By now the crisis-for-local-news narrative is familiar. Everyone paying attention knows that the advertising-supported business model only barely pays the bills (e.g. Pickard, 2022), while the platforms (primarily Google and Facebook) get rich (Bell, 2021). We are aware of the problem of mis/disinformation seeping down to the local level, sometimes in the form of pink slime outlets (Bengani, 2019). And attention is still fragmented as only the most civically engaged tune in to local journalism (Prior, 2007).
However, there are bright spots, too: Nonprofit news outlets continue to multiply in number (INN, 2022). Philanthropy is pouring money into journalism at an unprecedented rate (Glaser, 2021). Local news outlets are gaining reliable audience revenue in the form of subscriptions and memberships (Chandler, 2022). And now, for the first time, there is growth in public funding for news and information initiatives at the state and local levels.
Here in New Jersey the Civic Information Consortium, begun in 2018, is entering its fourth round of grantmaking. Nearly $2.5 million has gone to 27 projects that span from arts organizations to local nonprofits to hyperlocal news startups. What began as a hope and a prayer has now turned into a robust funding mechanism to strengthen the state’s news and information for the digital age (Rispoli, 2022).
And New Jersey’s not alone. In California, the state legislature just granted $25 million “to support and strengthen local reporting in underserved and historically underrepresented areas across the state” (Natividad, 2022), a program which will be run out of the University of California-Berkeley. The Wisconsin legislature considered (but failed to pass) a tax credit for businesses who advertise in local media, which would have given back 50% of the cost of the ads, up to $5,000. Other innovations at the local level, like news vouchers similar to “democracy vouchers” for campaign financing currently in use in Seattle, are being incubated.
Of course, none of these efforts bring the U.S. anywhere close to other developed democracies in terms of the percentage of GDP spent on public media (Benton, 2022). But by taking these efforts down to the state level, we are able to engage people in a way that’s not possible when hyperpartisan politicians in Washington DC are fighting over Big Bird.
Sarah Stonbely, PhD is the research director at the Center for Cooperative Media in Montclair, New Jersey.
By now the crisis-for-local-news narrative is familiar. Everyone paying attention knows that the advertising-supported business model only barely pays the bills (e.g. Pickard, 2022), while the platforms (primarily Google and Facebook) get rich (Bell, 2021). We are aware of the problem of mis/disinformation seeping down to the local level, sometimes in the form of pink slime outlets (Bengani, 2019). And attention is still fragmented as only the most civically engaged tune in to local journalism (Prior, 2007).
However, there are bright spots, too: Nonprofit news outlets continue to multiply in number (INN, 2022). Philanthropy is pouring money into journalism at an unprecedented rate (Glaser, 2021). Local news outlets are gaining reliable audience revenue in the form of subscriptions and memberships (Chandler, 2022). And now, for the first time, there is growth in public funding for news and information initiatives at the state and local levels.
Here in New Jersey the Civic Information Consortium, begun in 2018, is entering its fourth round of grantmaking. Nearly $2.5 million has gone to 27 projects that span from arts organizations to local nonprofits to hyperlocal news startups. What began as a hope and a prayer has now turned into a robust funding mechanism to strengthen the state’s news and information for the digital age (Rispoli, 2022).
And New Jersey’s not alone. In California, the state legislature just granted $25 million “to support and strengthen local reporting in underserved and historically underrepresented areas across the state” (Natividad, 2022), a program which will be run out of the University of California-Berkeley. The Wisconsin legislature considered (but failed to pass) a tax credit for businesses who advertise in local media, which would have given back 50% of the cost of the ads, up to $5,000. Other innovations at the local level, like news vouchers similar to “democracy vouchers” for campaign financing currently in use in Seattle, are being incubated.
Of course, none of these efforts bring the U.S. anywhere close to other developed democracies in terms of the percentage of GDP spent on public media (Benton, 2022). But by taking these efforts down to the state level, we are able to engage people in a way that’s not possible when hyperpartisan politicians in Washington DC are fighting over Big Bird.
Sarah Stonbely, PhD is the research director at the Center for Cooperative Media in Montclair, New Jersey.
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David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
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Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
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Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
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Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
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Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
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Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
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Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
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Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
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Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
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Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
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Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
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Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
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Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
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David Cohn AI made this prediction
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
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Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
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Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
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Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
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Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
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Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
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Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
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Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
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Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
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Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
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Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
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Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
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