers were previously owned by McClatchy Media for 20 years.

By Alander Rocha

A race for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat that has now dwindled down to two candidates is shaping up to be an expensive one.

Congressman Mike Collins, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, became the Republican nominee last month and will face U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in the November election. Both campaigns sent out press releases Wednesday touting their fundraising hauls for the last quarter, but as of Wednesday afternoon, the candidates’ reports were not available on the Federal Election Commission’s website.

Ossoff, a Democrat who is running for a second term, has raised a total $81 million and is going into the next quarter with $42 million available to spend after raising $20 million in the last quarter, according to his campaign. The average contribution was just over $40 with nearly 90% of those being under $100. 

By Jennifer Shutt

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t appear to secure the support needed to take over the public health agency during a lengthy and often tense confirmation hearing Wednesday. 

While Dr. Erica Schwartz told lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Committee that oversees health policy she would “never betray the science,” she didn’t seem to win the trust of Democrats or key Republicans needed to advance. 

By Emily Jones, WABE/Grist

Just across the road from the waterfront in Brunswick, Semona Holmes lives in a house surrounded by fruit trees, potted flowers, a fish pond — and often, when it rains or the tide is extra high, floodwater.

“If you can imagine this entire area here completely flooded,” she explained on her front porch on a recent afternoon. “The flooding would be — we would have like a river on our street.”

The floodwater has reached to her knees at times. Once, after a hurricane, her neighbor canoed down the block.

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