The Internet has eroded institutional control over what ordinary people see as “news.” Corporate media are still thieves, but not as they used to be, while locals have been obliterated in print and online. Many struggle to keep the dream alive, but with significantly reduced staff and declining coverage, and now wealthy progressive foundations have come to the rescue.
The problem?
Since 2005, approximately 2,200 local newspapers have closed, resulting in 20 percent of Americans living in “news deserts” with little to no reliable coverage of important local events. Press Forward seeks to reverse the dramatic decline in local news that has coincided with an increasingly divided America and weakening trust in institutions.
The Solution?
A coalition of 22 donors today announced Press Forward, a national initiative to strengthen communities and democracy by supporting local news and information with an infusion of more than a half-billion dollars over the next five years. Press Forward will enhance local journalism at an unprecedented level to re-center local news as a force for community cohesion; support new models and solutions that are ready to scale; and close longstanding inequities in journalism coverage and practice.
The funding.
Initial Press Forward partners are The Archewell Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln, Democracy Fund, Ford Foundation, Mary W. Graham, Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group, Heising-Simons Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Joyce Foundation, KFF, Knight Foundation, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Lumina Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Outrider Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
These groups have promised 500 million in grants to start (for which outlets like InDepth NH, among others, will apply) to prop up favorable venues that can fill search engine results with echoes from the correct chamber. It sounds like the David Brock thing – fake local news/public interest websites peddling news, sports, and “opinion” that press the progressive message. If those are still around, maybe they can apply too.
And it is, of course, about preserving Democracy and countering misinformation.
Under the cover of supporting news gathering and reporting by underserved populations, most of whom will suffer from the success of the reporting.
And yes, I wish we had easy access to similar grants to push back from our “side.” One of the Grok’s missions, when my job disappeared last year, was to do more day-to-day reporting, which is constricted by raising donations, for which I am forever grateful, but I’m not good at it, so it hasn’t freed me up to do any of that. I still have to work part-time elsewhere, which is fine. I like working, but it keeps us from pressing forward (hee hee) with some of our goals.
We lose a step here and there, while deep pockets on the Left fund portals labeled as local news to leverage people’s better opinion of “local news'” to push the progressive agenda.
Press Forward, indeed!
