The Local News Lab is a website launched by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to document and share our work and lessons learned around the sustainability of local journalism. Although our focus is the New Jersey news and information ecosystem, we hope that this website will serve as both a resource and source of conversation for our journalism, media, and philanthropic colleagues wherever you may be.

Three and a half years ago, with state funding for public media on the verge of being eliminated, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation began supporting media in New Jersey, by helping WNYC launch New Jersey Public Radio, and Montclair State University establish the Center for Cooperative Media and its NJ News Commons initiative. These grants have enabled NJPR and MSU to systematically tackle the biggest challenges facing New Jersey’s media landscape: increasing coverage of New Jersey-focused news and information, and strengthening an ailing news ecosystem by providing business and journalism training, establishing a story exchange, and serving as a hub of support and resources for news organizations throughout the state.

At the same time, we have provided some measure of stability to the ecosystem, with operating support grants, to the existing nonprofit news organizations in New Jersey, including NJ Spotlight, NewsWorks, and NJTV, among others.

Now we are poised to take our work to a new level, thanks especially to a major partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and we are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead.

Funding Experiments and Fostering Innovation

The next chapter of our work is an experimental phase in which we’ll try to understand and develop viable revenue models for both nonprofit and for profit news organizations. It’s a puzzle with many pieces: ad revenue, events, new products, traditional fundraising, crowdfunding, and a strong community engagement strategy – all undergirded by research on audience needs and mapping the existing ecosystem.

The question before us is: can we offer the right support, services, tools and training for local news sites to become self-sustaining over time (that is, with modest or no philanthropic support)?

However, the true test of our success with the Knight grant is whether or not we’re able to grow the ecosystem. We should be able to seed new sites with a high rate of long-term success, by giving them access to all of the knowledge and tools and resources we will have developed. It is not enough to preserve only what currently exists in the ecosystem; we want to grow it and fill the many gaps in coverage throughout the state.

As the Knight grant gives us and our local sites the flexibility to experiment and develop this new chapter, our media grants at Dodge will start to move beyond the idea of providing operating support to members of the ecosystem, and seek out those who can bring creativity and innovation to the ecosystem. We want to find the leaders who are doing some aspect of local journalism and/or community engagement work really well, support them and help them share their expertise with the whole ecosystem. In turn, this pushes the ecosystem to take its work to the next level.

We have to foster a culture among news organizations of embracing the continuous change in digital tools and storytelling, and give them access to examples and advice from those with a compelling vision for the future of media. How well these innovative ideas and practices are spread and adopted by the ecosystem will be another measure of success.

Beyond Media to Information and Engagement

Exciting as this next chapter will be, the third chapter is where the big ideas come alive. Imagine, a few years from now, that we have made significant progress on implementing successful revenue models and have developed a truly robust suite of services and training for the ecosystem. The ecosystem is strong, New Jersey-focused news has expanded dramatically. What comes next? We believe it’s a broader approach to informed and engaged communities.

This work can take many different forms: Government transparency and open data initiatives, a huge nut to crack, could help restore trust, which may in turn lead to more successful voter turnout initiatives. Hack Jersey (a group launched by Montclair State) has already gotten started on the open data work, having recently hosted a conference with 125 people (including municipal clerks, law enforcement officials, journalists, civic hackers and others) to start to tackle open data challenges in NJ. Sustainable Jersey is at the beginning of figuring out how to incorporate “community information needs” into its menu of action items – in other words, encouraging towns to recognize and value “community news and information” as vital to healthy, thriving communities in our state.

This third chapter is about understanding the ecosystem of information sources in a community – libraries, nonprofits, civic groups, elected officials, individuals – and more intentionally connecting the dots throughout the state between those who are passionate about imagining and making a better New Jersey.

These chapters, of course, aren’t quite so linear; they will bleed into one another, and we will learn and adapt as we go. And as we go, The Local News Lab will be our forum to toss out ideas and talk about the obstacles and opportunities we’re encountering.

We welcome your thoughts, your pushback, your questions, your ideas. Please join us for the journey.

Today’s Nieman Lab post on WFMU‘s new Audience Engine explains how WFMU wants to “build open tools to help radio stations (and others) raise money and build community.” The article also mentions the Dodge Foundation as a prominent supporter – we have given a total of $400,000 to help build the Audience Engine.

Why have we invested so much in a new content management system – especially when there are free tools like WordPress?

The biggest new start-ups, like Vox, are using custom made CMS’s that are built with journalists and audiences in mind, but custom systems are prohibitively expensive for most publishers, including the local journalists we support in New Jersey. And although WordPress is free, and it is a great tool, we also believe that Audience Engine can help tie together some of the most important functions of today’s news organizations – engagement, fundraising, and more – in ways that more general platforms cannot. The Audience Engine is built for media makers and newsrooms and the audiences who love them.

Moreover, the Audience Engine seeks to understand what audiences want and deliver it to them. It is “network agnostic” which means that it will break down the silos between radio, tv, print and digital media to create meaningful passages so that audiences and content can flow across different stations, networks and publishers, based on user interest. To put it another way, audiences care about good content, and where they find it is irrelevant to them. The Audience Engine is built on this concept.

Unfortunately, many news organizations are too entrenched with a competitive mindset to see the value in sharing, for fear of losing their audiences to another publication or radio or tv station. Part of the reason we have invested in this project is to emphasize our desire to see the kind of sharing and collaboration between publishers as well as the deeper engagement opportunities with communities that the Audience Engine is designed to facilitate. We are also signaling our confidence in WFMU to build this tool, given their track record for technological innovation, expertise in community engagement, and commitment to building an open source tool.

For smaller community news operations often unable to afford their own customized systems and hemmed in by the limitations of general platforms, the Audience Engine enables them to modernize their operations – for free – empowering them to broaden their reach, invite participation from the community, and raise dollars all in one package.  At the same time, larger news organizations, which usually have their own proprietary systems, can choose to adopt only the components of the Audience Engine that suit their needs.

Our support for the Audience Engine doesn’t just benefit WFMU. It benefits the entire New Jersey news ecosystem and hopefully publishers of all kinds far beyond the borders of New Jersey.

Photo of Dave Askins and Mary Morgan in 2012 by Michael Andersen
(via Nieman Lab)

Perhaps you heard the news that The Ann Arbor Chronicle announced it was closing its doors on September 2, which is six years to the day that it launched. Husband and wife team Dave Askins and Mary Morgan noted that despite making a living publishing The Chronicle, it consumed “nearly every waking moment” of their lives over the past six years.

It’s a story with familiar details. Any community publisher – any nonprofit leader, for that matter – understands the struggle to avoid burnout and the enduring pressure to make / raise money.

Much of the hand-wringing about the sustainability of news focuses on revenue, but The Chronicle’s decision to stop publishing is an important reminder about tending to our needs as humans too.“I’d like to stop before I am dead, because there’s more I’d like to do in life than add to The Chronicle’s archive,” Askins said in an interview with the Nieman Lab.

When we talk about “sustainability” here on the Local News Lab what we mean by it goes well beyond the business side of operating a news site. If your site makes enough money to pay your bills with some left over, but you are working 14 hour days every day and unable to take vacations, you are not sustainable.

Since reading the announcement, I’ve been pondering the role of philanthropy in supporting community journalism, both for-profit and non-profit, around these issues. What resources, tools and guidance can we offer, particularly given our familiarity with these same persistent issues in the non-profit sector?

In New Jersey, the Dodge Foundation supports the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University (MSU) and its NJ News Commons initiative to provide services and opportunities that address the challenges facing the news ecosystem. As the go-to resource for journalists and news organizations in this state, the Center is positioned to provide workshops, training and peer support on avoiding burnout, succession planning, and a variety of other topics that directly or indirectly contribute to more sustainable journalism. Not everyone has a Center for Cooperative Media to turn to though, so one role for philanthropy is to help establish more of these centers around the country. Admittedly, that’s a big undertaking.

A smaller, but equally valuable role philanthropy can play is simply listening to the needs and challenges of local journalism in our cities and states. By talking to journalists and publishers and gaining a deeper understanding and empathy for their day-to-day realities, those of us in philanthropy can help make connections to resources, whether they are our own resources (money, workshops, expertise) or someone else’s. Dodge, for example, offers capacity building workshops to help NJ non-profits with a range of issues, from executive and board leadership to financial management. Why not offer some of these workshops to for-profit news organizations, which face many of the same issues?

Other opportunities for philanthropy include: supporting training for citizen journalists who are important and valuable partners in the community; helping the community understand and value local journalism while also helping local journalism understand and value the community; and supporting the pipeline of the next generation of community journalists.

In other words, there are many different entry points for the philanthropic sector to support sustainable journalism. The more creative we are, the more impact we can have.

I have one lingering question about The Ann Arbor Chronicle which is whether they considered handing the site over to a successor – and if not, why not? We need more insight into their decision. When the founders of other sites decide they’ve had enough, we want them to have a viable option to hand over the reins to someone who will continue to serve the community. We can’t afford to keep losing valuable sites like The Chronicle.

For those of you thinking about what the end game for your site is, here’s a trusted resource for transition planning. It’s geared to non-profits, but much of the information applies to for-profits as well.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently made a $1 million grant to WNYC to support comprehensive coverage of health issues. Specifically, the grant is to “create a health unit at the station to cover three core areas—healthy living and wellness, health care economics and policy, and medical science and discovery—through a blend of high-impact investigative reporting, powerful first-person narrative, data news tools, and deep audience engagement.”

In response to that grant and other examples of funders supporting coverage of specific issues, an article by Inside Philanthropy discusses whether journalism funding is trending more and more toward coverage of specific issues and away from no-strings-attached funding. “Get used to it,” the article declares, as well as to the thorny issues that emerge when philanthropy funds journalism to advance its own agenda.

Making the Best of Limited Philanthropic Dollars

The article raises valid concerns about journalism funding, and I would add another to consider: When making issue or beat-specific journalism grants, are funders planning for how that coverage gets sustained over time? What happens when the grants run out? Do they expect public media and nonprofit news organizations to find other donors to sustain the coverage, or does the beat / issue coverage simply go away?

“What happens when the grants run out?”

As a funder, I wrestle with these questions a lot. And, to be clear, I do not know the details of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to WNYC, and I am not criticizing this grant; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are our New Jersey colleagues, and WNYC is a grantee of the Dodge Foundation as well.

I wrestle with these questions not just because I get inundated with requests to fund content but because compared to other causes or program areas such as arts, health, and education, there are relatively few journalism funders across the US. So I want to make the best use of limited philanthropic dollars using smart, long term strategies to strengthen the journalism field. It’s a “yes, and” proposition. How can we fund coverage of issues that we care about and strengthen the field?

Talking To Each Other, Rather Than Talking At Each Other

More often than not funders and news organizations may be seated at the same table, but they’re speaking a different language. Foundations want to know, “If I make a grant, will it have meaningful impact on the issues I care about? How will you demonstrate to me that you are making a difference?” Meanwhile news organizations are making a case for trust and editorial independence, and often skirting the issue of measuring impact. (Incidentally, this dynamic is true of all nonprofits, not just news organizations – nonprofits want to be trusted to do the work they do, and foundations want to know how their investments will pay off.)

What this means for nonprofit news – and what the Inside Philanthropy article explains – is more funding of beat or issue-specific coverage and less “no strings attached” coverage. As a funder, it is far clearer to measure the outcomes of a journalism project or beat than it is to measure the impact of providing general operating support. Yet both kinds of support are needed, because they work in tandem. In order to have coverage of the arts, education, health and many other issues we care about, we also need the journalism field to be healthy, which requires at least some allowance for general operating support for public and non-profit news organizations.

Meanwhile, the journalism community, desperate to stem its losses, is willing to chase grant dollars for beat coverage, knowing it is not a long term, sustainable strategy. Rather than hasten their own demise with short term strategies, news organizations can help educate funders on the importance of general operating support while also accepting that it’s legitimate for foundations to want to know how news organizations are measuring their impact.

Taking Risks On Behalf of the Field

This question of sustainability and strengthening the field goes beyond non-profit and public media, and I don’t mean to limit this discussion only to the dynamic between philanthropy and non-profits. As funders we are in a position to help journalism take risks – to explore and experiment with diversifying revenue streams and deepening relationships in the community – and we are in a position to do this for the whole field, which means we can have a positive impact on the entire spectrum of for-profit and non-profit journalism. In a nutshell, this is what the Local News Lab is all about – experimenting with sustainability models in service to the field. Our six partner sites are for-profit sites because we want to demonstrate how journalism can be a sustainable business without (or at least minimizing) philanthropic support. This doesn’t mean that all journalism can or should be for-profit (Dodge funds several public media and nonprofit news outlets), but non-profit journalism needs to diversify its revenue streams too.

Philanthropy alone cannot rescue or sustain journalism. Nor should it be philanthropy’s responsibility. Understanding, then, that there are limited dollars to support journalism, how do funders and the journalism community (for-profit and non-profit) work together to satisfy both partners’ needs? How should funders balance their support for issues it cares about while also addressing the long term sustainability of the field? How can journalism better define and measure its impact in order to attract more funding to the field? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

For media and journalism organizations, understanding how to get and keep funding from philanthropic foundations is often a mystery.

Part of the problem is that foundations on the whole need to be more transparent. Period. This post – in fact this whole website – is one of the ways we’re trying to be more transparent.  But also understand that to be open and communicative as institutions with deep pockets is to expose ourselves to overwhelming demands on our time and resources. Many program officers and directors care deeply about transparency and building strong relationships, but we also have limits to how much we can accommodate inquiries and requests for meetings.

Another problem is that there simply aren’t enough funders focused on supporting media and journalism. So there are huge demands on the ones who do, and not nearly enough money to fund all the good projects and organizations out there.

Having just visited with several New Jersey nonprofits (news organizations as well as arts, education and environment organizations) in our current grants cycle, I want to share some thoughts and hopefully shed light on some of the things you should be doing if you are seeking funding, what you shouldn’t be doing, and frankly, what you have no control over.

What you should be doing:

• Show us the possibilities! Make us excited to support your work – make us believe we’d be MISSING OUT if we didn’t support your work.
• Have a clear mission and vision. Map out the route to achieving your goals, and convince us that you are going to get there.
• Be smart about revenue – show us how you’re thinking about diverse revenue streams, especially earned income. Show us that you understand we can’t fund you indefinitely.
• Convince us that you collaborate enthusiastically with others (bonus: if you collaborate with other organizations we already fund.)
• Be honest with us about the challenges in your work, but embrace those challenges as opportunities. No one wants to fund an Eeyore.

The no-no’s:

• Do not skimp on doing your research. Really try to understand what we currently fund, what we care about, and what would resonate with us. We know this is not an easy task. We know you are not mind readers.
• Do not submit a cookie cutter proposal. We can tell when you do.
• If our answer is no, let it ride for awhile. We may not be shutting the door for good, so don’t be so persistent that we start to avoid you.
• Even if you don’t understand why the answer is no (shame on us) do not jeopardize future opportunities to be funded. Foundations should be held accountable for our work and for communicating better with you, and we welcome ongoing conversation, but it should be framed as an opportunity to understand each other better, not as angry complaints or criticism.  I say this, because you’d be surprised how many complaints we get directly from applicants and current grantees, and how much criticism we hear through the grapevine.
• Do not avoid measuring the impact of your work or talking about the impact of your work. We know this is hard. We know it’s even scary, because it forces you to explore whether your work matters — which is all the more reason to evaluate and understand if what you’re doing is making a difference. You have to be clear in your mission, and you have to be honest about measuring your impact against that mission. It’s not unreasonable for foundations to ask whether supporting your work is having any meaningful impact on communities or on people’s lives.

What you have no control over:

One of the hardest things for applicants to understand is this: even if you are a perfect match for our guidelines, we may not fund you – we may not even request a proposal. There’s a funny notion people seem to have that if you meet the guidelines, you should get funded. But grantmaking is complicated and it’s not always as logical as you would want it to be. It also may be that:

• There’s no money left in the budget for this cycle or this year. Sorry – it happens all the time.
• Another organization is already being funded by us doing the same or similar work. This is a very common issue.
• It’s just not the right timing. There could be a thousand different reasons why now is not the right time, but six months or a year from now might be the perfect time.

A couple of final points:

Ask yourself what unique value or idea or way of doing your work that you have to offer. Or what gap you are proposing to fill. Also, how is your work impacting the ecosystem within which you operate? That is, how well connected are you to other organizations, businesses and individuals, such that a grant to you would have a powerful impact on them as well? If you are operating as an island, don’t expect to get funding.

Feedback? Questions?

I welcome your questions and feedback, and also comments from other foundation program directors and officers who can add their own perspective.

Photo by Flickr user Teresa Stanton, used via Creative Commons.

Local, hard-hitting watchdog journalism is alive and kicking in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The team behind New Brunswick Today is taking on some of the area’s most important stories, covering city corruption, making government more transparent, and giving diverse communities across the city a voice.

Since 2011, this independent, bilingual community news organization has been providing fearless, independent coverage on a shoestring budget. This week they launched a crowd-funding campaign, asking the city they love to help them grow, bring on more reporters and expand the impact of their reporting.

At the Dodge Foundation we chose New Brunswick Today as one of six partner newsrooms for our journalism sustainability project because we were excited about their mission and passion for serving the people of New Brunswick. They are digital first but print a monthly newspaper to reach parts of their community who don’t have easy access to the web. They seek out sources in the community and publish in English and Spanish. They are creative, passionate, and generous, testing new ideas and offering lessons and advice to other community news organizations across the state.

Most of all, they are risk takers, willing to tackle tough topics and stand up for the public’s right to know. But they can’t do it alone. That’s why the Dodge Foundation is matching the first $5,000 in community donations to New Brunswick Today.

If you live in New Brunswick please help them chart a new future for local journalism in the city. If you live outside New Brunswick, consider supporting this bold experiment in bilingual, community driven local news. We’ll be sharing everything we learn working with New Brunswick Today over the next two years – make a donation today.

Want a taste of the kind of reporting New Brunswick Today does? Here are just a few of the important stories their investigations helped bring to light:

• New Brunswick Caught Falsifying Water Quality Reports to Cover Up Problems
• Millions in Sandy Relief Funding Steered to New Boraie Luxury Building
• Irregularities Undermine New Brunswick’s First-Ever School Board Election
• Police Release Secret Maps and Announce New Initiatives in Wake of Student Death
• NBToday Editor Arrested and Later Thanked By City After Reporting NBPD Ticket Books in Garbage

Learn more and back this project here: https://www.beaconreader.com/projects/support-new-brunswick-today.

Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of nonprofit organizations more than when a funder asks about impact.

Foundations demand that nonprofits measure and understand the impact of their work, but rarely give their grantees the resources to do that kind of evaluation. On top of that, many foundations have a low tolerance for risk or failure (i.e. lack of impact) as well as a reluctance to provide stable, long-term support. This is an especially difficult combination for start-ups, which need the time and patience from funders to show results.

On the flipside, nonprofits argue that evidence of impact is not so black and white – that they can’t know for sure if their work is directly resulting in change because there are too many factors outside their control. Which is often true. We all (nonprofits and funders) have to be comfortable with some level of uncertainty. But shying away from assessment because we can’t prove things is also a cop out for trying to understand whether the work is making a difference.

Which Metrics Matter?

In Media, there is so much being written about metrics these days—from page views and unique visitors to “attention minutes,” conversion rates, and renewal rates. The common thread through all of these articles and blog posts is that there is no consensus on what metrics should and do matter most. Among funders too, there are many unanswered questions about how to evaluate media grants and not enough open dialogue on the subject, which is why Media Impact Funders just released “Funder Perspectives: Assessing Media Investments.” This report, which is well worth reading, shares the results of survey responses from 30 large and small foundations as well as follow-up interviews with a handful of foundation staff (including me) to shed light on how foundations of differing sizes and media strategies are thinking about impact.

In the report, I point to the work of ProPublica and its president Dick Tofel’s leadership on the subject of impact:

“Some funders prefer to allow grantees to develop methods from the bottom up. ‘We’d like to see more of our grantees approach measurement like ProPublica – being clear about their mission and goals, and then assessing their work against what they say they intend to accomplish. Tracking it carefully and honestly, in order to learn and adapt along the way,’ noted Molly de Aguiar, Program Director of Media & Communications at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.”

Allow me to elaborate on that. And full disclosure: ProPublica is a grantee of the Dodge Foundation.

Impact Starts with a Clear Mission

Dick Tofel wrote a paper for the Gates Foundation called “Nonprofit Journalism: Issues Around Impact” that I would recommend to anyone looking for a very straightforward approach to this topic. Measuring impact, he emphasizes, starts with being clear about your mission. If your news organization’s mission is to inform the public, you should first understand where the gaps in information are. Measuring your impact means trying to assess whether your community believes it is more knowledgeable as a result of your reporting. Did your coverage directly help fill their gaps in information and understanding? Was it an important factor? Did it play some role?

Likewise, if you’re an investigative news organization, like ProPublica, and your mission is to expose abuses of power and spur reform, you should be asking, “What does it take to fix this, and who can fix it?” and then track whether or not anything changed as a result of your reporting. The same questions apply: Did your work directly lead to the change you wanted to see? Was it an important factor? Did it play some role?

Why Honest Assessment Matters

Assessment requires a level of honesty that can be difficult to admit to, but is necessary for gaining the loyalty and trust of your community first, and second, the loyalty and trust of your funders. If you’re not purposefully asking your community whether and how your work is making a difference, you’re just guessing about your impact. You’re not learning what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong, and therefore you do not have a clear understanding of how to effectively allocate your resources. Tofel’s advice to news organizations is to operate as transparently as possible. “Tell the world what kind of change you think you are having. The world will let you know whether they agree.”

There are plenty of free tools (e.g. polls and surveys and interviews) that news organizations can incorporate into the reporting process – preferably at all stages of the reporting process – and use regularly to engage audiences on what they do and don’t know, what issues they’d like to see covered, and what knowledge and experience the community can contribute to the understanding of a topic. It’s an iterative process that reveals how your news organization’s value is perceived by the community, as well as tremendous insight about where you should focus your energies based on the kinds of stories and issues your readers say they care about most.

Funders, You’re on the Hook Too

What’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, and so honest assessment is a requirement for funders too.

Foundations approach their support for media in different ways. Some support journalism for journalism’s sake – toward a more informed and engaged public. Others support media to advance understanding of a particular issue, like health or education. The aforementioned Media Impact Funders report does a good job outlining the diversity of approaches. Regardless of the strategy though, I think one of the key questions for funders to consider is whether we’re funding at the right level to achieve the kind of impact we want to see.

Imagine the issue you’re trying to address as an iceberg, with the easier, perhaps less permanent (but still valuable) solutions at the tip – what you see above the water – and the deep, systems-level solutions at the massive bottom of the iceberg underneath the water. The solutions at the top of the iceberg require far fewer resources than the solutions for enduring change required at the bottom of the iceberg.

So, at what level are you trying to have impact on a particular issue – where are you on the iceberg? – and do your grants match the resources required for that level of change?

If we’re not honestly assessing these questions and attempting to understand our impact, then we don’t know what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong, and therefore we do not have a clear understanding of how to effectively allocate our resources.

Funny how that works both ways.

Impact is not a four letter word. The more we ask questions and challenge our assumptions, the more we are transparent about what we’re trying to accomplish and share what we’re learning, the closer we get to making the difference that we want to see in this world.

For additional reading on impact, I also highly recommend Chalkbeat founder Elizabeth Green’s excellent paper “What We Talk About When We Talk About Impact.”

Ruler image by Humusak and iceberg image by Martin Fuchs, both via Creative Commons

(For News Organizations of Any Size)

Sometimes we get candid feedback from journalism organizations that they do not have the capacity or resources to try some of the new ideas and tools we highlight on the Local News Lab and in the weekly Local Fix newsletter. We understand. There are many chicken and egg situations when it comes to small, local journalism sites.

But sometimes there are ideas that transcend the size or capacity of an organization. I was reminded of this recently as I was preparing for a meeting with ProPublica to discuss funding (ProPublica is a grantee of the Dodge Foundation).

Here are five lessons from ProPublica which can help local journalism have more impact, even if your organization is operating on a shoestring budget:

1. Have a Crystal Clear Mission.

ProPublica’s mission is “to expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.”

Is there any question what ProPublica is trying to accomplish? How does that stack up against your mission statement? Does your organization have a mission statement? (Mission statements are not just for nonprofits.)

You may not realize how much flows from being absolutely clear about what you are trying to accomplish on a daily basis. If you have a clear mission, you can measure your success and impact against that mission, learn where you are and are not having impact, and reallocate your resources more effectively.

2. Be Aggressively Transparent.
Communicate Regularly.

How frequently do you talk to your community about the goals you’re trying to achieve? Do you let them know what successes you’ve had?

As a funder, I appreciate the concise yet thorough updates on ProPublica’s work throughout the year. I like to know where they are having an impact and to see how they are thinking creatively and strategically about their work. As a reader, I appreciate the blog posts that share behind-the-scenes information on their reporting process (some good examples here, here and here).

I like being kept in the loop.

If your organization receives financial contributions, whether from individuals, businesses or foundations, keep them informed of your work throughout the year – it will go a long way toward getting more funding and developing trust among your community members. Even if you are not dependent on donations, transparency helps people understand your reporting and decision-making processes, which helps build trust and deepen relationships.

3. Develop Partnerships.

Who do you partner with to distribute your stories more broadly? To report on issues collaboratively? To engage members of your community whom you’ve been unable to reach so far?

You don’t have to have a list of partners like ProPublica’s, but you should still have partners who can help you expand your reach and relationships in your community.

4. Highlight the Good Work
of Your Colleagues.

It’s a simple but effective and appreciated idea: publicly recognize the best work of your colleagues and community members. ProPublica’s “MuckReads” invites the public to share examples of high quality investigative stories via email or Twitter (#muckreads), and features them on their website and social media.

Wouldn’t you like your hard work to be recognized by others? Then do the same for your community. And if you do this in a way that’s true to your mission, then you are also serving your readers by helping them discover other great reporting.

5. Invite as Much Participation
From Your Community as Possible.

Local journalism organizations cannot thrive without a fully engaged community of readers who are invested in the work you do. If you are a regular reader of the Local News Lab, you know that we return to this point again and again and again. That’s how important it is to us.

If you are seeking financial support from your community, you should understand that people want to be asked for their advice, their experience, their help – not just for their money.

Here are just a few ways ProPublica encourages community participation via its “Get Involved” page on the website: talk to reporters – ask them questions, offer them feedback; share your experiences around a specific topic or story to help inform coverage; or help collect data in your community.

In case you’re still doubting me, I featured ProPublica’s “Get Involved” page in a previous blog post last summer. In the nine months since, they’ve added more than one thousand new community contributors. Wouldn’t you like an extra 1,000 people lending you a helping hand?

Much of the work we’ve been doing over the past year has focused on creative experiments designed to help local news sites develop community-driven products and services beyond local advertising. We believe that sustainability of local news demands deep models of community engagement and a diversity of revenue streams.

However, at a recently gathering, one journalist argued that no local newsroom is sustainable if they can’t afford to hire a lawyer. For too many journalists, one lawsuit could bankrupt them or their newsroom. Other journalists struggle to pay the legal costs of fighting to free up information from government agencies. Access to affordable legal support is one piece of critical infrastructure for independent media.

“No local newsroom is sustainable if they can’t afford to hire a lawyer.”

Over the last year, working with local newsrooms, we’ve been exploring what kinds of infrastructure community media need. In addition to legal support, journalists often ask for marketing help, administrative assistance, technology and web support, access to software, trainings, and insurance. These are functions that have traditionally been built into news organizations, but in our “post-industrial” journalism era, with the rise of more smaller, networked newsrooms those “backshop” services have disappeared for many journalists.

As part of our Journalism Sustainability project at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation we are exploring how we can set up shared backshops around these issues that serve newsrooms across the New Jersey news ecosystem. One of our key allies in this work is the Center for Cooperative Media and NJ News Commons at Montclair State University, who is already helping train journalists, coordinate collaborative reporting projects, connect coders and journalists and set up content sharing systems across the state.

A New Legal Resource for Community News

Photo by Tim Evanson on Flickr, used via creative commons.

Up until last year, the Digital Media Law Project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society provided ongoing support and advice for digital news startups. The DMLP provided one model for how campuses might serve the needs of local journalists, and we hope this experiment with Rutgers will provide yet another. This project will build on the recently published legal guide for news entrepreneurs authored by Jan Schaffer and published by the Tow Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism and could be easily replicated across other states.

However, we recognize that general legal guidance on common questions is only part of the solution and we continue to work with the NJ News Commons, and in consultation with organizations like the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Student Press Law Center to develop strategies for providing consistent, ongoing legal support for newsrooms of all shapes and size.

If we believe in the future of local news we need to invest in legal resources to protect local journalists.

As we experiment with other shared backshop services we’ll report back here on what’s working and what is not. And we’d welcome your ideas for how we can give journalism networks access to the same kinds of resources and support that have traditionally been built into institutions.

“In an age of participatory media, news demands participation. Or to quote Benjamin Barber, ‘People are apathetic because they are powerless, not powerless because they are apathetic.’ For people to pay attention to an important story, it’s possible that we need to work to make it possible for people to have an impact on the outcome of the story… Ideally, we can find better ways to do this than turning our Twitter icons green in solidarity with Iranian activists. Reporting on local civic issues offers the possibility of connecting people to opportunities for action in their own communities.” – Ethan Zuckerman (“Metrics for Civic Impact of Journalism“)

As a journalism funder, a common lament I hear from journalists and philanthropy colleagues is that the public is both uninformed and apathetic about civic issues – that people care more about cat videos and celebrity gossip than quality journalism. I don’t believe this. I share Benjamin Barber’s view that “people are apathetic because they are powerless, not powerless because they are apathetic” and that, as Ethan Zuckerman points out, news rooms need to understand that news is a civic tool that people are eager to put to use, but are rarely given the opportunity.

At Dodge, we fundamentally believe that community engagement is key to the sustainability of local journalism – and so do our colleagues at the Democracy Fund. This is why we have partnered with them to support “News Voices New Jersey,” a bold effort by Free Press to build meaningful relationships between local news rooms and their communities, to create a collaborative network of people invested in the future of local news toward vibrant, inclusive communities.

To understand this work, and start to see the possibilities and opportunities to reshape the local news landscape in New Jersey, we are sharing the announcement of the New Voices initiative below, led by Mike Rispoli and Fiona Morgan of Free Press.

A note to all Dodge grantees who may be reading this: across our program areas, you consistently raise concerns about how little quality news and information there is about any of the issues you care about and work on every day. Here is your opportunity to get involved in this initiative and reshape local news and civic engagement for your community. This is not a journalism project for journalists only – we can work together to build better communities in New Jersey.

You can join the News Voices: New Jersey project by emailing Mike Rispoli at mrispoli@freepress.net.

Free Press’ New Jersey Project Aims to Connect Newsrooms & Communities

by Mike Rispoli and Fiona Morgan

The conversation about the future of journalism has long focused on how to save newspapers, how to adopt new technologies for reporting and distribution and how to find sustainable business models to preserve the news as we’ve known it.

While these efforts are important, they focus on the business of journalism while overlooking journalism’s purpose — and the people it serves. Journalism isn’t just another industry; it’s the Fourth Estate, the institution charged with holding the powerful accountable. News organizations are supposed to inform their audiences and act in the public interest, and they play an indispensable role in any democracy.

But what happens to our communities when quality journalism diminishes or disappears altogether?

It’s not pretty. Communities lose out if they don’t have multiple news outlets that cover a variety of issues and feature a range of viewpoints. Studies have shown that when local news media is deficient or disappears altogether from a community, civic participation drops, corruption increases and lawmakers bring in less funding.

The future of journalism is, in fact, intertwined with how people participate in society. Communities need journalism, and newsrooms need communities — not as passive audiences but as active partners that will both shape and support local journalism and stand up for press freedom when it’s under threat.

We think the best hope for public-interest journalism to survive and thrive lies in engaging the public and empowering local media. That’s why Free Press is launching the project News Voices — as a way to connect newsrooms and communities and build a collaborative network of people invested in local journalism.

The first stop on this project is New Jersey. We plan to take what we learn there to other states across the U.S.

What Is News Voices?

Free Press had an idea a couple of years ago: What if we built a network of residents, civic leaders, journalists, academics and our amazing members, and brought everyone together to advocate for quality and sustainable journalism? If everyone has a stake in the future of news, shouldn’t we bring a diverse set of voices into the fold?

Free Press knows how to organize: Just in the last year we mobilized people to fight for real Net Neutrality and speak out against the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. What we learned from those fights and others is that the best ideas come from the ground up.

In New Jersey we’re going to harness people power to foster better local journalism. We want to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds, with shared interests, to make our communities and local news institutions stronger. That begins by elevating residents’ voices and giving them a greater stake in local news reporting.

This is an opportunity to bring underserved communities, neighborhoods and people into the conversation about the future of journalism — and to make the media aware of and responsive to their concerns. News Voices will give people a platform to speak to reporters, talk about the issues they care about and feel connected to the outlets covering their neighborhoods.

This kind of engagement will also benefit news reporters and editors who keep being told to do more with less. Our goal is to give them more to work with — more sources, stronger community relationships, tips for stories, and, most importantly, a readership that’s invested in the news they produce.

Over the next two years, we’re going to meet with local leaders and newsrooms to deepen our understanding of media in New Jersey. We’re going to listen to people’s concerns, hold forums to spark conversations between journalists and communities, and facilitate concrete next steps to strengthen relationships between reporters and the audiences they serve. We’ll publish research on New Jersey media and what we learn in the course of this project. We’ll produce tools that will enable newsrooms to maintain this level of engagement once our project is complete, and we’ll propose policies for lawmakers to protect local journalism and safeguard press freedom.

Throughout this work, we’ll be transparent about our approach, the data we find and both our successes and failures.

Why New Jersey?

The crisis in journalism is affecting communities across the country. As print, online and broadcast news outlets large and small have closed their doors in the past decade, the greatest impacts have been on state government reporting and local-level accountability coverage. The online news ventures that have emerged to fill some of those gaps face an uncertain future.

The Garden State is a microcosm of these challenges and opportunities. New Jersey is one of the most underserved states when it comes to the news; if it were its own market, it would be the fourth largest in the country. But the state is sandwiched between two of the nation’s largest media markets, New York and Philadelphia, which means the area’s dominant broadcast outlets often overlook the issues New Jersey residents care about.

The lack of substantive broadcast media in New Jersey has given print media — local, regional and statewide — an outsized influence when it comes to reporting and providing information to communities. Given the state’s considerable government bureaucracy (565 municipalities, 12 forms of government) and history of government misconduct, local journalism has always played an important role when it comes to disseminating information and providing a check on power.

The decline in the number of New Jersey print media outlets, the closing of regional broadcast networks and the evisceration of public media funding has left huge voids in coverage.

And there’s plenty to cover. The state has a nationally prominent governor with presidential ambitions. Communities in Asbury Park, Jersey City and Newark are undergoing major changes, leaving some longtime residents feeling ignored or disenfranchised. Atlantic City, known for its casinos and nightlife, is suffering from a major economic downturn that could lead to bankruptcy. And towns throughout the state — particularly along the Jersey Shore — are still reeling from Hurricane Sandy, which destroyed many homes and left many residents without jobs.

Perhaps because so many of these developments haven’t drawn the coverage they deserve, a healthy startup journalism community has sprung up in the state. Both nonprofit and for-profit online news organizations, like Brick City Live, New Brunswick Today and NJ Spotlight are growing audiences and gaining footholds in their communities. Projects like Jersey Shore Hurricane News are experimenting with social media platforms and unconventional methods of delivering the news. Montclair State University and Rutgers are researching the state’s media ecosystem and helping to build monetary and reader support for news entrepreneurs.

The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation has led the way in philanthropic commitments to funding sustainable local journalism in the state. And the Dodge Foundation is joining with the Democracy Fund to support the launch of the News Voices project.

Building a Community Around the News

What News Voices brings to this dynamic network of local journalism outlets and institutional supporters is a focus on communities. We’re starting from the ground up and using organizing tools to reach out to residents, neighborhood groups, activists and other community leaders.

A key to all of this is understanding that we don’t have all the answers. To build a community around the news, we need to listen to residents and newsrooms to make sure they’re helping us drive this project.

That’s why we need to include as many viewpoints as possible. This project will succeed only if we hear from you. If you’re a journalist, tell us about the stories you want to report on. If you’re a member of the public, tell us how the media could better serve your community.

You can join the News Voices: New Jersey project by emailing Mike Rispoli at mrispoli@freepress.net.

Original photo by Flickr user J. Stephen Conn

A New Experiment with the Center for Investigative Reporting

By Molly de Aguiar and Josh Stearns

Today is Giving Tuesday, which has become a juggernaut in philanthropy raising $46 million for thousands of charities in under 24 hours last year.

 

That is a 63 percent increase over 2013. This comes at a time when charitable giving is on the rise generally. According to Charity Navigator, “This is the fifth straight year that giving has increased and the first year to surpass the previous high-water mark of $355.17 billion seen in 2007.”

Giving Tuesday is an important hook for end of year fundraising, but it is at its heart a marketing effort designed to leverage social media and strategic partnerships to encourage a culture of giving.

Nonprofit news needs just such an effort, but on Giving Tuesday journalism organizations are nearly invisible.

Why People Don’t Give to the News

This year, Giving Tuesday coincides with the theatrical release of Spotlight, which is being roundly celebrated as not only a great film, but also a reminder of the critical role watchdog journalism plays in our society. What if we could use the momentum from that film — together with the model of Giving Tuesday — to help start a national conversation between journalists and communities, and invite people to participate in helping support the next generation of great local news?

The nonprofit journalism sector has grown significantly in recent years. The Institute for Nonprofit News boasts more than 100 members and that is just a fraction of the community media organizations that dot the media landscape. However, that expansion comes at a time when we are more and more news grazers, with less affinity for specific brands. In addition, most people still do not see journalism as a charitable activity.

The organizations that benefit most from Giving Tuesday are human services, medical research and international affairs. Media and journalism doesn’t even show up on the list. All of “arts and culture” together only accounts for 2% of Giving Tuesday donations.

People give to human services because it is the ultimate spirit of the season to help the less fortunate. They support global issues for similar reasons but also to feel like a part of something bigger; it is more of a political donation, like putting a stake in the ground for what they believe in. Donations to medical research are often driven by a personal experience, related to a condition that has affected them and/or family. These are really obvious, compelling reasons to give.

Journalism is not personal for people in these ways. They don’t see its impact on their lives. When they donate to a food pantry, they don’t also think to support journalists covering hunger and homelessness. When they donate to conservation groups, they don’t also think to support environmental reporting.

That is our problem, not theirs, and it goes beyond just a marketing issue.

News organizations have to do better at showing how their work intersects with people’s lives, but they also have to do better journalism that is actually rooted in meeting community needs and representing the diversity of our nation. We can’t comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable if we don’t build common cause with our communities.

Giving is a Two-Way Street

In a recent conversation, David Bornstein of the Solutions Journalism Network suggested playing off of the Giving Tuesday name and creating something called #GivingNewsDay.

What if #GivingNewsDay was about both people giving to news, but also about what news gives back to communities. It could be less about fundraising — though that would be a component of it — and more about a day of service. How might journalists get creative about physically going into the community, partnering with local organizations, facilitating conversation around issues, listening to the public, and using all of that to fuel better coverage that communities feel more invested in?

Like Giving Tuesday, #GivingNewsDay could include toolkits for marketing and promotion but also a menu of ideas for ways people can support news of all kinds. This could build on Melody Kramer’s work regarding alternative membership models rooted in community participation. Kramer suggests that journalists should open their doors to the public and make newsrooms places where communities can gather, share and connect. In place of financial contributions people could contribute time, energy, expertise, and other non-monetary resources. Drawing on Kramer’s ideas, actions could include:

• Helping translate important stories into other languages
• Sharing stories from the past year that had an impact on you
• Donating code, participating in a hackathon or volunteering at an event.
• Giving a gift subscription to a friend, local library or school

But #GivingNewsDay should be about creative ways newsrooms can open themselves up and connect service, community and journalism as well. News organization could collaborate with local organizations to help people support issues they care about and illustrate the linkages between journalism and civic issues. A few places are trying this:

• New England Public Radio has partnered with donors and the local food bank for a “Feed Your Radio, Feed a Family” campaign where donations to the station are matched with meals donated to the food bank.
• During Giving Tuesday this year, Guardian US is “donating all advertising inventory on its site on Dec. 1 to six nonprofit organizations focusing on providing relief for those affected by the global refugee crisis.”

Other ideas might include:

• Hosting an editorial meeting at the local coffee shop, and listening to the issues that people are most worried or curious about. Then committing to covering some of those stories and returning to discuss them again after publication.
• Organizing a community meal with a discussion around food insecurity, which would lead to follow up, in-depth coverage of the issue.
• Sponsoring a park clean-up day which would include a discussion about how journalism can better cover and help solve local environmental issues.
• Creating a community timeline with the local library, where people can share their memories of local landmarks and weave those together with stories from newsroom archives.

Obviously, a day of service is only a starting point. And to really begin to rebuild trust and engender new kinds of long-term support for local news, service to community has to be a core part of a newsroom’s mission year-round. There is a growing set of examples of creative and meaningful engagement strategies from newsrooms like the Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica that could be put into action during a day like this (and hopefully continued throughout the year).

In this way, #GivingNewsDay could become as much about raising money as it is about building community around the news.

…

Disclosure: In 2012, the same year Giving Tuesday was launched, there was an ad-hoc end of year journalism giving campaign called #Give4News (created by Josh Stearns, one of the authors). The goal was to get people to make their giving more public and make the case for why people should consider including journalism in their end of year giving. #Give4News was envisioned as a crowdsourced pledge drive for the Internet age.

What It Will Take To Build the Future of Journalism

Holding a mirror to society, speaking truth to power and producing coverage and storytelling that can potentially build bridges between people and communities are critical functions I’ve always considered a part of journalism’s DNA. This is how newsrooms hold a crucial role in how we build informed communities and how we serve the public.

Though there is also a necessary obligation for journalism to turn that mirror onto itself and to examine if/how we are building newsrooms that truly reflect what the future of journalism should look like and if/how we are effectively covering the communities we serve.

Over the next few months, I’ll be advising the Local News Lab through the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to do just that — explore how local newsrooms and journalists cover communities in deep transition, the role of listening in community journalism and how philanthropy can support efforts to build diverse, inclusive newsrooms.

The very premise of this project, to research frameworks that support equity and diversity in newsrooms and deepen community journalism, requires suspending disbelief that the status quo cannot be changed. As both a technologist and an optimist, that is a premise I more than happily reject. But as I continue to explore the deeply entrenched barriers and biases I have lived both as a journalist of color and encountered in executing this research, I also understand my role to tell the story of what is possible, elevate the work of leaders who are carving a new path forward and present what will it take for all of us to build the future of informed communities. I believe in building in public and so, over the next few months, I will doing that in this space — sharing what I’ve learned, elevating voices building the future now and presenting frameworks to support efforts that strengthen communities through stronger journalism.

When writing about diversity and journalism, it is easy to speak past one another in a vacuum of empathy and posture of defensiveness without truly taking pause to listen, explore and expand a falsely fixed perception of possibility. That is why for the first phase of this project will be focused on listening, learning how to build a shared language for diverse newsrooms, examining what has worked in other cities and industries facing similar challenges and explore how to build the future we deserve. In doing so, there is an enormous opportunity to learn from both inside and outside the news industry and to become better together.

There is an opportunity in this challenge to interrogate ourselves, our values and the role of journalism in building informed communities. There are distinct possibilities to expand; where practicing empathy is a form of community engagement, where our newsrooms reflect America, where listening is not transactional but rather a valued form of leadership and where journalists regularly step outside their own contexts and into the context of the communities they cover.

My work, researching strategies for how philanthropy can support these efforts and deepen local community journalism, joins many, many other leaders in this field who continuously hold up the mirror to help build the future of diverse, inclusive newsrooms our communities truly deserve. They are adaptive change agents: individuals who both see themselves as agents to dismantling structural inequities that journalists of color regularly face and architects to building vibrant newsrooms reflective of the communities they serve. They understand that building the future is a practice in playing the long game and, as Meredith Clark writes in Poynter, that “diversity is a practice, not a target.” By creating journalism initiatives that represent those who don’t feel as though they’re being spoken to or for, these leaders ultimately create both better journalism and stronger communities.

This is what I’ve learned so far: meaningful progress on this front requires both a leadership commitment from all levels of the newsroom and dedicated financial resources. Building diverse, inclusive newsrooms and deepening community engagement is work.

As civic technologist Laurenellen McCann writes,

“What matters is our willingness to believe change is possible and to use that belief to push ourselves to be present (with each other) — to see the ways in which issues and experiences distant from our own connect to our own. What matters is that we don’t submit to cynicism… but instead use our critical eye as fuel for the fire. What matters is that we suspend our disbelief that the status quo can’t be changed — that’s the hardest part. That, and really, truly understanding that we need to try *without* the guarantee that we will succeed.”

It will not be easy. Hard things are hard, after all. But our newsrooms and communities deserve a future that works for all of us. I look forward to exploring more of what that looks like with you…

Sabrina Hersi Issa is a Senior Advisor for the Local News Lab

Democracy Fund has been spending the past year learning from and listening to local journalists, civic leaders, and foundations. A participant at a small collaborative workshop in New Orleans takes part in that process. Photo by Claire Bangser/Roots and Wings Creative

We are at a pivotal moment for local news ecosystems. Alongside an accelerating erosion of journalism’s traditional business model, journalists are facing unprecedented attacks, legal tests, and a lack of trust from all sides. While some newsrooms have seen a spike in donations and subscriptions in response to this moment, there are still a huge number of important niche and local newsrooms that are facing profound challenges.

At Democracy Fund, we believe these local newsrooms are vital to ensuring communities have access to the information they need to participate in civic life, and that a healthy democracy requires a robust, free, and independent press. That is why, this week, we announced we are committing $1 million towards a state and local investigative reporting fund, and invite other foundations to join us in expanding support for local news.

Building on the success of the Knight News Match, the goal of the fund is to serve as a beacon and a guide for those who want to support local and state news, investigative beats, and nonprofit news. More information will be made available in the coming months here on the Local News Lab.

This fund builds on Democracy Fund’s ongoing commitment to transforming local journalism, striving towards audience-centered, trusted, and resilient news ecosystems. Over the past year, we’ve been spending time in communities across the country learning from and listening to local journalists, civic leaders, and foundations. Those conversations are helping us shape our approach to supporting these ecosystems in ways that are deeply driven by leaders on the ground.

We believe that healthy news ecosystems are diverse, interconnected, resilient, and sustainable. They are deeply engaged with their communities. Supporting and strengthening these ecosystems requires strategies that ensure the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As we continue with our ongoing commitments and strategies, this new fund, along with other projects announced this week, including a commitment to investigative reporting with our partners at First Look Media, and support for a new laboratory for community supported investigative news at New York University, will provide an infusion of energy and attention to the good work happening in local news at this critical moment.

If you have questions, or are interested in learning more about how to be involved, please send us an email us localnewslab@democracyfund.org. 

Read more about our grants announced this week, and Democracy Fund’s current grantees at DemocracyFund.org.

• $1 million towards the establishment of a new fund for state and local investigative journalism. We’re inviting other foundations and donors to contribute and collaborate.
• Support for The Membership Puzzle Project which will help develop and spread best practices for fostering community-supported news and information.

The Creative Agency Model for Newsroom Revenue

• How Bustle, Atlantic Media are expanding their agency services – DigiDay
• Can small community newspapers successfully launch digital ad agencies? – Center for Innovation & Sustainability in Local Media
• About 80 percent of WhereBy.Us’s revenue comes from creative agency work that uses the company’s data, research, and expertise to understand the local market – NiemanLab
• The rise of the digital services agency as a revenue source for local news publishers – WAN-IFRA
• Gimlet Creative, an early entrant to branded podcasting, is open for business – Poynter

Platforms and Publishers: It’s Complicated (still)

In the ongoing debate over how social media platforms are reshaping journalism this week brought an important new report from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. In “The Platform Press” Emily Bell and Tayler Owen chart “the convergence between journalism and platform companies,” and explore how we can maintain and strengthen independent journalism in the future. We’ve included a series of other recent pieces that approach similar questions from different perspectives.

• The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism –  Tow Center for Digital Journalism
• The Facebook Papers: A series by former Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile – Part One, Two, Three, and Four.
• Google and Facebook Can’t Just Make Fake News Disappear – danah boyd

Local News Lab Link of the Week
Our site is full of practical advice, tools and tips. This week, we recommend lessons from the launch of the News Revenue Hub by Jason Alcorn. There are a lot of great ideas for how newsrooms can strengthen their membership programs and expand community support for their work. Send us your feedback and ideas for other resources that you would find useful on the Lab at localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

Have a good weekend
Josh and Teresa
@jcstearns, @gteresa

The Local Fix is a project of the Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program, which invests in innovations and institutions that are reinventing local media and expanding the public square. Disclosure: Some projects mentioned in this newsletter may be funded by Democracy Fund, you can find a full list of the organizations we support on our website.

Welcome to the Local Fix. Each week we look at key debates in journalism sustainability and community engagement through the lens of local news.  But first, we always begin with one good idea…

The Role of Local News Amidst Disasters

Photo via USGS

Recently, the podcast 99 Percent Invisible featured a story about Genie Chance, a radio journalist in Alaska in the 1960s and the extraordinary reporting and public service she provided when an earthquake hit Anchorage. It is a truly lovely story, recorded live with a band, and is certainly worth your time. The episode got us thinking about the creativity, power and need for local news during crisis. Below are a few examples of how local journalists – of many different types – have stepped up to serve local communities just when they needed it most.

• Two Stories on Radio and Emergencies in Alaska:  Anchorwoman of the Great Alaska Earthquake – 99 Percent Invisible, Emergency ‘Radio in a Box’ ready to deploy – KRDB
• Radio by Boat: Recruiting Sailors in the Fight against Cholera – Internews
• Using Facebook to Crowdsource Community Support During a Crisis – TechPresident
• After Irene: How a Hyperlocal Is Helped Coordinate Relief Efforts – CJR
• How Breaking News Handbooks Guide Member Stations – NPR

(If you like the Local Fix, please forward it to a friend or give us a shout out on social media. Here is the link to subscribe: tinyletter.com/localfix)

When You’re a Newsroom of One

• Collaborative Freelancing and Tools for Freelancers – SPJ
• 7 tips for getting started as a freelance journalist – Journalism.co.uk
• Code Of Fair Practices For Working With Freelance Radio Producers – AIR
• The rules of the freelance game – Ann Friedman
• Freelance Journalist Safety Principles – DART Center
• Freelance Journalism and Small Newsrooms: Best Practices and Resources – Local News Lab

New Publishers Offer a Future Vision of Local News

• Outlier Media offers Detroiters actionable information texted right to their phones – Current
• How digital upstart Charlotte Agenda makes local news profitable – Digiday
• Morgan DeBaun on the growth of Blavity, covering #BlackLivesMatter, and the state of black-owned media – NiemanLab
• The new meaning of new media: In Miami, Philadelphia, and elsewhere – CJR
• The Tyler Loop fashions itself as a data-savvy, digital alt-weekly for the growing, increasingly diverse city of Tyler. – NiemanLab

Visual notes from the Collaborative Journalism Summit. Photo by Sarah Gustavus

Collaboration is an essential element for healthy news ecosystems. The relationships that develop through collaboration are the glue that help make local news more connected, responsive, and resilient. Indeed, Democracy Fund sees collaboration, not just with other newsrooms, but also with our communities, as key to the sustainability of local news. Through reporting partnerships we bring more voices into the journalism process, access new tools to tell powerful stories, and expand the reach and impact of reporting.

That’s why Democracy Fund is partnering with Rita Allen Foundation in supporting the Center for Cooperative Media’s fund to support collaborative reporting projects at newsrooms across the country. We are helping double the number of grants the collaborative journalism fund can give, and supporting the Center for Cooperative Media’s efforts to document best practices and disseminate learnings across the industry.

The fund will give grants of $7,000 each to support six collaborative reporting projects.

The deadline for proposals is Friday, June 30.

We’ve written many times about the challenges and benefits of collaboration on the Local News Lab and in the Local Fix, our weekly newsletter. These grants will serve as a spark to help newsrooms test new models and build new relationships. At Democracy Fund and the Local News Lab we are especially interested in collaborations that include audience engagement, diverse partners, and local news organizations.

Read more about the new fund and open call for proposals at the Center for Cooperative Media’s website and read more tips on collaboration here at the Local News Lab:

• Four Steps for News Orgs to Start Collaborating with Ethnic Media
• Best Practices in Journalism Collaborations
• Keys to successful local-national news collaborations: What can you do today to be a Partnership Sherpa?
• The Collaboration Zone: Good Reads on Collaboration
• A Journalism Collaboration Lifts Up the Voices of New Brunswick’s Working Poor
• Hurdles to collaboration: Local newsrooms cite resources, lack of interest and not knowing who to ask
• Three Ways Local and National Collaborations Partner Now
• Why does The Marshall Project’s ‘The Next to Die’ collaborative data initiative work so well?
• Collabor-ade: Interesting Collaboration Projects