By Amy L. Kovac-Ashley
Only about a quarter of Americans (23%) say they have ever spoken with or been interviewed by a local journalist, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. That number has barely budged since Pew first asked in 2016, and it is even lower for people with lower incomes or less formal education.
I shared that statistic on October 14 in front of a packed house in San Francisco, where Tiny News Collective kicked off our first-ever road trip with our “From the Ground Up: The Founders Reimagining Local News” event series. It came up because of a theme that ran through the whole evening: showing up. Being present in the communities you serve, and listening to the people who live there, is how tiny newsrooms earn trust. It’s also how they’re closing the gap that Pew number describes.
Our panel featured members Soleil Ho, co-founder of COYOTE Media Collective, and Daphne Magnawa, co-founder of News Relay Network, which publishes the Tenderloin Voice, along with Darryl Holliday, lead steward of News Futures. Daphne talked about how Tenderloin residents told her and her colleagues what to cover. Soleil spoke to the way COYOTE serves Bay Area readers who want to feel more connected to their communities, with plenty of what they’ve called “grassroots fun” along the way. Darryl provided important context from his work looking across the civic media field, and as a co-founder of the now-thriving, once-tiny newsroom City Bureau in Chicago.
The newsrooms’ stories were rooted in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and in the specific audiences each newsroom serves. But they also reflect what we see across our membership of more than 100 member newsrooms around the country: founders who are part of the communities they cover and who build from the ground up, at the speed of trust. Taken together, that is a movement, and it gives all of us reason to think differently about what the future of journalism can look like.
The room was full of energy from start to finish. Conversations started before the panel and kept going long after it, with people eager to talk about how tiny newsrooms are approaching journalism differently and how they can support this work. Thank you to everyone who came, and to KALW for hosting us at the beautiful new Warfield Commons, a hub for civic media and community journalism whose mission fits closely with our own.
đź—˝ Next stops: New York and Washington, D.C.
We’ll build on these ideas at our next two events with another great lineup of founders and guests. If you’re in either city, we’d love to see you there.
- New York, Tuesday, November 10, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Ford Foundation (320 E. 43rd St.): Gary Pierre-Pierre, TNC board member and founder of The Haitian Times, will be joined by members Ambreen Ali of Central Desi, Annemarie Dooling of The Platia and Michael Schulson of The Lighthouse Washington Heights. RSVP here by November 7.
- Washington, D.C., Tuesday, November 17, 6 to 8 p.m., True Reformer Building (1200 U St. N.W.): Members Eric Falquero of The 51st and Henok Mengistu of Ethiopique will join Tom Rosenstiel, author of “The Next Journalism.” RSVP here.
Please pass the invitation along to anyone who’d enjoy the conversation.
TNC