We asked 10 founders — what motivated you to start a local, nonprofit newsroom?
Local, nonprofit news outlets are surging in number. INN’s Index data show well over half — 55% — of nonprofit news launches since 2017 are locally focused organizations, and the growth in local launches has become more pronounced in the past couple of years. In 2020, 57% of new launches were local; in 2021, this number rose to 65%. Based on early data we’re seeing from 2022, we expect this trend to continue.
INN commissioned Katrina Janco to investigate and dig beyond the numbers. Who are these local outlet founders, and what motivated them to launch a local, nonprofit news organization in the past few years? Why did they choose the nonprofit model, and where did they hit obstacles along the way? How can a field-building organization like INN better support these new organizations?
INN asked 10 founders of these local news organizations about what motivated them and what they wished they had known sooner. You can find Katrina’s full story here. Below is a short summary by editor Howard Goldberg.
In sum, we learned founders are not motivated to compete with traditional newsrooms, but, rather, to supplement what already was available and fill a void in their communities caused by failures of the traditional ad-based model of journalism. Founders said their experiences showed how important it is for nonprofit newsroom founders to engage with their communities and understand their informational needs prior to starting a newsroom, and wished they had more fundraising, nonprofit management and operations support and resources.
Let’s dig a bit deeper:
- Asheville Watchdog: “We’re not here to compete with the daily newspaper. We are here to supplement,” said Sally Kestin, of North Carolina’s Asheville Watchdog. “Our only goal is to fill the void of what’s missing in journalism in Asheville, and do the stories that take a long time, that are hard to do, that the existing media here can’t do or don’t have the time to do.”
- Tostada Magazine: When Serena Daniels began focusing on food and identity as a freelance journalist in Detroit, stories about communities of color and food were considered an afterthought, and only noteworthy during some holidays. Frustrated with traditional food writing while growing a readership in the community, she decided to start Tostada Magazine. “It was the right moment to say, ‘You know what, I think I can just as easily do this on my own as I can pitching to other publications.’ In that way, I would have ownership of my stories as well, and I wouldn’t have to ask for permission any longer to publish the kinds of stories I really cared about,” she said.
- Cicero Independiente: Prior to co-founding Cicero Independiente in Illinois, Irene Romulo worked as an immigration organizer. She saw the media not meeting the informational needs of immigrant communities, and focusing solely on immigrants’ trauma. Looking to start a journalism project for Cicero’s immigrant community, Romulo applied to and received a fellowship with Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom and INN member City Bureau. During the fellowship, she met April Alonso and Ankur Singh, and they combined their efforts to form Cicero Independiente.
- Arizona Luminaria: Arizona Luminaria co-founder Irene McKisson, a Tucson native with daily newspaper experience, said she could see the news gaps that developed as the number of working journalists declined in her state. The people she encountered while fundraising told her they also could see they were having trouble getting information they needed or wanted.
- Arizona Luminaria: Arizona Luminaria co-founder Irene McKisson, a Tucson native with daily newspaper experience, said she could see the news gaps that developed as the number of working journalists declined in her state. The people she encountered while fundraising told her they also could see they were having trouble getting information they needed or wanted.
- Block Club Chicago: After DNAinfo Chicago was abruptly shuttered, Stephanie Lulay and her fellow laid-off editors began hearing from readers who were very upset by the decision. “They would tell us, ‘why didn’t you guys just ask me to pay for this? I would have paid for it if it was going out of business,’” Lulay said. Hearing from so many readers motivated Lulay and her co-workers to create a new neighborhood-based outlet, which later became Block Club Chicago.
- The Kansas City Beacon: Within a day after Kelsey Ryan was laid off from The Kansas City Star, she knew she didn’t want to work for another newspaper chain. “The business problems weren’t going away. It’d just be like taking a lifeboat to another sinking ship. So I basically was like, ‘I’m going to build my own ship,’” she said of her inspiration to start The Kansas City Beacon. Ryan is an INN board representative.
- El Paso Matters: For Robert Moore, the call to action came from community leaders who were concerned about the state of local news in El Paso. He eventually started El Paso Matters in 2020 with the help of El Paso Community Foundation, which had previously launched a nonprofit newsroom that never truly got off the ground. As an editor at El Paso Times, Moore was forced to lay off more than 40 people from 2007 to 2017, before he resigned after being requested to reduce payroll again. Once he started to create El Paso Matters, the decision to go nonprofit was obvious. “I just did not see a for-profit path that made any sense at all,” he said.
See here for the full story on founders of local, nonprofit news.
INN maintains a Startup Guide for aspiring nonprofit news founders. You can find the full guide here.
Full Index findings, including many more insights on local news startups, will be available by the end of July 2022.
