IDEA

Increase support for libraries and higher education to help meet basic community news and information needs, as these existing institutions are well positioned to play new roles, particularly in news deserts, where no independent local media exist. Broadcasting or documenting civic meetings, convening civic conversations, making local government data more accessible and useful for local citizens and journalists, and training students and community members to report local news and share their own stories are all roles that local libraries and higher education institutions could take on, with a bit of vision and funding.

PRECEDENTS: There are numerous examples in Colorado and throughout the U.S. where libraries and higher education are taking on innovative roles related to producing, publishing, and partnering with local news. These include:

• The city council in Longmont, Colorado, has ordered a feasibility study to determine what role the local library might play in addressing the growing region’s 21st century information needs. Community input will determine the focus and scope of the vision, but it could include partnerships with the local public access cable television station, other local news outlets, and/or city information services.
• The library in Weare, New Hampshire, produces and publishes Weare in the World, a weekly publication that is intended to replace the local newspaper that shut down, leaving the town with no local news outlets.
• In Kansas City, Missouri, and Dallas, local newspapers are partnering with local libraries to engage with members of the community, train young people and others in the basics of journalism, help residents learn more about their communities, and teach news literacy.
• At the University of Colorado Boulder, faculty member Chuck Plunkett (former editorial page editor for the Denver Post) recently took the helm
  at CU News Corps, which has worked with the Colorado Sun to report stories for publication.
• A technology development company run by students from the University of Denver led the design thinking workshops, empathy interviews, web app development, beta testing, and report writing for the Colorado Media Project’s 2018 summer of research.
• In September 2019, the University of Denver and Colorado Media Project, along with other supporting organizations, hosted the Colorado Migrahack, a two-day hackathon bringing together journalists, developers and data specialists, community members, advocates, and students and professors to develop data-based storytelling on immigration. In November 2019, CMP will welcome First Draft News for a daylong workshop at the University of Denver that will train reporters in techniques to track and debunk viral online disinformation.
• The University of California at Berkeley created a nonprofit production company affiliated with the university where students, with faculty oversight, work on long-form documentaries on investigative journalism topics.

HOW IT COULD WORK IN COLORADO: Local leaders or residents concerned about a lack of local news in their community could meet with library staff and board members to assess their interest in addressing the issue. If the library is open to embracing an expanded role, advocates could gather community support to raise funds via redirecting existing municipal budgets or a new local tax tto support the expanded library services and/or formation of an independent library district.

Colorado’s institutions of higher education could consider a range of ideas for directly addressing capacity gaps and innovation opportunities with local newsrooms:

• Colorado’s colleges and universities could formalize a consortium dedicated to re-invigorating local news, with participation from faculty members across various disciplines. Colorado Media Project has been involved in starting these conversations, and local journalism faculty leaders are engaged in a number of efforts described above.
• Students and faculty will have a center of gravity to engage with local media via COLab, the collaborative newsroom emerging at Rocky Mountain Public Media. A wide range of needs, opportunities, and projects will likely emerge, both from COLab partners and from affiliated newsrooms throughout the state. Colorado colleges and universities could create internships and fellowships that could bring students and faculty together to educate students through opportunities to work directly on projects serving newsrooms throughout the state.
• Universities can become a resource for news organizations by providing digital, web development, analytic, virtual and augmented reality applications, and other specialty services that can enhance data-based reporting, which individual newsrooms often lack. This includes tools to collect newsworthy data for analysis, data archives, tools and templates to create data visualizations, and more.
• College news writing courses could become opportunities for students to cover beats and stories, with assignments coming from newsrooms and editing/oversight by faculty members.
• To address the lack of coverage in non-Front Range communities or target news deserts, faculty members could lead groups of students on short-term assignments on location — the University of Denver calls these “travel courses.” This approach would require sensitivity to work closely with local communities to understand and respect the information needs and priorities of these communities.
• Community colleges or libraries could replicate the City Bureau’s documenters program, which trains engaged local residents to document
  public meetings. These notes could become resources for local journalists and the public.
• Colorado’s journalism faculty could partner with business and technology faculty to recruit more business-minded students into the field of journalism to fill jobs of the future, including finance, marketing, and fundraising.

CONSIDERATIONS: Although there are examples of libraries in some areas producing and publishing local news, few would be willing to undertake these tasks without additional funding sources or incentives and/or community organizing to request such services. Likewise, while there are many interesting journalism classes and projects ongoing in Colorado’s colleges and universities, few are specifically designed to positively impact the crisis in local news. In both of these existing institutions, opportunity is ripe for innovative exploration, which could be propelled by seed funding and incentives provided by the state, local municipalities, or philanthropy.

There has been some conversation recently in Colorado about using existing library district law to establish a designated funding stream for local news. Currently, more than half of Colorado’s libraries operate within library districts, and residents who wish to place a library district issue on a local ballot may do so by gathering 100 signatures from residents within the proposed district. This is seen as an expedient way for local residents both to increase the independence of local libraries and to secure dedicated funding streams for all library services. The only caveat we have for adding local news to the menu of library services relates to governance. Currently, Colorado state law requires local government officials to approve library district board members. Because many library districts are contained within one municipality, this governance structure has the potential to limit the independence of a newsroom operating within a library.

For local communities seeking ways to directly sustain independent “accountability” journalism, the CMP recommends creating a new type of special district that specifically protects local news independence from government interference via a governing board elected directly by residents of the district. Alternatively, the state legislature could amend the library district statute to allow governing boards to be directly elected by constituents, an idea that was proposed but not advanced in the 2019 legislative session.