New Media for New Mexico
Just last year my Co-Director Sarah Gustavus announced the creation of the New Mexico Local News Fund with a Medium post that seems like it was from another era. All before COVID-19 and a recent election season that reinforced the crucial role of journalism to the health of our democracy.
The New Mexico Local News Fund is still here, plugging away at the important task of supporting the local news ecosystem in New Mexico. So what have we been up to since then? We established a $20,000 emergency relief fund for journalists impacted by COVID-19, placed two classes of recent university graduates in local newsrooms around the state, provided collaboration grants to newsrooms and community organizations, launched our Local News Revenue Initiative to help newsrooms with long-term sustainability, and so much more.
The New Mexico Local News Fund aims to grow the ecosystem of local news across our state to better serve the information needs of all New Mexicans. To accomplish that ambitious goal, we work with both existing newsrooms and trusted community organizations..
Local journalism is crucial for our democracy. At the same time, we recognize that many people in our state have either been excluded from local news coverage or only seen their neighborhoods or communities covered as a problem.
In order to better fill the gaps in media coverage for some New Mexico communities, earlier this year I applied for and received a John S. Knight Community Impact Fellowship.
In Albuquerque, we have several neighborhoods that have been neglected by local media for years. My first priority for my fellowship project is the International District, which used to be called the “War Zone” in local news as recently as 2015 (and even this year in letters to the editor by residents). It’s a neighborhood with a majority of people of color including Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and a large immigrant population from refugee resettlement programs. In 2009 community members came together and decided to officially name the area the International District to reflect the diversity, strengths and assets of the neighborhood.
While media coverage of the area is improving, most stories are still focused on crime and poverty and do not cover the incredible steps people are taking to improve the neighborhood. In my previous job at KUNM, a focus of my work was examining how the city had neglected the infrastructure of the area, and connecting reporters to the solutions people are working on, like new private street lights, creating food co-ops, converting vacant lots to community gardens, and much more. As part of my JSK Fellowship I’m working with community organizations to help them start a new media initiative for the neighborhood.
Southern New Mexico is also a top priority for us. While Albuquerque residents theoretically have access to many media sources, in many communities in Southern New Mexico there is no regular source of local news. The TV stations are based in El Paso, and only occasionally travel for stories in New Mexico. There are only a few newspapers with reduced staff that are barely keeping up with news in the larger cities, let alone smaller communities. Meanwhile pay to play for-profit websites known to spread misleading information are proliferating. All New Mexicans deserve to have access to accurate, fair, local news and information about their communities.
The New Mexico Local News Fund’s Southern NM coordinator, Diana Alba-Soular is working on a media landscape report in 2020 and we will use those insights to decide what we will do next in that area. We’ve had positive talks with several community organizations and we’re surveying local residents on Spanish language needs related to how they want to follow the news.
I’m really excited to work on these two projects and continue the important work of the local news fund throughout New Mexico.
How you can help
First of all, please sign up for our newsletter at www.nmlocalnews.org, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay informed about our work.
If you’re a New Mexico resident, please take our community survey!
In an effort to better understand the news and information needs of New Mexicans, the New Mexico Local News Fund and Impact Architects are asking residents to take about 15 minutes to fill out this anonymous survey. Please share widely as we’d like to hear from communities throughout New Mexico. At the end there is an option to receive a small gift certificate in compensation for your time.
