Securing journalism’s future together
It was a notification from a Facebook group on engagement journalism that piqued my interest last week. That notification contained details about an opportunity that had not been presented before in journalism by another organization, but one that was responding to a need of those who work in journalism.
The opportunity was a grant from the newly established Peer Learning and Collaboration Fund from the Center for Cooperative Media, based at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The Fund aims to connect journalists across the country together to learn from each other and to take skills away to help them in their own crafts and the contributions they make to journalism as a whole.
The Fund, which was based on an idea from the Washington DC based organization Democracy Fund (and who is also supporting funds for the project), is designed to help nurture these connections and innovation between journalists by giving them grants to travel to visit each other in locations across the country.
The Fund will award $500 or $1,000 grants to individual journalists so they can make the arrangements to make this happen. Once the trip has been made, journalists who are the recipients of such grants will be asked to submit a report of the trip along with some photos or videos. They also encourage pieces in other places about their experiences.
The opening of the PLAC Fund has brought an opportunity that came at the right time for journalism circa 2019 and those who work in it. In an age where the future of journalism, especially local journalism, endures a copious amount of uncertainty, solutions are trying to be developed to ensure that the future of local journalism can be maintained.
Though the premise of PLAC Fund can appear to be a simple one, its premise is more than what it merely says on the tin. As Teresa Gorman, the Local News Associate for the Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program, put it on Twitter, the benefits are far more than just an ability to travel — it can help shape the future of local journalism in the United States.
The opportunities that are presented through the PLAC Fund emphasize factors that are necessary to guarantee that journalism can successfully thrive into the future — because journalism circa 2019 can only remain so if we work together. If we focus on collaboration and how we can collectively help our industry, instead of competing against each other, we can make things better for ourselves and for the people who we entered this profession to serve.
While there is much more to do to ensure that journalism in the long term can be supported, the establishment of this Fund is a positive step forward in ensuring that can happen. It is exciting and fills any journalist with intrigue and wonder as to how they can better themselves and their industry.
It also allows journalists who are early in their careers like me to think about how such an opportunity can ready themselves for journalism of the future — to feel inspired instead of discouraged, to consider better ways to do work that informs, engages and stimulates, to know that meaningful work in journalism can be done.
It also reiterates what Gorman tweeted when the Fund was announced — to bring journalists together and to show them that they are not alone.
It is easy in this day and age to be discouraged instead of encouraged as one tries to find their footing in this profession. The effervescent curiosity, the drive and the potential that exists for the future of journalism as a result of the creation of this Fund is something that is awe-inspiring and worth championing.
Most of all, it creates a feel of excitement and helps reinvigorates a call to serve, and I can’t think of a better way to be excited about journalism than from the opportunities that come as a result of the Fund — because we can do great things for our industry and its people if we work together by collaborating, not competing.
That is something worth being excited about.
The PLAC Fund is awarding grants until the 31st of May 2020, or until the Fund is exhausted.
