Q&A: Liza Gross on the vital work of collaboratives during the pandemic
This is the first in a series of interviews with journalism collaboration managers from around the world
Liza Gross is the vice president of practice change at Solutions Journalism Network, where she oversees a growing number of journalism collaboratives across the US. The Local Media Project, funded by the Knight Foundation and SJN, is working to launch 15 sustainable journalism collaboratives in five years.
Currently, there are nine collaboratives. Philadelphia is furthest along, and after three years, is now fully sustainable as Resolve Philly. Both the New Hampshire and Charlotte collaboratives are starting to generate funding after more than a year working together, as well as Northeast Ohio and Wichita, which are slightly newer.
Two more collaboratives, Western New York and Southeast Michigan, are being funded by the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation in partnership with SJN. Chicago and Oklahoma collaboratives are also in partnership with the Local Media Association.
We caught up with Gross to hear about what the SJN collaboratives have been up to and why they are proving especially worthy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
WF: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the SJN collaboratives?
LG: The collaboratives had to pivot and become a trustworthy resource for their communities. And that’s what they did. They were very successful in providing information, particularly to underserved communities.
They also felt that because they already had set up a structure, processes, and built trust, the pivot was actually rather seamless.
WF: Why do you think already having that structure of the collaborative in place turned out to be so helpful?
LG: It really proves our case. When you have developed those structures and have built-in trust — when you are sitting in a collaborative with news organizations that serve communities that have been traditionally underserved in terms of information needs — you have a different understanding of where you have to go with the coverage, and you can coordinate with each other. That makes all the difference.
For certain stories, collaborating — working together towards one goal — is really what best serves the community. But again, this is not something that happens in a week. Some of these collaboratives have been together for, at the very least, a year and a half.
WF: How does a crisis like the pandemic maybe help make the case for these collaboratives, both to potential funders and communities?
LG: We can point to the fact that informed and engaged citizens are essential for democracy and the proper function of a community. These collaboratives help people access resources and understand what’s going on in their community.
Here’s an example. Our Western New York collaborative is working with an audience of caregivers in communities of color. But many of these family caregivers don’t think about themselves in that way. As a result, they are out of the loop in terms of understanding what resources they could access — both medical and other kinds of services — that could help them give better care to their mother, father, their disabled relative.
One of the collaborative’s goals is to identify this community clearly, not only for themselves as an audience but also so that foundations, cities, regional and local agencies understand the scope of this group and know how to better serve them. Identifying this audience is not only good for journalism, but it’s good for the community at large.
WF: Serving a wide range of community members is very important for your collaboratives. How do you go about setting that up?
LG: We don’t launch any collaborative that is not representative of the community it serves. If we have two news outlets that come to us and want to launch a collaborative, we say, who else have you invited?
For example, do you have an African American outlet? Do you have a Hispanic outlet? Do you have an Arab outlet? A Chinese outlet? An LGBTQ outlet? Do you have non-traditional partners? Are you partnered with a theater group, the library, with students, or an academic institution?
We try to broaden that lens. You have to bring in more than the traditional news organizations. Ohio is a perfect example. Their collaborative has a combination of legacy media and also the very small hyperlocal publications that represent diverse communities.
WF: And why is that so important? How exactly do the communities play a role in these collaboratives?
LG: We have grappled with this for decades. How do we reach those communities, that at first, we didn’t even care about reaching? We ignored them. Many of these communities have come to see traditional outlets not only as indifferent but as actively hostile to them. It’s a terrible situation to be in.
Many organizations join our collaboratives so they can reach new audiences. For example, the public radio station in Charlotte, WFAE — the partnership has allowed them to reach an audience that is not just mostly white, age 50 to 70, professionals. They’ve been able to reach a much broader spectrum of the community thanks to being in a collaborative.
And the collaboratives feed off the audience, as well. Journalists can get feedback from community members and get a view of what it really is that they need, instead of thinking that we know what they need. It’s an education as well, it’s not a one-way street. The newsrooms engage with the communities and continue to make conversation and be in dialogue with them.
WF: Overall, what has been the biggest lesson or learning for you this past year?
LG: I am full of admiration for these local journalists, who really in the face of tremendous, tremendous odds, want to continue to serve their community — but also want to do the difficult work of reimagining themselves.
They don’t fall back on the traditional way of doing things. They still want to learn, in the middle of a pandemic, even as some of them are being furloughed. None of our collaboratives stopped meeting even in the midst of this.
They were just all so committed throughout. I think the role that they played as the channel for information — how they saw that they were helping — re-affirmed their commitment even more. I am full of admiration for their stamina, determination, and willingness to continue to explore and try new things under these most extraordinarily challenging circumstances.
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Will Fischer is a journalist covering the intersection of technology and media. He’s worked for Business Insider and New York magazine, and conducted local news research for City Bureau. Follow Will on Twitter @willfisch15 or email him at willfisch15@gmail.com.
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, 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.
