Knight rider: Thoughts after a week visiting our core cities
Nothing beats being in a room, certainly not Zoom
Seven days. 2,315 miles. 10 states. Dozens of interesting, informative conversations. Countless ideas flowing through my head.
That’s the tally halfway through my 17-day road trip to the eight cities where Knight Foundation has program staff and does significant local funding in the areas of arts, public spaces and journalism. It was illuminating to spend entire days focused on one geographic area and assess the best ways our Journalism program might be able to help catalyze what’s already happening there.
Getting out on the road also allows you to stumble into luck, as I did when I was able to be there in person for the closing ceremony for the Philly Media Founders Exchange and WHYY’s News & Information Community Exchange on Friday. It’s one thing to proudly make grants; it’s quite another to see their impact in person. The participants in these programs are already making a difference in Philadelphia by starting new media businesses and strengthening the bond between communities and news providers. The passion of both groups was palpable, and it was wonderful to see it live. You can read more about the Founders Exchange later in this newsletter.
Philadelphia was the last stop in a week that featured stops in St. Paul on Monday, Detroit on Wednesday and Akron, Ohio, on Thursday. I chose to do almost all of this trip via car. It was a lot of driving, but the road time between cities provided lots of time to think about and process what I’d just heard.
Over the course of the week, I met with the staffs of inspiring efforts like Sahan Journal, Outlier Media and Resolve Philly, all of which Knight has funded at some point. I met with current and former Knight Foundation staff and board members. I met with local funders. I met with the editors of major daily newspapers in three cities. I met with longtime innovators like American Public Media and Minnesota Public Radio. It was exhausting and exhilarating, but the latter always overpowers the former for me.
The grand takeaway: In each of the cities I visited, there are people working hard to strengthen their local news ecosystems. In St. Paul and Detroit, there’s an emerging spirit of collaboration that has led to interesting partnerships, such as the one that has led to the Detroit Free Press and Outlier sharing a reporter. In Philly, there’s a tremendous amount of innovation and collaboration occurring, and the strength of the city’s media has increased dramatically since my wife and I launched Billy Penn there back in 2014. In Akron, the closing of the Devil Strip has punched a hole in an already-challenged media environment. In each of these cities, there are ways Knight can help, and we will keep seeking the right projects for each of the cities.
The events in Akron over the past three weeks provide another reminder of why strong local journalism is so important. The shooting death of Jayland Walker at the hands of Akron police – an autopsy released Thursday reported 46 entrance wounds – led to weeks of protest and an evening downtown curfew. In fact, the hotel I stayed at was inside that curfew area. The protests had thinned out by the time I arrived, but the shooting was the primary subject of almost every conversation I had in Akron. The Beacon Journal has done strong work on this story, but the lack of other local options and the fact Akron doesn’t have a native local TV station – all primarily cover Cleveland – is worrisome. This is why the work so many are doing to try and rebuild news ecosystems for the digital age is crucial.
I’ll continue my trip with visits in Charlotte today, Macon, Ga., on Wednesday and Miami on Friday. And while I may be crazy, I’m not insane, so I will close my Knight cities journey on a plane, flying to San Jose on July 26.
Other News around the horn…
Launches
🎓The academy to the rescue. One of the more interesting trends lately has been the role of journalism schools partnering with local news outlets to boost reporting while giving students valuable work experiences. Now comes a national effort to build news-academic partnerships from the University of Vermont: The Center for Community News. With an investment from Knight Foundation, the Center recently launched with these ambitious goals: create a database of news-academic partnerships; support the partnerships with case studies and advice; build a statewide collaborative in Vermont; and train citizen reporters. “We are going to draw on the collective wisdom, experience and resources of America’s academics and journalists to support existing programs and foster new creative collaborations among colleges and universities, local news outlets and civic organizations,” wrote Richard Watts and Meg Little Reilly, who will oversee the program.
Sustainability
❤️LION members buy local Gannett newspaper. Tired of hearing about hedge funds buying up newspapers and stripping away their value to communities? Instead, how about a couple in Indianola, Ind., who had left decades of work at the local newspaper, the Indianola Record-Herald, going back and buying it from Gannett? That’s exactly what Amy Duncan and Mark Davitt did. After launching a new online site, the Indianola Advocate (and becoming members of LION Publishers), they purchased their old haunt. They plan to publish it in print each week to go along with the online startup. Yay! But now comes the hard part: “Now we have to make all those dreams of saving local journalism real,” the couple wrote. Not so yay. But still, what an accomplishment to go from newspaper refugees to saviors. “Our hearts are full today because we have the Record-Herald back home where it belongs,” they told readers. “Now we need your help to keep it there.”
🇬🇧Pinching pence (the money, not Mike) in U.K. local news. As we hurdle toward the abyss (and salvation) in local news stateside, let’s take a look across the pond to assess the situation in the United Kingdom. The Public Interest News Foundation (PINF) released its 2022 index based on surveys of 72 independent local news publishers (mostly text-based). On the positive side, total revenues hit £7 million, but on the downside the average annual revenue was just £31,000, with profits of £3,000. Digital audiences, email newsletter subscribers and social media followers have grown, but publishers face challenges with staffing, updating skills and diversity. Also, mind the gap: the U.K. lags a bit behind the U.S., with nonprofit news outlets making less revenue and having less reach than the for-profits. Take a gander at all the details.
🤑Learn how to raise money in collaboration. Fundraising has become paramount as nonprofit and for-profit outlets rely more on donations, grants and major donors. While many newsrooms have worked in editorial collaborations, a new trend has them working together on collaborative fundraising as well. The Lenfest News Philanthropy Network has two upcoming free online conversations (not webinars) about the success of collaborative fundraising: in New Hampshire, with its News Philanthropy Summit event, and in Chicago, with the Chicago Independent Media Alliance. Register for the NH conversation happening July 19, or the Chicago conversation taking place on July 26.
Diversity
💰Founders of color getting paid. Entrepreneurs of color in the news business need a network, they need support, they need coaching, and yes, they need seed money. That’s the beauty of the Philadelphia Media Founders Exchange, an accelerator program for BIPOC media founders in Philly that includes training, one-on-one coaching and initial funding of $10,000 with the chance for more. It’s a project of the Lenfest Institute and the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund with support from the Independence Public Media Foundation. After “graduating” from the program last Friday, 11 entrepreneurs received a total of $80,000 in follow-up funding. “It has been gratifying and remarkable to witness the founders’ growth, in particular the increased confidence and clarity in their businesses and in themselves,” said Diana Lu, director of the Knight-Lenfest Fund.
👊🏽SCPR shows systemic DEI change is possible. It’s no secret that public media has had a diversity, equity and inclusion problem, from the lack of staff, leadership and on-air diversity to serving a mostly affluent, white audience. Southern California Public Radio (SCPR) set out to change that with a DEI Task Force. Task forces typically mean meetings, discussions, arguments and zzzzzz. But this one made a big difference by driving systemic change in the organization. The task force made 44 recommendations, and SCPR created 44 action items. That included creating a source-tracking tool, redesigning social media policy, partnering with a community advisory board, extending a summer internship program year-round with a living wage, and using hiring panels for top positions. A big lesson? “Culture change is hard, critical work. It demands an unwavering commitment to process and, when it comes to DEI work, a willingness to sit in discomfort,” wrote Ashley Alvarado, vice president for community engagement and strategic initiatives for SCPR.
Survey
📋 Dollars and census. Our friends at OpenNews are conducting a survey of “news nerds” — folks with roles at the intersection of technology and journalism — for the first time since 2017. The ensuing report will shed light on the state of compensation, equity and inclusion, and provide insights on areas of improvement for the industry. The survey takes just a few minutes and responses are confidential. Here’s a link to the survey itself and a tweet if you want to give it a boost in your networks.
Tweet of the Week
News @ Knight Credits
Written by Jim Brady, with Mark Glaser and Marc Lavallee
Edited by Jessica Clark & Kenny Ma
A Knight + Dot Connector Joint