Scaccia, Jesse, authorHumphrey, Michael, advisorKodrich, Kris, committee memberCarcasson, Martin, committee memberStecula, Dominik, committee memberLuft, Gregory, committee member2023-01-212023-01-212022https://hdl.handle.net/10217/236006The local news industry and local information ecosystems face dual threats: collapsing business models that have taken with them traditional pipelines of community dialogue, and an often broken, divisive, still-top-down dialogue when conversation within our communities do happen. This dissertation proposes to address partial solutions for each concern in turn. First, by looking at how journalism teaching hospitals, long a steady source of news in the communities they call home, are formed and what makes them thrive. Then, in the interest of not recreating a broken system, by exploring the intersection of journalism and deliberative democracy, and proposing a method for local deliberative journalists to uncover the issues a community itself would most like to address.born digitaldoctoral dissertationsengCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.Text