Q&A: Michael Grant on how the HBCU Digital Media Collaborative can equip and connect student media
Michael Grant is co-founder of the HBCU Digital Media Collaborative, a new initiative connecting student media at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the U.S. Grant is also the CEO and founder of Get Current Studio, where he helps BIPOC publishers with digital media transformations.
We caught up with Grant to hear about how he’s helping to launch a collaborative network of HBCU student media and why partnering up can expand resources and improve outcomes.
WF: How did you get involved in journalism?
MG: My path to journalism started at an HBCU. I attended Grambling State University in northern Louisiana. After that, I worked in print journalism for about 10 years and made the transition into digital media a few years before 2014. By then, I was working for the San Francisco Chronicle as a senior digital designer, and ever since then, I’ve been on the digital side. I was also leading the online desk of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) student projects when Irving Washington of the Online News Association (ONA) introduced himself and asked me if I would be interested in leading a new HBCU Digital Media Fellowship. I have run the program since its inception in 2014. From then on, ONA raised funds, and the fellowship was my baby. We went from posting a story at a convention to multimedia exploration, design thinking, product thinking, and exercises that center on product development.
Ultimately, I left newsrooms to found Get Current Studio in 2020. It was a byproduct of interest work I wanted to explore, including challenges in the space of ethnic media and HBCU student news. As a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University in 2017, I went on a listening tour and talked to a lot of Black publishers to really think about and understand their challenges and how I could help. At Get Current, we work with a ton of BIPOC publishers and help with their digital transformation. It’s been a really great four years of going deep into their challenges and trying to understand where they need support and helping to fill the gap. In exploring the HBCU space, I see some of the same challenges, such as access to digital specialists, or awareness of how to begin a digital transformation. How can we help them with the skills and acumen to be participants in digital media and reach the communities they want to reach?
WF: How did this lead to the HBCU Digital Media Collaborative? Why did you feel a collaborative was necessary?
MG: My business partner Justin Rushing and I put our heads together for the last two years and founded the HBCU Digital Media Collaborative as a way to equip and support that ecosystem and rebuild it. We want to lean into transforming the space with a focus on infrastructure so they can be participants and collaborators as they are doing journalism for their campus and surrounding communities. I noticed this with publishers — they’re all kind of in their own sandbox when they’re doing work. They know their communities well, they’ve got their boots on the ground, and they’re doing the best they can to serve their communities. But a lot of the time, shared insights are limited to engagement at conferences, or they’re just at it on their own. I didn’t see a lot of transfer of knowledge from publisher to publisher. I see HBCUs as having some of those same challenges. There’s an opportunity to bring folks with shared communal values together and get better at knowledge sharing, and there’s a big emphasis for us to provide a lot of the technical resources to foster and facilitate those collaborations.
I’ve been a consultant to the Fund for Equity in Local News — a collaboration between Black, Latino, and alternative press — and they’ve really put their heads together over the years for programs to support their publishers. By collective organizations coming together, our power is larger and our impact is wider. I’ve seen that be a great way for those organizations to get resources and develop programs. It’s not a collaboration to produce journalism, but it is a collaboration to get support for newsrooms to produce journalism. I want to build on that model. Not all schools are at the same place in their digital media journey, and there can be a lot of learning and inspiration from the success of other programs. Ultimately, I want to see the journalism programs and outlets on HBCU campuses be in conversation about the needs of their communities and share insights from how well their work is meeting those needs. For example, HBCUs in Louisiana can share what it looks like to tackle a story from Baton Rouge, the capital, versus a community where policy from the capital is affecting a place in northern Louisiana like Grambling.
WF: What is your plan for outreach? How are you attempting to scale and build the collaborative?
MG: Our work is starting with trust-building. A lot of schools are asking what it means to become a member, so there’s a lot of educating around collaborative models. I’ve tried my best to position our website to help people learn more about the dynamics of collaboration. Justin has put together a list of HBCUs and it’s a lot of legwork to get our message out — cold calls, emails, and reaching out to folks who we know at schools. We have a goal of confirming at least 10 schools for membership before the year is out, and coordinating our efforts to lead them through website migrations. Basically, Get Current Studio has server space to get everyone on a common tech stack to produce their journalism, which will support digital transformations and make collaboration far easier. So far, our confirmed members include student media at Morgan State University, Florida A&M University, Southern University A&M College, Clark Atlanta University, Norfolk State University, and Lane College (though programming to transform their websites is developing). We’re in conversation with Bowie State University, Miles College, Talladega College, Howard University, and Bethune-Cookman College.
We secured a sponsorship from the Google News Initiative (GNI) to hold our first annual HBCU Digital Media Conference. The one-day conference will be held on September 17, in partnership with ONA, a day ahead of the ONA24 conference with space for 60 participants. Solutions Journalism Network, McClatchy, and Canva are on the bill for sessions. We’re also finalizing a partnership that would extend the reach of internship opportunities for HBCU students. And we have a goal of confirming six participants in a voter guide workshop for this upcoming election, as we think HBCUs can provide collaborative election coverage and create voter guides to help educate folks and adapt and tailor them to their own local communities. So far, three schools have committed to this: Florida A&M, Morgan State, and Southern. For universities that cannot attend any of these conferences or workshops, we plan to record sessions and create a hybrid format that is flexible to their schedules as students have already started classes.
WF: How do you go about building trust when you approach HBCUs with a new collaborative opportunity like this?
MG: Some folks are excited, saying, ‘Where has this been? We’ve been looking for something like this.’ But others are skeptical because student media have been taken advantage of before, especially when it’s vendors who sell a product and technology that not everyone might understand. We have to go through and make sure we establish trust and make sure people know the work we’re doing in the field. By and large, we’re getting a strong reception. A lot of education has to come with this because journalism moves so fast. That’s what we hope to resource through funding — having folks who can write some really great 101 resources to have additional reading and resources. For now, establishing partners at some notable journalism-building organizations will be key to us. I can route a lot of folks to the Center for Cooperative Media’s collaboration guides, or the American Press Institute’s approaches to news. Having those resources ready for our members to engage with so they can adopt new techniques and strategies can go a long way toward building trust and showing how the collaborative can be of service.
WF: What have you learned in your career working in journalism?
MG: We often throw around deficit terminology like under-resourced, under-staffed, or under-funded. When I was a Knight fellow, I struggled with this. I could visit an HBCU and see their journalism facilities or pick up their paper, and some things might be behind. It’s hard for me to talk about the challenges when I enter spaces that need a boost or have been left out — it makes me feel like someone hasn’t paid attention to them, so what they need is to be paid attention to. I see hope. I see an opportunity. I see the story of growth and revitalization. It’s a manner that I subscribe to — being aware that we don’t have to describe under-resourced people and places by their current conditions but see and recognize what they want to be and provide those resources to help them get there. It’s a personal mantra that I’m going into this work with.
Will Fischer is a journalist covering local and collaborative media ecosystems. He’s worked for Business Insider and New York magazine and conducted local news research for City Bureau. You can reach him at willfisch15@gmail.com.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a primarily grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism and support an informed society in New Jersey and beyond. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, the Independence Public Media Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more information, visit centerforcooperativemedia.org.
