Announcing the Knight Election Hub to support newsrooms
Free and subsidized services will help publishers cover federal, state and local elections this fall
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A person going to the polls this fall will likely have a few dozen decisions to make. Collectively, these voters will elect more than 100,000 officials into office and decide the fates of numerous ballot initiatives. Beyond the oversaturated “top of the ticket” coverage, local news organizations are often the only reliable, nonpartisan source for the other *checks notes* 99% of races.
This election cycle, our focus is helping local publishers to support their audiences in three ways:
1) making informed decisions on exercising their right to vote up and down the ballot,
2) having confidence in the election process and results, and
3) recognizing the role local publishers perform in disseminating quality information.
Today, we are launching the Knight Election Hub, a collection of resources publishers can use to help with that breadth of needs. The Election Hub provides free or reduced-price resources and services to U.S. newsrooms covering the 2024 elections at the federal, state and local levels.
Our publisher-facing survey on election needs highlighted more than a dozen areas with a collective “high desire for assistance.” That interest spans the entire organization, from “compiling and publishing election guide materials” to “protecting my staff from digital and physical threats” and “reaching new audiences with marketing tools.”
The good news is there’s no shortage of providers and groups wanting to provide assistance.
What the Hub can do
This Election Hub aims to reduce two barriers to adoption: first, raising awareness about the many resources out there; and second, enabling access to ones that are otherwise too costly for small organizations. We are working to find solutions for as many categories as possible. We are launching with 101 total resources—including eight paid ones we are subsidizing from a Knight Election Integrity Fund.
Examples of paid services include Sunlight Search, which helps train journalists to conduct deep dives on candidates, and OpenSecrets, which helps them to follow the money that funds candidates and causes. Eligible publishers can apply on a rolling basis to use paid services. We will use that signal to allocate funds to the services most in demand.
We will continue adding services that address publishers’ known needs and monitor developments so we can nimbly respond to events that some are predicting, such as an avalanche of deepfakes.
This whole effort has come together in the past eight weeks thanks to the leadership of Scott Klein, a longtime news industry leader who recently joined Newspack as an entrepreneur-in-residence focused on elections, and to a crew of talented folks from OpenNews, MuckRock and Hearken. This team will continue to grow and evolve this service through November.
This is just one part of our overall plan. We will have other election-related announcements in the coming weeks.
If you have questions, please email elections24@knightfoundation.org.
Other news around the horn…
Research
🎢 Mixed signals in latest report on nonprofit news. The weather at INN Days in San Diego was a good indicator for the health of the nonprofit news industry: foggy and gray (“June gloom”) with some sunshine at the end. We’ve all seen the news about layoffs and downsizing at Texas Tribune and other nonprofits, and yet the latest INN Index shows continued strength for publishers in growing and diversifying revenues. As seen in the graphic above, more than half of INN members saw overall revenue growth from 2022 to 2023, with 57 percent seeing an increase in grants from foundations. Plus, two-thirds of nonprofit newsrooms have three or more revenue streams. But the report notes that there have been a growing number of mergers in nonprofit news, as well as leaders stepping down at outlets such as MLK50, City Bureau and Outlier Media. “Nonprofit news must adapt to the shifting tides. It’s crucial that outlets are equipped with agile and entrepreneurial leaders with written succession plans in place,” the report concludes.
💬 Twitter/X continues to be top social platform for news, politics. Despite the controversies that have surrounded Elon Musk’s tenure as overlord of X (formerly Twitter), it remains the top social platform for Americans to keep up with news and politics. That’s a takeaway from the recent Pew-Knight Initiative survey, which found that a majority of Americans get their news from X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, but their use of the platforms varies widely. For instance, only on X do a majority of users cite news as a reason they visit the social platform. More people on Facebook and Instagram get news from friends and family, while more of those on Tiktok get news from influencers and others they don’t know personally. In a separate study on politics, the survey found that 59 percent of Americans who use X go there to keep up with politics, while just 36 percent do so on TikTok, and 26 percent on Facebook or Instagram. More Americans believe X, TikTok and Instagram do more good than bad for democracy, though it’s the opposite for Facebook, with more saying it’s bad for democracy vs. good, 31 to 24 percent.
Impact
🌟 AJPalooza highlights staying power of local news in Minnesota. The American Journalism Project (AJP) had a recent gathering of its portfolio of nonprofit publishers in Minneapolis, which was a good place to highlight news outlets that were “built to last.” AJPalooza included a panel of folks from MinnPost, Minnesota Public Radio and Sahan Journal. “There’s a shared sense of accountability and possibility here; and without it, we wouldn’t be here,” said Duchesne Drew, president of Minnesota Public Radio, according to a post from AJP. “The fact that we all exist is a powerful testament to the collaboration that exists in this market.” AJP also highlighted the growth of its portfolio and the revenue of its members (as shared in its recent Impact Report), while Tonya Allen, president of McKnight Foundation, called for deeper support for local news as McKnight has done for Sahan Journal. The convening also visited local places of interest, including George Floyd Square as the fourth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder approaches, along with the Cedar Cultural Center, a gathering place for immigrants.
Legal
🏛️ Mississippi Today appeals to state Supreme Court to protect sources. A judge ordered nonprofit outlet Mississippi Today to turn over any documents related to confidential sources in its Pulitzer Prize–winning “Backchannel” investigation of former governor Phil Bryant. Bryant had sued the outlet for defamation in the series, which revealed the role the former governor and others had in a multi-million dollar welfare scandal. While the state doesn’t have any “shield” laws for reporters and publishers, Mississippi Today appealed the judge’s order to the state Supreme Court to protect its sources. “There has been no evidence presented to demonstrate our reporting was false because it wasn’t,” wrote the publication’s editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau in a special editorial. “There has been no evidence presented that our reporting was defamatory because it wasn’t. There has been no evidence presented that we relied on an unreliable source because we didn’t. For those reasons, we should not be compelled to turn over privileged information.” The Supreme Court’s ruling could set a far-reaching precedent in the state.
Experiments
🧪 Oklahoma newsrooms share lessons from data-driven projects. We’ve heard about the great project from the Oklahoma Media Center (OMC) with funding from Inasmuch Foundation, doing research in the field about local news and then granting newsrooms to try engagement experiments. The project was supported by Trusting News and Joy Mayer. But what happened next? The OMC detailed all 12 projects, describing the experiments that newsrooms tried and the results. The Frontier tested out a texting service for their audience to ask questions for an event focused on politics. The Lawton Constitution did a reader survey, with 600 respondents via Facebook, finding that people wanted more coverage of local events and festivals. The Oklahoman focused on the state’s 13 remaining all-Black towns, bringing attention to these historic communities by visiting them and writing profiles and vignettes. “Expanding beyond journalism’s traditional bandwidth, local newsrooms are interacting with audiences in innovative ways through the execution of these engagement experiments,” OMC executive director Rob Collins said.
🤖 AI-generated newsletter sent to the trash heap. Outside of the typical debate about artificial intelligence coming for journalism jobs, there’s been a more measured search for ways that AI could help automate functions to free up journalists to focus on reporting. One interesting experiment was at the online ARLnow website covering Arlington, Va., which launched an AI-generated morning newsletter to add more voice. While the newsletter had high open rates and the AI did a good job summarizing stories, the site announced it would discontinue the newsletter after a year due to stagnant subscriber growth, some factual errors and problems getting the AI to understand which stories were most recent. Worst of all, the voice they wanted to add to the newsletter ended up being “cringe-y or corny.” As in the example above: “Seize the mostly sunny 84 degree day, as the evening hums a similar tune, teasing rumbles beneath partly cloudy skies.” Maybe next time, they can prompt ChatGPT not to use Hallmark cards as an inspiration.
Jobs
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, Co-Executive Director
Learn more here.
Tiny News Collective, Operations Director
Learn more here.
Rebuild Local News, Chief Operating Officer
Learn more here.
New Bedford Light, Executive Editor
Learn more here.
Fellowships
Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism
$10,000 stipend for a year
Intensive training for mental health reporting
Apply by June 28
Chauncey Bailey Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship
IRE
Investigative program with stipends for travel
Apply by September 21
$12,000 stipend for 10 months
May 2024 to March 2025
Local Investigations Fellowship
New York Times
One year; fellows stay in their newsrooms
Apply by September 2
Upcoming Events 📅
National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ)
Hollywood, CA
July 9–13
Report for America Presents: Growing Statewide Support for Local News in Minnesota
Minneapolis
July 18
Oklahoma City
July 25–27
National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ)
Chicago
July 31–August 4
Minneapolis
August 15–16
LION’s Independent News Sustainability Summit
Chicago
September 5–7
The Association for LGTBQ+ Journalists
Los Angeles
September 5–8
Journalism Women & Symposium (JAWS) CAMP
September 13–15
New Orleans
Online News Association (ONA24)
Atlanta
September 18–21
Local Media Association (LMA) Fest
Chicago
September 24–25
News Product Alliance (NPA) Summit
Online
October 11
JFunders: Journalism Funders Gathering
San Francisco
October 22–23
Quote of the Week
“We need nonprofit newsrooms to fill the void as for-profit journalism organizations shrink or shut their doors. To report for the underrepresented, to report for everyday people and to be valued by them. But here, in this room, and day-to-day with all members of the INN Network, we also need to support each other. I do believe that, working together, we will continue building solutions for the field, the public and informed communities. And when our communities have the news they need, that’s when we’ll know this movement has been successful.”
—Karen Rundlet, executive director and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News, from her prepared remarks to open the recent INN Days conference
News @ Knight Credits
Written by Marc Lavallee, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Jim Brady, Jessica Clark and Kara Pickman