The Wave

The new newspaper morgue of The Wave, a weekly publication in New York, covering the Rockaway Peninsula since 1893. Hurricane Sandy damaged the old newsroom beyond repair and the The Wave had to build it's newsroom and newspaper morgue from scratch.
I’ve been working in newsrooms for over 15 years, and I have a lot of affection for these flawed and endangered institutions. From Alaska to Florida, I’ve been inspired to document the coffee stained carpets and harried staff that make up the messy and dedicated people and spaces that bring small communities the news.
With over 2,000 local newspapers shutting down since 2005, news deserts are cropping up across the United States. Publishing mergers and downsizing have stripped away the kind of coverage that holds politicians to account and sheds light on neighborhood issues.
My goal is to document as many of the remaining local newsrooms as I can and show the ways they continue to operate with dwindling resources. Through still photography, video, and in-depth interviews, I want to uncover the solutions editors and reporter have found to continue coverage in this shrinking journalism industry and explore the potential success of new nonprofit and community sourced local news models.
With a growing catalog of images, video, and interviews across the country, I hope to create a historical database and potentially publish a book on local newsrooms. On social media, my goal is to use this documentation to engage communities in the search of and support for trusted local news coverage.