There are a great number of thoughtful people, organizations and projects across the ecosystem that are working to improve local news and its future. To help ground the work being done to support and improve the field, we compiled the projects already in progress.
If your project is not reflected in this database, please submit your information in the form below to be included.
This database was compiled by CISLM intern Adejuwon Ojebuoboh.
Methodology
How did we do this?
CISLM Intern Adejuwon Ojebuoboh used ChatGPT to create a master list of projects supporting local news. From there, he sorted each organization into its main category. These categories were chosen by CISLM Director Erica Perel prior to data collection. Some of these organizations could be categorized a few ways, but we identified them based on what was the most obvious choice for each org:
We defined funders as foundations with a board that fund journalism projects. We noted what type of funding the organization provides. We used the multi-tag option for this as many funders provide different kinds of gifts and/or grants.
We defined regional organizations as a center that supports local news in a particular state, locality or region. We sub-categorized regional organizations by priority of mission: Are they funders, research-focused, support-focused, etc.
We defined a trade organization as a member-driven organization.
We defined Industry Support as support, training, education targeted at the journalism industry and journalists.
We defined academic as affiliated with a university, whether that's through a student project or through academic research.
We also created subcategories to help identify differences. The subcategory field is multi-select to help best define the scope and type of work done.
After these projects were pulled together and categorized, the CISLM team went through and made any category edits and added any missing organizations.
What is “local”?"
We included organizations that had key programming for local news as part of their mission. For example, ONA is a large umbrella trade organization that works with non-local news orgs, but they frequently offer targeted programming for local news as a way to further the industry.
How did we evaluate their commitment to local news
When deciding whether or not to include a program, we visited their website and their mission statement to determine the number of programs and/or the language surrounding local news on their About/Mission page.
Meet the folks working on building the local news ecosystem
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Andrew Conte, Ph.D., is the Associate Vice President and Managing Director for the Center for Media Innovation, housed at Point Park University. Conte spoke to CISLM to give an overview of his work at the center.