Local News Network

The Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism aids news outlets throughout Maryland by creating important localized news content and by teaming those news outlets with student reporters.

Merrill College launched the Local News Network in the summer of 2022 thanks to an anchor commitment from the Andrew and Julie Klingenstein Family Fund. The college created the Local News Network to strengthen local news coverage throughout Maryland while providing students with invaluable experience in local news reporting.

Award-winning journalist Jerry Zremski leads the Local News Network. Zremski was the Washington bureau chief for The Buffalo News from 2007-2022 and a reporter for the publication since 1984. He spent two stints as a Merrill adjunct lecturer before joining the full-time faculty.

Zremski serves as lead instructor for a midlevel reporting course focused on beat reporting. Every semester, dozens of Merrill students who take that course take part in a project that aims to provide important content to support overtaxed Maryland news outlets.

The Local News Network also offers an internship program that provides stipends to several students each summer to intern at a local news outlet. Students typically pursue those internships after their sophomore or junior year. The stipends cover living expenses and summer tuition credits.

Follow the Local News Network on Twitter @LNNMaryland. For more information on the Local News network, email Jerry Zremski at jzremski@umd.edu.

Projects

Maryland School Board Election Voter Guide (October 2024)

The Local News Network surveyed all 109 candidates, 74 of whom responded, and published all candidate Q&As, organized by Maryland county. LNN also published five stories on Merrill College's Capital News Service, diving deeper into key findings revealed by the survey responses — including opinions about the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, book banning, cellphones in schools, school safety and gender identity.

Child care: Missing in Maryland? (June/July 2024)

"Child care: Missing in Maryland?" is the Local News Network's comprehensive look at the child care shortages that have developed in most parts of the state since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Included were an overview of the shortages, a look at the difficulty parents have in assessing the quality of child care facilities, an assessment of what the shortage means for the state's plans to expand pre-K, and a look at innovative child care solutions outside of Maryland. The project also includes a close look at what's happening with child care in each of the state's 23 counties as well as the city of Baltimore.

Behind the Blueprint (March/May 2024)

"Behind the Blueprint" is the Local News Network's comprehensive report on the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, the 10-year, multibillion-dollar plan to remake public education in the state. Included were an overview of the Blueprint and its fiscal impact, along with stories related to its "five pillars": hiring more skilled and diverse teachers, improving college and career readiness, expanding access to pre-K, bolstering school funding and ensuring that the Blueprint actually works. "Behind the Blueprint" also includes summaries of the strengths, weaknesses and funding changes under the Blueprint plans of each of the state's 24 school districts.

Contracted Out (August 2023)

Maryland's school districts are required by law to tell the state how they spend their money — and the Local News Network took a close look at that data. The records include every business or individual contractor that got $25,000 or more from a school district in a single fiscal year. The project includes a series of stories and a publicly available interactive database that shows how every district spends their money.

Maryland Board of Education Voter Guide (October 2022)

With schools in Maryland facing issues ranging from pandemic-related learning losses to safety, the Local News Network sent a questionnaire to all 155 school board candidates to get their views on important issues ahead of the 2022 midterm election. The results were published in their entirety by Capital News Service with candidates organized by county. Reporters followed up with multiple stories on trends that showed up in the results of the questionnaire.