American Deadline

American Deadline brings together dispatches from four longtime local journalists in different parts of the United States that tell the story of 2020 anew.

Greg Glassner has more than forty years of experience in the newspaper business, the majority of it as editor of community weeklies in Virginia, including the Herald-Progress in Ashland. He is the author of five books, including biographies of Attorney General William Wirt and Governor William “Extra Billy” Smith of Virginia.

Charles Richardson is a McClatchy Journalism Fellow at Duke University and a fellow at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland. He has worked in newspapers, radio, and television and was the editorial page editor at the Macon Telegraph for twenty-four years.

Sandra Sanchez has been a journalist for the past thirty years, including many years covering the Southwest border and immigration for USA Today. She also worked at the Washington Post; was the opinion editor for The Monitor in McAllen, Texas; and is currently a correspondent for Nexstar Media Group’s BorderReport.com.

Jason Togyer is the founder of Tube City Online, a nonprofit news website and internet radio station. He previously worked as a reporter for the Washington, Pennsylvania, Observer-Reporter, McKeesport Daily News, and Greensburg and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

[A] unique and often heart-wrenching collaboration . . . the reporting is consistently fine-grained, evocative, and insightful. It’s a fitting testament to the value of local journalism.

Dan Kennedy, author of The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century:
Well-written and comprehensive, American Deadline is a fascinating look at how the tensions that are tearing us apart at the national level also affect community life.

Kim Kleman, executive director, Report for America:
For those of us trying to bolster local news in the U.S., American Deadline offers more compelling evidence for why this coverage matters. In a series of astute, nuanced dispatches, four veteran journalists describe the same year in the life of their disparate communities after their local newsroom has withered or died. Critical elections with no candidate coverage. Rampant Covid misinformation. No government watchdogs. This is front-line reporting that’s a must read.

Sewell Chan, editor in chief of The Texas Tribune:
American Deadline offers a fresh and unique chronicle of a year we’ll never forget—2020—through the lens of four communities where newspapers have weakened or vanished. These dispatches from the front lines of democracy—communities in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia—remind us of what's lost when Americans have only national (and increasingly partisan) news sources. American Deadline reminds us that local news is never more needed than in a crisis like a pandemic. We need local news not just to hold local officials accountable but to provide a more nuanced, textured view of politics from the ground up. Communities across America have been starved of reliable local news. This book vividly illustrates the dire consequences for our democracy.