Changing the narrative of local news from shrinkage to growth
Knight’s Growth Challenge Fund is incubating growth at six news outlets around the country
There’s a gloomy narrative about local news that seems to suck all the air out of the room: layoffs, closures, vulture capitalists, “ghost” newspapers with no local employees. But there’s another narrative that needs to be told. That’s one of expansion, growth and possibilities. There are news outlets of different business-model persuasions that have proven themselves and are ready to move into adjacent markets, most importantly news deserts. (And a recent Poynter report on local news at least hedged with the subhead: “Neither boom nor gloom.”)
That’s why we launched the Knight Growth Challenge Fund, with $5.4 million to invest in news outlets with a proven track record in quality journalism and business chops. This fund will help support those outlets’ plans for expansion into new markets while fertilizing news deserts and expanding access to quality journalism in communities that badly need it.
The fund’s first investments are going to six excellent local news organizations that will receive two years of support to add staff, strengthen technology and improve marketing. These outlets are for-profit and nonprofit, small and large, and located from coast to coast. Each one has already created a strong newsroom along with a business plan to expand their operations into new markets. These are the initial newsrooms we are investing in:
The Assembly (statewide in North Carolina)
Cityside (Richmond, Calif.)
The Post and Courier (Myrtle Beach and Columbia, S.C.)
The Salt Lake Tribune (statewide in Utah)
Spotlight PA (State College, Pa.)
Georges Media/Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate (Shreveport, La.)
Our investments come with custom support from consulting firm Blue Engine to help these publishers pull off the expansions. Along with that, the newsrooms will practice radical transparency by publicly publishing detailed reports and data on how their expansions are going. Blue Engine will be capturing relevant insights and also reporting them publicly so other publishers can follow the lead of these expansions—and perhaps become part of future cohorts.
Can the narrative around shrinkage in local news ever change to one of positive growth? Maybe not overnight, but it’s nice to see Nieman Lab covering the expansion of one of our grantees, The Assembly, in North Carolina. “Should it succeed in reaching sustainability, it could lift other, smaller publications’ boats with its tide,” wrote Sophie Culpepper. That’s the ticket. And the New York Times recently covered the change of the Minneapolis Star Tribune to the Minnesota Star Tribune, with the comment, “The expansion is a rare big bet in the newspaper industry.”
Our goal is to make these kinds of big bets less rare, helping newsrooms with established business models slide on over to nearby towns in news deserts where they can replicate or create a new model to serve more communities.
Other news around the horn…
Elections
🍕Boost your election coverage and get free pizza! As election season approaches, news publishers will want to learn how the Knight Election Hub can help them improve their coverage. At the LION Independent News Sustainability Summit in Chicago, there will be a series of lightning talks today during lunch at 12:15 pm, and then small group discussions. And if that’s not enticement enough, there will be free pizza, too. Talkers include Mary Walter-Brown from News Revenue Hub, Brandi Swicegood from Sunlight Search, Josh Hoffner from Associated Press and Bridget Thoreson from Hearken. Each of the presenters will then lead the breakout discussions. Don’t miss your chance to up your election coverage game. And eat pizza.
Policy
🤖 Google cuts controversial deal with California to support local news. Google cut a deal with the state of California to provide $250 million over five years to support local newsrooms, including $100 million in the first year, with funding split by Google, state money and private funds. Google is providing less money in the first year than it did in its deal with the Canadian government, and the funding wouldn’t go to public media, TV stations or startups. “We have concerns that this proposal lacks sufficient funding for newspapers and local media, and doesn’t fully address the inequities facing the industry,” Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Sonoma) said. Steve Waldman, president of Rebuild Local News, called the deal “a down payment” on reviving local news in the Golden State, but noted that “those who care about local news should continue to fight for more effective support for the outlets that inform California’s communities in the coming years.”
Investments
🎂 Student Press Law Center gets $1.2 million from Knight. On its 50th birthday, the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) received a $1.2 million investment from Knight Foundation to expand its important pro bono legal support for student journalists. The timing is fortuitous, as student journalists are becoming more crucial in coverage of local communities (see Research item below). The funding will help college journalists as they return to school this fall, likely with more campus protests related to the war between Hamas and Israel. SPLC offers a free legal hotline, pre-publication vetting, legal training and other resources for student reporters. Staff attorneys work with thousands of student journalists each year, helping them with obtaining public records, censorship, privacy, defamation and more. “The Knight Foundation has played a critical role in SPLC’s history and we are beyond grateful to extend that relationship as the organization celebrates its 50th anniversary and charts its next chapter,” SPLC executive director Gary Green said.
💰 MLK50 gets $1 million from MacArthur. MLK50: Justice Through Journalism has been on a roll, even in the midst of an executive transition. In May, Knight announced a $500,000 grant over five years to the Memphis newsroom, and now MacArthur Foundation doubled that, with a $1 million grant over three years. Both investments are part of Press Forward’s aligned grantmaking. The latest grant will help MLK50 expand its editorial and business teams, doing more investigative reporting while increasing engagement work to reach more Memphians. In May, founder Wendi Thomas passed the torch to executive editor Adrienne Johnson Martin, who is also co-executive director on the editorial side. The outlet is in the process of hiring a co-executive director on the business side. “Getting additional support from the MacArthur Foundation really feels fortifying,” said Martin. “It’s a powerful vote of confidence as we continue to strengthen MLK50 to continue great work in Memphis.”
Research
📹 Video podcasts explode as YouTube dominates. Did you know that YouTube is actually the king of podcasts, eclipsing both Spotify and Apple? That’s according to data from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights showing that YouTube is the most popular platform for podcast consumption over the past two years (see chart above). Watching talking heads talk, which seems slightly more interesting than watching paint dry, is all the rage among the youngs. Washington Post’s Erik Wemple traced the trend back to shock jock Don Imus appearing on C-SPAN in 1994, and then eventually moving to MSNBC. The Cumulus/Signal Hill research shows that podcast audiences aged 18 to 34 outpace older folks in watching video podcasts and letting them play in the background. Wemple finds that YouTube didn’t even realize it was becoming a podcast player in 2021, and eventually rolled out a special program for podcasters, including search, audience metrics and clip-sharing capabilities. So why watch? “It’s more relatable,” said 21-year-old student Snehil Sharma. “I can feel myself sitting with those people having that discussion there, instead of just listening to them.” Can an audio podcast curmudgeon switch to video? “I’ll be watching my podcasts from here on out, if only to seem a bit more with it,” Wemple concludes.
🎓 Student journalists produced more than 17,000 stories last year. Student journalists are rarely considered when it comes to thinking about who might fill the gaps left by so many lost journalism jobs across the country. But that’s changing as the Center for Community News (CCN) at the University of Vermont has been doing research and helping develop more university-led programs that partner with local newsrooms. The latest CCN report came from a survey of 73 news-academic reporting programs between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. The Center found that 2,874 students participated in those programs, creating more than 17,000 pieces of journalism in more than 1,300 professional news outlets. Plus, the students’ work collectively garnered more than 13 million page views. CCN also found that most stories included at least three sources, while 80 percent of the stories included additional historical, geographic or other context to add more depth.
💪🏽 Statewide nonprofit newsrooms are building trust, civic engagement. We all know about the rise of statewide nonprofit newsrooms across the country and how they have brought back crucial coverage of statehouses. But what impact have they had in communities? Lenfest Institute decided to find out by studying three newsrooms: New Hampshire Public Radio, Bridge Michigan and Montana Free Press. They found that the outlets had built trust by covering important issues in their states, with 90 percent of readers saying they trust the information they get from these newsrooms. Plus, these readers are better informed about state and local issues and are more likely to engage in civic activities than those who get news from other outlets. In fact, many of the readers said the stories prompted them to learn more about the topics and take action to solve civic issues. The research concludes that these outlets should “seek not to measure just their legislative and policy impact, but also the effects on their community…Identifying community impact is one way to show the democratic importance of an independent press, an urgent imperative in a rapidly changing media environment.”
Call-outs
Democracy Day: Newsrooms can sign up to participate in a collaboration to cover democracy in America on September 15. Last year’s effort included 90 newsrooms filing 136 stories.
Report for America: Newsrooms can apply to host a Corps member for up to three years. Publishers have to come up with a specific beat and help support the reporter and fundraise to help cover their salary. Deadline is September 13.
Jobs
EdSource, CEO
Learn more here.
The Marshall Project, Chief Development Officer
Learn more here.
Journalism Funding Partners, Director of Operations
Learn more here.
Fellowships
Chauncey Bailey Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship
IRE
Investigative program with stipends for travel
Apply by September 21
Upcoming Events 📅
Journalism Women & Symposium (JAWS) CAMP
New Orleans
September 13–15
Free Speech at the Crossroads: A Silicon Valley Dialogue
San Jose, Calif.
September 18–20
Online News Association (ONA24)
Atlanta
September 18–21
Local Media Association (LMA) Fest
Chicago
September 24–25
Keane, NH
September 25–26
News Product Alliance (NPA) Summit
Online
October 11
JFunders: Journalism Funders Gathering
San Francisco
October 22–23
Quote of the Week
“The HBCU Collaborative represents a significant step forward in addressing the challenges of the HBCU journalism landscape. By fostering collaboration, providing essential resources, and empowering HBCU student media outlets focused on meeting the information needs of urban and rural HBCU communities, we aim to create a thriving and sustainable ecosystem for journalism in and around the nation’s Black colleges.”
—Michael Grant, visual storyteller and design strategist, on the launch of the new HBCU Collaborative
News @ Knight Credits
Written by Duc Luu, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Jim Brady, Jessica Clark and Kara Pickman