Amid shrinking local news staffs, a group of South Bend journalists is turning to the public to keep local reporting strong in the future.

The Tribune’s newsroom has gone from about 45 people to just 14 over the past five years. That means that a lot of local news doesn’t get covered — not only arts and sports, but also crime and education.

Now, the South Bend News Guild is holding a community summit. Bell says the goal is to generate ideas on how to bring in-depth local coverage back to the paper, but also simply to raise awareness.

Bell notes that these discussions could have ripple effects beyond the South Bend Tribune and maybe even spark a renewed appreciation of local newspapers nationwide. “There’s a lot of newspapers in the Gannett chain that are in the same situation as us, and that are probably in worse situations than us,” Bell added.