As conferences return in force, the future for diverse journalism is bright
The alphabet soup of summer conferences this season has brought journalists of color to the fore
Over the past several weeks, Knight’s Journalism team has crisscrossed the country attending a number of conferences, including the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) in Chicago, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) in Los Angeles and the joint National Association for Black Journalists (NABJ)/National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) conference in Las Vegas.
One of the pervasive and encouraging themes at these conferences has been the many new efforts owned by and/or serving audiences of color. For so many years, the legacy media system was rightly criticized for its failure in both covering communities of color and hiring journalists of color. One of the wonderful things about the rise of digital media is it has allowed a new ecosystem to develop, one fueled by entrepreneurs experimenting across various media platforms. The result has been more new organizations covering communities of color and more entrepreneurs and news leaders of color.
Our meetings at AAN, AAJA and NABJ/NAHJ showed us fresh pathways. At AAJA, for example, I struggled to sit through a panel discussion that detailed how local newspapers aided and abetted the persecution of Asian Americans who tried to find jobs in the early West; they argued that local governments should ban Asian Americans from their communities because they would inevitably ‘outcompete’ White workers due to their genetic predisposition to long hours and manual labor. I saw in those pages the faces of my Mom and Dad and remembered how tired they were after work every single day as they tried to build a life for their son. I wondered why families that look like mine scared those men so much. Simultaneously, I found inspiration and awe in the growing range of Asian broadcasters, editors, documentarians, producers, podcasters and executives who are rapidly making up for lost time and opportunity.
Indeed, every conference we have attended of late has experienced record attendance, underlining the enormous pipeline of young, diverse talent ready to reimagine local journalism.
These conferences have made it evident that the future of local journalism is fast forming today and it does not look like the journalism of the past.
Knight has been focused on increasing diversity in newsrooms for many years now. In some cases, that’s come via direct grants like the ones we’ve made to the Knight x LMA Bloom Lab, Capital B, URL Media, Sahan Journal and others. We’ve also done it by ensuring that candidates of color are enrolled in leadership programs such as the Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Media, the Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program or Media Transformation Challenge.
We’ve invested in the Fault Lines training done by the Maynard Institute, which celebrated its 45th anniversary at NABJ/NAHJ. We’ve funded the Black Media Initiative and the Latino Media Initiative at CUNY’s Center for Community Media. And our support for broad efforts like the American Journalism Project, Report for America, Solutions Journalism Network, NewsMatch and Sustainable Publishing Solutions has helped so many newsrooms of color with their sustainability, scalability, technology and talent efforts.
In the end, though, funding only happens when the right ideas are there to fund. And if there was one thing that was clear after these conferences, it’s that there is no shortage of interesting ideas aimed at audiences of color right now. That’s a solid recipe for long-overdue industry change.
The Knight Journalism team’s conference tour isn’t over yet, as we’re looking forward to attending four upcoming events: the Local Media Association’s LMA Fest in Chicago, the Native American Journalists Association’s National Native Media Conference in Phoenix, the Online News Association Conference in Los Angeles and the Independent News Sustainability Summit in Austin. (See the list of upcoming events below.)
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Other news around the horn…
Investments
🤑 Cox buys Axios, a.k.a. Big Media buys blurb media. Who doesn’t like a good blurb with bullet points and a “bottom line” takeaway? Certainly not Axios, which just cashed in for $525 million by selling to Cox Enterprises. Cox had sold a majority stake in its TV and radio business to a hedge fund, but still owns newspapers such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “A big part of this investment is to expand the number of local markets we serve,” Cox chairman and CEO Alex Taylor said. Cox is investing $25 million to help launch Axios Local newsletters into more markets, along with expanding subscription products. Be smart: Axios is the latest indie digital media company to sell out, after the New York Times bought The Athletic and Axel Springer bought Politico.
🏛️Public notices are on notice with Column expansion. Is there money in public notices, those typically boring government announcements in newspapers? Why yes, there is. A startup called Column has helped government officials and newspapers by creating a digital platform for placing public notices into print. And it just received a $30 million investment to expand into more countries and more government offerings. The platform is free for newspaper publishers, while government agencies, law firms and businesses pay a processing fee to place the notices. Faster, easier placement of public notices is a win-win for everyone, especially Column.
Impact
🌵Solutions journalism pays off in Tucson. For everyone who tires of scrolling through doom-and-gloom headlines every day, the pick-me-up is providing a “solutions lens” to problems. The Arizona Daily Star, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network, actually created a solutions journalism beat with reporter Caitlin Schmidt tackling issues such as foster care, homelessness and mental health. Beyond the coverage, Schmidt engaged with underserved communities via listening sessions, a survey, a bi-weekly newsletter and even postcards sent to low-subscribing ZIP codes. And the impact? The Daily Star covers more topics with input from diverse community members, and a story on a nonprofit building tiny homes for unhoused residents led to a 9-acre land donation.
Sustainability
🔥Local nonprofit news is on fire. And it’s not a dumpster fire. Quite the opposite. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) unveiled its latest INN Index tracking the state of the industry, which found that growth is being driven by new local nonprofit newsrooms. The big nonprofits like ProPublica and Reveal suck up a lot of oxygen, but locals now make up more than 4 in 10 nonprofit newsrooms, up from 2 in 10 back in 2017. Last year, 65% of new nonprofit newsrooms launched were local. And revenues are up, with two-thirds of nonprofit newsrooms bringing in more from 2017 to 2021, with 25% median growth. Challenges do remain, primarily in hiring and retaining diverse staff, and diversifying support beyond philanthropy.
🗞️ Can you teach old newspapers new tricks? That’s the goal of an ambitious project at Kansas University to help rural weekly newspapers change their business models. Academic researchers surveyed publishers who unsurprisingly said they want to stick with subscriptions, ads and public notices. But a separate survey of readers found they were interested in memberships, events and email newsletters. Many of the readers said they would even donate beyond being a subscriber. The researchers are now working with Kansas Publishing Ventures, which operates weeklies, to implement a tiered membership model and use the results as a template for other weeklies across the country.
Upcoming Events
Chicago
August 16–18
National Native Media Conference by NAJA
Phoenix
August 25–27
Reimagining Philadelphia Journalism Summit
Philadelphia (and online)
Sept. 12–13
Democracy Day: A Nationwide Collaborative
Everywhere
Sept. 15
Online News Association (ONA) Conference
Los Angeles
Sept. 21–24
Conference for Truth & Trust Online
Boston
Oct. 13–14
Independent News Sustainability Summit
Austin
Oct. 27–29
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News @ Knight Credits
Written by Duc Luu, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Jessica Clark and Kara Pickman
A Knight + Dot Connector Joint