The opportunity now is to shepherd and accelerate a transition to an emergent civic media system. This new ecosystem looks different from what it will replace: while the commercial market rewarded information monopolies, what is emerging now are pluralistic networks in which information is fluid, services are shared, and media is made in cooperation with the people it seeks to serve.
We hear from two people who have been building state “ecosystems”: Rashad Mahmood, from the New Mexico Local News Fund and Stefanie Murray, from the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.
National Trust for Local News (NTLN) recently engineered the purchase of a family-owned newspaper chain in Colorado in order to sustain its irreplaceable local journalism. Is this business model a viable strategy to prevent vulture capital acquisitions of local media and closure of local papers across the country?
Newly established National Trust for Local News works “with communities to catalyze the capital, new ownership structures, and business model transformations needed for established local and community news organizations to thrive and remain deeply grounded in their communities.”
Learn about Southern California Public Radio’s engaged journalism work and Alabama Media Group’s project “Reckon Women: Motherhood.” Both are finalists for the 2020 OJA Gather Award in the Overall Excellence category.
What can you expect from the Census 2020 rollout, and how can you learn about your community’s confusion and concerns around the Census? Join David Rodriguez from Reveal and Diana Montaño from SCPR to learn about their process, hear questions to help you prepare for reporting, and find resources to support your Census engagement work.
How do local communities define themselves? How do news outlets define their audiences? And how do journalists know what’s important to their audiences and what niche they can fill? A recent report is a useful jumping off point for discussion of those questions. Join Amy Schmitz Weiss of San Diego State University, Jesse Hardman of the Listening Post Collective, and Madeleine Bair of El Timpano to continue the conversation.