Dan and Ellen talk with Todd Landfried, co-founder and CEO of N2 Media Holdings. As consumers cut the cord on cable TV, he hopes to develop a sustainable model for local news production. We know from our research here at What Works that local television news is still highly trusted. His mission: to reinvent local news for the streaming era.

Ellen is back and fully bionic after a short hiatus for knee replacement surgery.

Dan has a Quick Take about a finding in a recent report by LION Publishers that gets into how to think about raising money. LION, as most of our listeners know, stands for Local Independent Online News. Anyway, its latest sustainability report found that startup news organizations can't just hope that revenues are something that are going to materialize. Fundraising takes dedicated employees, as Dan will explain.

Ellen's Quick Take is on an alt-weekly in Seattle called The Stranger that has become an influential political force. This summer, 47 candidates for local office paid a call on the newsroom in order to seek an editorial endorsement. And they brought snacks!

Dan talks with Kade Krichko, the founder of Ori Magazine, a beautifully crafted premium print publication devoted to grassroots storytelling across the globe. Kade describes himself as a world wanderer with a knack for misadventure. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, ESPN, VICE, and Outside, among other publications. He admits to loving a good story, and writes, "If the tale has a pulse, I'm listening." Kade is a Northeastern University graduate, and a part-time lecturer in the School of Journalism. He created and taught a course in Sports, Media and Digital Storytelling.

Dan also checks in with longtime political journalist Jon Keller. Jon was recently laid off by WBZ-TV (Channel 4) after a 20-year career there. He was one of five staff members who lost their jobs as part of what appears to be a deep corporate purge by David Ellison, whose Skydance Media company bought Paramount earlier this fall. CBS is part of Paramount, and WBZ is part of CBS. Jon is not going away, fortunately, and is still writing for MASSterList and Boston Magazine. He has some sharp observations on the role of local TV news in covering state and city politics. (Ellen is recovering from knee replacement surgery but is producing behind the scenes. She'll return soon.)

Later on in the podcast, Dan has a Quick Take about the latest bad news from our tech overlords. The Columbia Journalism Review reports that the new AI-powered web browsers designed to replace Chrome and Safari are able to circumvent a news organization's digital paywall. Not always — it depends on the technology that was used to build the paywall. But at a time when publishers are already losing traffic because of AI, this is a direct assault on the business model for journalism in the digital age.

Dan is flying solo this week because Ellen is recovering from knee-replacement surgery. But fear not — she's behind the scenes making sure this episode gets recorded properly, and she edited what you are listening to. She'll be back on the air soon.

Our guest is Rick Goldsmith, a veteran filmmaker who has taken a close look at the state of corporate journalism in America. His documentary "Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink" tells the story of Alden Global Capital, the secretive hedge fund that has bought up many of our greatest newspapers and stripped them of their real estate and slashed their newsrooms. He focuses on one of Alden's papers, The Denver Post, and the rise of The Colorado Sun, a digital startup begun by former Post journalists. The story of what happened in Colorado is also one that Ellen and I tell in our book, "What Works in Community News."

The reason we're having Rick on now is that you'll be able to watch "Stripped for Parts" through December 31st for free on the PBS app, which you can access through Apple TV, Roku, Google Play and most smart TVs.

Dan has a Quick Take about Jay Rosen, who retired earlier this year from New York University and is now taking on a new challenge. Jay is probably best known to his younger followers as an incisive media critic. But his true passion, going back to the 1990s, is finding ways to involve members of the public in the production of journalism. Now he's doing it again — and it could have implications for local news.