Five Oklahoma City-area collaborative reporting projects awarded Peer Learning + Collaboration Fund grants
One of the reasons why the Center for Cooperative Media was so excited to launch the Peer Learning + Collaboration Fund was because of its potential to inspire journalism that matters.
That’s why we included workshops in four U.S. cities focused on ecosystem building and collaboration when we originally shaped the Peer Fund.
In addition to strengthening those ecosystems, we wanted to encourage local funders in those four cities to support collaborative reporting projects that served their communities.
And that’s what happened in Oklahoma City, as the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation and Inasmuch Foundation partnered with us to provide collaborative reporting project grants to local news organizations.
We announced those grants in November and are thrilled today to announce the award recipients and their projects.
Congrats to all! Each of the projects will begin publishing this spring.
Domestic violence: Is silence within the Hispanic Community fostering more abuse?
Partners: The Oklahoman, Tyler Media and Telemundo
This project will examine cases of domestic violence within the growing Hispanic community in Oklahoma City, with a goal of raising awareness about how crimes can be reported safely.
Restaurant realities
Partners: Oklahoma Gazette and NonDoc
This project will will examine facets of the Oklahoma City restaurant industry in an effort to tell compelling human interest stories in a subculture often hidden from the broader public. Restaurant work is notorious for long hours and low pay, and as the national conversation about a living wage and raising the minimum wage continues, the restaurant industry is on the front lines.
Always on the move: How evictions in Oklahoma City and Tulsa create unstable housing and high rates of student mobility
Partners: The Frontier and The Curbside Chronicle
This project will take an in-depth look at evictions and the impact on school mobility. Oklahoma City and Tulsa have some of the nation’s highest eviction rates as both cities average nearly 18 household evictions per day. Each year hundreds of families are forced into homelessness or unstable housing, including many households with children.
Point-in-time counts: Crunching the numbers behind Oklahoma City’s snapshot of homelessness
Partners: The Curbside Chronicle, Oklahoma Gazette and Big If True
This project will examine the2020 Point-In-Time Count and provide in-depth reporting with a goal to spread greater awareness and understanding of homelessness in Oklahoma City.
Troubled City
Partners: Oklahoma Watch and KGOU Radio
This project will examine mental health calls to Oklahoma City police, which have dramatically increased over the last several years, with an emphasis on reporting how the struggle to address mental illness is playing out on the streets and affecting the lives of citizens and the police officers who are often the first responders.
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Stefanie Murray is director of the Center for Cooperative Media. Contact her at murrayst@montclair.edu.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
