Helping news entrepreneurs and their communities flourish everywhere
By Amy L. Kovac-Ashley
We talk with Tiny News Collective members all the time about how starting or being small doesn’t mean you are alone. That’s one reason we started the Collective — so founders of early-stage news startups would have a community of support, as well as tools and resources to make their journey less isolating. Beyond the Collective, we encourage members to “find their people,” the ambassadors, advisers and partners who will help them along their path.
As big believers in “do what you say and say what you do,” we are following our own advice. Which is why we’re so pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Listening Post Collective that will leverage our distinct work in the civic media space. At the heart of this collaboration is a simple equation we have landed on together: Listening to communities + peer collaborations = scale.
LPC, like TNC, believes all communities deserve access to trusted, relevant and culturally competent news and information. Their Civic Information Index and Civic Media Playbook are wonderful tools that have been used by several of our members. We see our work together as a win-win-win — for users of the LPC Playbook, for TNC members and for the communities served by better news and information.
Additionally, this collaboration will make it easier for people who want to engage with journalism support organizations. We want to provide wayfinding between our two organizations and other journalism support and infrastructure organizations — something that is desperately needed as the industry shifts and changes and contends with headwinds and threats.
We also want to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Silvia Rivera and Liliana Velázquez for their support in helping to ignite this collaboration.
For more on this new development, read this piece that I co-authored with Jesse Hardman, founder of Listening Post Collective.
And now onto other exciting news from TNC and our members…
Tiny News Collective is made up of news startup founders who work incredibly hard to serve their communities’ information needs. They rarely have the time or resources to get the professional development they need to succeed in the long run.
That’s why we are so excited to announce our first grants from the Spark Fund, Tiny News Collective’s professional and leadership development fund for members. This round of Spark Fund opportunities was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of its three-year $2.275 million grant to Tiny News and its members. TNC is actively raising money from other sources to help support the Spark Fund for years to come. Tiny News will also offer other funding opportunities supported by the MacArthur grant.
Tiny News is thrilled to fund 14 newsrooms from the Spark Fund, each receiving $250 to $1,000 for a total of $12,000.
Read the whole announcement here.
Last year, Tiny News Collective announced the development of a data and metrics program, now called Tiny Vitals Metrics Lab, for early-stage news publishers. Since then, we’ve been working with a group of members and our partner Datasketch to build custom dashboards that integrate web and newsletter metrics, financial, operational and impact data. We are grateful for the generous support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation for this program.
We’ve learned that tracking growth and impact need to go hand in hand. Publishers need to show that they have reached more people and garnered support while also helping change culture, bring about important new policies or help shine light on injustices, not just one or the other.
We believe the difference between how we use and talk about growth and impact metrics has significant implications for the journalism industry as it reckons with unreliable big-tech distribution and political polarization.
Read the whole post here.
For our latest “5 Questions with” feature, we caught up with Richard Campbell, the founding chair of the Media, Journalism, and Film Department at Miami University, who co-founded the Oxford Free Press. The Free Press is a nonprofit newsroom that launched last June to cover the town of Oxford, Ohio, along with the surrounding rural areas and the Talawanda School District. Richard is now the board secretary and writes a regular opinion column for the paper. He also helps deliver the paper to the Miami campus on Fridays (see image above).
He talked about the paper’s coverage of and collaboration with the university, the challenges of getting the paper printed in another state, and the support the Free Press received from the local community foundation and donors.
“The Oxford Community Foundation helps cover the cost of interns and our printing costs,” Richard said. “And we also got a grant from a foundation inside of Miami University called the Menard Family Center for Democracy that also supports interns and our print costs, which are roughly $850 a week for a 1,500 print run. And we’ve raised about $95,000 from donors. The community has been very supportive.”
Read the whole story here.
Tiny News Collective, in collaboration with the Latino Media Consortium and URL Media, hosted a legal briefing last month for publishers and journalists covering immigrant communities in the current political climate. The briefing was facilitated by media law expert Erin Victoria, who presented resources and fielded questions from attendees.
Trump-era policies are triggering unprecedented legal uncertainty, Victoria noted throughout the presentation. Independent journalists face heightened legal risks and must proactively protect themselves, their sources and their organizations when covering high-risk topics such as immigration. Independent outlets should prepare for legal challenges and financial pressures aimed at discouraging critical reporting, she said.
Read the whole story for five key takeaways.
Starting in May, Tiny News Collective will partner with the Institute for Nonprofit News to offer startup sessions to anyone interested in learning more about creating a news and information outlet. We’ll share more about how to think about the community you want to serve, the audience and business factors to consider and the practical next steps along the journey of becoming a news founder.
Register here for the sessions, which take place every other Tuesday, beginning May 6. Please share the link with anyone you know who might be interested in learning about creating an independent news organization. We would love to have them!
We love to see our members get the recognition they deserve for good works. This month, there was a lot to celebrate! 🎊
đź’ˇ Future Tides and JuriSee were named finalists for the Next Challenge for Media & Journalism in the local journalism and open-source intelligence divisions, respectively.
🏅 The Oxford Free Press took home nine awards at the Ohio News Media Association’s 2025 Osman C. Hooper Competition on April 3.
đź’° Black by God | The West Virginian was named a Civic Entrepreneur grantee from The Trust for Civic Life.
🎂 The SHOUT, an arts and culture digital publication in Wichita, celebrated its first birthday earlier this month.
We love seeing our TNC founders out in the real world, giving talks, getting quoted and showing up in their communities. Here are some highlights from the past month:
🚀 La Conner Community News, one of our newest members, was profiled by the Salish Current, celebrating its launch in March after the community’s weekly closed. Also, its editor and publisher Kari Mar recently spoke at the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) group in Seattle (see image above).
📚 TMBP Media’s Latasha Eley Kelly was featured on Wichita public radio station KMUW, talking about her Left on Read bookstore.
🔍 Nora Hertel of Project Optimist was a panelist at the Local Journalism Researchers Workshop at the University of North Carolina, along with TNC’s Madison Karas and Erica Perel.
It’s great when founders expand their work into new realms and make an impact in their communities. Here are some recent examples:
🇵🇷 The Latino Newsletter opened up a new bureau in Puerto Rico and plans to expand its coverage of Boston this summer.
🖥️ Claudia Amaro of Planeta Venus started teaching basic computer classes in Spanish at the Wichita Public Library (see image above).
đź’Ą Damien Willis of Organ Mountain News published a summary of recent stories that had impact in the community, including a story about a health center reversing course on treating undocumented patients.
🥺 These days, we all need a pick-me-up, and who better to provide it than the prairie dogs thriving at the busiest intersection in Santa Fe, New Mexico? You can learn all about them thanks to one of our newest members, 505omatic.
Grants of up to $10,000 from the Fund for Investigative Journalism
Grants are for reporters to produce high-quality, unbiased and nonpartisan investigative stories that make an impact. Investigations can be for print, online or broadcast stories, books, documentaries or podcasts. The deadline to apply is May 5.
Address immigration rumors in your community from Trusting News
Whether addressing immigration rumors or other misinformation in your community, these steps help newsrooms be seen as a credible source and help audiences better navigate the news.
Radically Rural Summit in Keane, N.H., October 7–9
The annual conference for rural business includes sessions focused on local journalism. You can get a free ticket and help with travel costs thanks to funding from the Knight Foundation. Apply for the free ticket here by May 5.
News Product Alliance Summit in Chicago, October 23–24
The Summit is a high-impact, hands-on event where participants actively engage in shaping the future of news. For the first time in 2025, the valued virtual gathering will take place with an immersive, face-to-face experience. You can apply for a free ticket here by May 31.
Great journalism conferences this summer and fall
Get out and network at these upcoming conferences: INN Days (June 3–5), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) (July 9–12), Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA) (July 30–August 3), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) (August 6–10), Indigenous Media Conference (August 13–15), The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists (NLGJA) (September 4–7).
Thanks for reading the latest edition of the Big Blast from Tiny News. Be sure to follow us on social media to keep up with the latest from TNC and our amazing group of founders!
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The Big Blast Credits
Written by Amy L. Kovac-Ashley, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Amy L. Kovac-Ashley and Erica Perel
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