As newsrooms across the United States close, years of reporting are at risk of disappearing. Stories documenting local elections, holding public officials accountable, investigating community problems and recording everyday life can become difficult or impossible to find when the news organizations that produced them shut down. Much of this reporting now exists only in digital formats, where it can be lost when websites go offline or archives are never created.
Local journalism captures the first draft of history in communities across the country. Preserving it means ensuring that future generations can understand not only what happened, but how communities responded, how decisions were made and how those decisions shaped people’s lives.
Two journalism organizations – the Poynter Institute and Investigative Reporters and Writers (IRE) – have stepped up to provide tools and training to preserve local news online.
For their work, the Internet Archive is honoring Poynter and IRE with the 2026 Internet Archive Hero Award. The annual award recognizes individuals and organizations that have demonstrated leadership in making information available to people around the world.
Training Newsrooms to Preserve Their Work
Poynter and IRE, non-profit organizations serving journalists for more than 50 years, partnered with the Internet Archive for the Today’s News for Tomorrow (TNT) program, a national initiative to help newsrooms with strategies for digital preservation. The project connects journalists with free access to the Internet Archive’s web archiving and preservation services to save their work. It also links them with support from local libraries, universities and museums.
“How are we to learn from our history if we can’t find it?”
Jonathan Kealing, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors
“Going a bit outside of the library and archives world, it’s often hard to find allies for these kinds of projects – not because people aren’t interested, but just the time and capacity,” said Jefferson Bailey, director of archiving & data services at the Internet Archive. “I think it’s heroic Poynter and IRE recognize the need, are willing to partner and sign on to do the work. They have been on board, committed and enthusiastic.”
With grant funding from Press Forward, a national initiative to reimagine local news, the organizations started providing training to newsrooms in 2026, covering a variety of media organizations from Alaska Public Media to the Chicago Tribune to the Bucks County Beacon. The target is to cover 300 newsrooms in six cohorts over two years. The program is open to journalists from any newsroom, not just IRE members. In virtual sessions spanning a few weeks, journalists are introduced to systems that make archiving choices easier.
“We have tried to offer a simplified solution to a really complex problem, and I think we’re getting there,” said Kristen Hare, Poynter’s director of craft and local news. “Helping them realize that they do not have to do this alone is a big part of the training.”
Why Preserving Local News Matters
It’s a challenge for many newsrooms to prioritize archiving when they are struggling to stay afloat financially, said Hare, who is spearheading Poynter’s participation. Journalists also have a competitive mindset, she said, and part of the education is emphasizing the legacy aspect of preservation.
“We are making sure everything exists, so that in 50 years reporters in our newsrooms, members of our community, and people who want to understand what was happening today, will be able to get an accurate depiction,” Hare said.
Watchdog reporting that has impacted communities needs to be available for future generations, said Jonathan Kealing, executive director of IRE.
“These investigative reporters and editors do so much work that has the potential to change lives,” Kealing said. “It’s really important that their work is preserved for the long haul.”
Often, IRE members are searching to tie multiple threads together to unlock a new narrative, he said. Having an accessible archive provides crucial bits of context that can help in uncovering a story. In years past, print stories were clipped and saved in a newsroom library. Today, much of the news is digitized and not intentionally organized for future use.
“The promise of the internet is that all that information is at our fingertips. But if it’s not being archived, it goes away,” Kealing said. “Having a preservation strategy from the beginning is really essential – to media literacy, and it’s essential to democracy. Journalism is the first draft of history, and how are we to learn from our history if we can’t find it?”
Bailey said local news archives are critical to education, scholarship, research, and knowledge production. The TNT project is making archives more diverse, the historical record better preserved and more accessible.
“We are making sure everything exists, so that in 50 years reporters in our newsrooms, members of our community, and people who want to understand what was happening today, will be able to get an accurate depiction.”
Kristen Hare, director of craft and local news, The Poynter Institute
Preserving local news can help readers make sense of what’s happening now with context from the past, Hare said. It also can help newsrooms create something new, such as a history newsletter, to connect people in a community. “So much of what we’re seeing and getting in the media today, feels like it’s designed to remind us of our differences,” Hare said. “The place where you live is something you have in common with the other people who live there and understanding its history is a really valuable thing that local journalists can offer.”
Building Partnerships to Address a Crisis
The crisis of disappearing news was the focus of the National Summit on Local News Reporting hosted by the Internet Archive, Poynter and IRE in June in Maryland. The gathering brought together representatives from memory institutions, local newsrooms, universities and others to discuss ways to work together and recommendations for next steps.
“We see news outlets going offline, changing domains, losing access to their digital record every day,” said Anna Trammell, program manager of archiving & data services at Internet Archive. “[Preservation] is a big challenge, but it’s so important and we’re trying to take action. We know that other people are feeling the same sense of urgency.”
The summit and TNT project could not have happened without the support of Poynter and IRE, said Trammell.
“The Internet Archive usually works with libraries, archives and museums, and it really took outside-the-box thinking to move beyond those typical partners and go directly to the news outlets themselves to support this work,” she said.
The news organizations helped co-design the training to address the concerns of journalists and develop effective outreach, Trammell said. They have served as “translators” to customize tools to meet the needs of journalists.
“We couldn’t have done this program without them,” she said. “They’ve built a lot of trust with the journalism community and are seen as experts in providing instruction and professional development. Having them as partners on this project allowed us to build those connections with local newsrooms.”
The Wayback Machine as a Tool for Journalism
The organizations have also been huge supporters of the Internet Archive. The Wayback Machine has been blocked by a number of news outlets recently and, Trammell said, this collaboration is a positive connection with journalists and illustrates the shared value preservation for the public good.
IRE members rely on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to unearth valuable information – including how political candidates or business developers have changed their language on issues.
“Whole stories can emerge from what was taken off of a website,” Kealing said. “The Internet Archive is out there as a neutral preserver of the way things were. The reality is, we as journalists, aren’t always watching. But the great thing about the Internet Archive is it’s always there…The ability to go look back at the way things were is a really useful tool in certain types of storytelling.”
Kealing said he’s impressed by the engagement of journalists in the TNT program. He credits his IRE team and his predecessor Diana Fuentes, who passed away in March, with having the vision for the project. “It’s clear to me that people are excited about being able to participate in this and learn,” he said. “This project brings together the Internet Archive, Poynter and IRE to deliver the right program for journalists when they need it, without duplicating efforts. I hope beyond this program that we’ll continue partnering to efficiently deliver training that journalists need when they need it.”
Celebrating the 2026 Hero Award
As for the 2026 Hero Award, Kealing said he’s thrilled that it might draw more attention to the issue and motivate news organizations to consider archiving strategies. “By training our members, we’re actually having a positive impact on the internet and a positive impact on the world,” he said. “I think that’s something really exciting to celebrate.”
The Internet Archive Hero Award is an annual award that honors those who have exhibited leadership in making information available for digital learners all over the world. Previous recipients have included Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the island nation of Aruba, public information advocate Carl Malamud, copyright expert Michelle Wu, and the Grateful Dead.
Added Hare of the Poynter Institute: “We feel incredibly lucky to get to work with Internet Archive and IRE and it’s also pretty cool to share an award that was once given to the Grateful Dead,” she said. “It’s a huge honor. This is quiet, almost invisible work, and anything that can make it more visible to people is really important.”
