Tools, services, books, and stories we find genuinely helpful — collected for community journalists and local publishers. Nobody on this page sponsors us or paid to be listed. It's simply what we use ourselves, what our contributors recommend, and what keeps us inspired.
A self-paced online journalism course from Kansas Publishing Ventures, built to take you from interested reader to working community reporter without the time and cost of a university program. It covers interviewing, AP style, story writing, covering public meetings, photography, ethics, and the First Amendment.
Books the journalists on this platform actually recommend. Every recommendation is signed — the names under a book are the review.
Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel
What newspeople should know and the public should expect — the closest thing the craft has to a manual.
Recommended by
William F. Woo
Lessons on journalism and life from the longtime editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Recommended by
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
The greatest reporting story of all time — two metro reporters, a burglary, and a presidency.
Recommended by
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
Hunter S. Thompson
Gonzo's unhinged, dead-honest chronicle of a presidential campaign from inside the press bus.
Recommended by
Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel
What newspeople should know and the public should expect — the closest thing the craft has to a manual.
Get it: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Goodreads
Recommended by
William F. Woo
Lessons on journalism and life from the longtime editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Get it: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Goodreads
Recommended by
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
The greatest reporting story of all time — two metro reporters, a burglary, and a presidency.
Get it: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Apple Books · Goodreads
Recommended by
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
Hunter S. Thompson
Gonzo's unhinged, dead-honest chronicle of a presidential campaign from inside the press bus.
Get it: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Apple Books · Goodreads
Recommended by
Read something that made you a better journalist? Recommend it and we'll add it to the shelf with your name on it.
The paper edition is bittersweet for us. Print is disappearing from a lot of towns, and we understand every reason why — but something real goes with it. A paper works without a login or a battery. It sits on the counter at the diner. It gets clipped out and stuck to refrigerators. Some communities want to keep their paper, and we believe there should always be a way.
So we build for print on purpose. A publication on My Local Press can come out as a print-ready PDF, sized for different presses, formats, and print specs — and what you do with it is up to you. Run 8×10s off the printer at home, take it to the local copy shop, or send a real edition to a real press. You keep the relationship with your printer; we keep the formats compatible.
Nonprofit printing from the National Trust for Local News, built for the smaller batch runs community publications actually need. They run presses in Colorado, Maine, and Georgia, serve publishers across the U.S., and handle mailing too. If you produce a print edition — including a PDF edition built on My Local Press — they're worth a quote.
We'd like this list to grow. If you already print with someone you trust — or you run a press yourself — introduce us. We'll work with them to make sure the formats they need are available, so you can print wherever you want.
Teri Finneman, Nick Mathews, and Patrick Ferrucci's book on transforming the business model of community journalism. Grounded in surveys, focus groups, and a year inside a working weekly newsroom, it makes the case that local news can pay for itself — and shows how. This book inspired My Local Press. You can hear Finneman talk through it on PBS NewsHour, after another 23 rural papers closed in a single stroke.
Get it: Bookshop.org · Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Goodreads
How the loss of local newspapers fueled political divisions
Judy Woodruff's PBS NewsHour visit to Canadian, Texas, after The Canadian Record stopped printing. Watch the moment at 7:41 when a rancher is asked whether he always agreed with the paper's editor: "No. No. But she always made me think."
A song from around the same time as that NewsHour piece, asking what the world would look like if good news sold. It stuck with us.
Know a tool or service that belongs here? Send it our way. We check out every suggestion before adding it to this page.
Suggest a ResourceNothing on this page is sponsored. We earn nothing when you click through, and contributors aren't paid when a recommendation of theirs lands here — they just get the credit. These are just resources we've found helpful, and we hope you find them helpful too.
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