Live show for Granite Goodness at the Rex Theatre in Manchester (Photo Courtesy of Granite Goodness)
The amount of alarming news hitting daily can be overwhelming. Amidst a media landscape where solutions and possibilities can slip through the cracks, Andy Demeo is spreading the good news. Demeo is the creator of Granite Goodness, a curated newsletter and podcast featuring stories from around NH and New England that he hopes will remind people of progress being made.
Demeo is careful to define what Granite Goodness is not. “When people hear ‘good news,’ they think of something fluffy,” he says, describing the familiar end-of-newscast story about a rescued cat or a random act of kindness. “That stuff is nice, but it doesn’t really matter that much.” Granite Goodness instead focuses on substance: housing solutions, energy innovation, climate progress, workforce development, and civic problem-solving.
“I’m not trying to deny that the problems exist,” he says. “But we have solutions for a lot of them, and we’re not so good at telling that story.”
The idea grew directly out of Demeo’s career path. After canceling plans to attend the Maine Maritime Academy — a pivot he jokes began with childhood dreams of being a pirate — he stayed in NH and earned a degree in environmental studies at the University of NH. He went on to work across sustainability sectors, including higher-education operations, climate policy, carbon accounting, and sustainable finance at Impax Asset Management, formerly Pax World Funds.
“I’ve done a lot of different things and learned how different sectors approach environmental or climate issues,” he says. “I felt like I knew so many smart people who were doing remarkable things, and I was always confused about why their stories never made their way into the media ecosystem.”
Granite Goodness is his answer. Demeo curates roughly 20 stories per edition from outlets across NH and New England, adding brief context about what’s working and why it matters. “The only original journalism I do is having conversations with people,” he says. “I just ask two questions: what do you work on, and why are you optimistic about our ability to do something about it?”
The approach echoes international solutions-focused outlets like Fix the News, but with a distinctly local lens. That philosophy moved off the page and onto the stage recently with Granite Goodness LIVE at the Rex Theatre in Manchester, featuring housing and workforce leaders including Mike Skelton, president and CEO of the Business and Industry Association of NH; Corinne Benfield, executive director of Stay Work Play NH; business leaders such as Amanda Grappone, chief vison officer for Grappone Automotive, which sponsored the event; and live music from Newmarket-based band Sneaky Miles. Granite Goodness also won “Best of the Slam” in the community category at NH Businesses for Social Responsibility’s Sustainability Slam at its 25th anniversary celebration in November. And Demeo was named the 2025 Young Person of the Year by Stay Work Play NH.
Granite Goodness reaches more than 2,500 subscribers and has grown into an Optimist Club — a loose but engaged community drawn from across the political spectrum made up of paid subscribers. “I want people to realize they can choose what they give their attention to and that there are a lot of really smart people around New Hampshire doing cool things worth paying attention to.” For more information, visit granitegoodness.com.
