Ep #31: Repost: Conversation with Rob Gurwitt of Daybreak about journalism, media, community, and trust

Rethinking with Alex Torpey

From the Hanover Happenings podcast:

In Hanover, we care a lot about making sure people have information about what’s happening in their community. It’s part of the reason we started this podcast and why the Selectboard does business the way it does. But government is only one piece to the puzzle of informing, engaging, and activating a community.
In this episode, I take a walk through Pine Park in Hanover with Rob Gurwitt, publisher of the daily email newsletter that many of us know and love – Daybreak. To the sound of gravel footsteps and late summer insects, we cover a wide range of super important topics such as:

• The value of trust in how people find and consume information, especially during and post-COVID
• How information flows in (and creates) community and how that impacts local decision making, especially as journalism and “news” has changed in the last decade or so,
• The differences between economic and community development
• How Daybreak works behind the scenes
• What lessons can be reflected on from trying to engage a politically diverse audience,
• Leadership values that can be learned from journalism,
• Unique requirements and dynamics about involvement and democracy in New England
• And what the heck happened in Tupelo, Mississippi in the 1940s.

Rob has a long personal and professional history of not only working in and around government, but in finding creative ways through various mediums to inform and engage people, and ultimately contribute positively to creating community. Rob wrote for the Congressional Quarterly, spent many years writing for Governing Magazine, and has spent years in different ways writing about what’s happening and changing in communities. Rob helped launch the DailyUV, and since 2019, has published Daybreak.
You can signup for Daybreak here: https://daybreak.news
You can find the article from Governing Magazine about Tupelo, MI that we discussed here.

For all of the Hanover Happenings updates and episodes, you can visit hanoverhappenings.com. Find the monthly reports, agenda, minutes, videos and more at: Hanovernh.org.