Helping news entrepreneurs and their communities flourish everywhere
By Amy L. Kovac-Ashley
For most of the history of Tiny News Collective, our membership has been made up of a preponderance of solopreneurs, one person creating a startup news outlet who has to “do it all.” But in the last 18 months, we’ve seen a trend toward teams launching startups, whether it’s two people, three people or even multiple cofounders creating worker collectives or cooperatives.
The cofounder pairs include The SHOUT in Wichita, Tucson Spotlight (more on them below) and one of our newest members Esta es la Cosa in Georgia. The larger cofounder teams include 505omatic in Santa Fe, The Southlander in Los Angeles, The 51st in Washington, D.C., Coyote Media Collective in the San Francisco Bay Area and the News Relay Network in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
In each of these cases, the cofounders bring their own distinct skillsets to the enterprise they are building, relieving some of the pressure and isolation experienced by solopreneurs. At the same time, they must navigate how to share leadership and power, and many are building worker-led ownership and leadership structures. It’s exciting to see this trend play out, as these startups do the hard work of figuring out structure and governance so they can make decisions as a team.
To respond to these trends and the distinct needs of solopreneurs and cofounders, we are developing programming and support mechanisms for each group as well as ways to facilitate more sharing and cross-pollination from member to member. It’s part of our approach of growing smartly and organically as our community grows. We’ll share more about these developments in the fall, so stay tuned!
For those attending the Independent News Sustainability Summit in St. Louis, come say hi to TNC’s entire leadership team: Elaine DĂaz RodrĂguez, Erica Perel and me. Be sure to check out my panel about leadership transitions and Erica’s panel is about getting started with advertising (inspired by our Homegrown Advertising report from earlier this year) that will also feature TNC member Nancy Flores of Austin Vida.
Several other members will also be speakers, so don’t miss their sessions:
TNC board member Kara Meyberg Guzman of Santa Cruz Local is on two panels, one about the emotional labor of organizational change and the other about how to share your story and wins.
🤞🏼Fingers crossed for our members who are finalists for the LION 2025 Awards.
Finally, if you are around on Thursday night of the event, please join us for News & Brews, an event we're co-hosting with a number of other journalism support organizations. Attendance is free, but we ask that folks RSVP so we can get an accurate head count.
For our latest “5 Questions with” feature, we caught up with Caitlin Schmidt (pictured, left), editor and publisher of Tucson Spotlight, and Susan Barnett (pictured, right), deputy editor of Tucson Spotlight. The Spotlight is a bilingual nonprofit newsroom co-founded by Caitlin and Susan, with a mission to provide Southern Arizona with robust, community-based journalism spotlighting undercovered topics through the lens of the Hispanic community.
The duo discussed their mission and origin story, the recognition they have been receiving in South Tucson and the potential for revenue from events, forums and workshops.
“It’s not about building the biggest newsroom; it’s about building the most relevant one. One that listens first, adapts with intention, and stands as a true public service for all of Tucson,” Caitlin said.
Read the whole profile here.
Tiny News Collective, in partnership with the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), is offering startup sessions to anyone interested in learning more about creating a news and information outlet. In the sessions, we discuss the audience and business factors to consider and the practical next steps along the journey of becoming a news founder. Attendees also learn more about TNC and INN.
Register here for the sessions. The next one will be on September 16, and attendees will get to meet our new membership director Elaine DĂaz RodrĂguez. 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. This month, there was a lot to celebrate! 🎊
🏆 Tayo won the AAPI Community Impact Award (pictured above) at the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Awards. Tayo provides vital, trustworthy and culturally relevant information to help Filipinos navigate the information ecosystem.
💰2Puntos Platform received a $100,000 renewal grant from the Independence Public Media Foundation. The grant is for general operating support for the news outlet, which connects Philadelphia’s multi-generational Latine communities.
💗Claudia Amaro of Planeta Venus was named a 2025 Altavoz Lab Community Fellow. The fellows will work with mentors and an engagement manager over seven months on reporting projects focused on social justice. Claudia is also a fellow with the Reynolds Journalism Institute, and she recently wrote about her project to create a tool to help more journalists cover immigration issues in depth: “The reporting is typically trauma and crisis-oriented, not structure and systems-oriented.” She’s working on a toolkit with guidance, sources, reporting templates and real-world examples.
We love seeing our TNC founders giving talks, getting quoted and telling important stories. Here are some highlights:
✍🏽Emily Christensen of The SHOUT (pictured above) wrote about her experience as a co-founder of the arts publication in Wichita (who “lived to tell the tale”). Some lessons include learning to delegate, putting trust in others and forgiving herself for making mistakes.
🗣️Christopher Malo of 2Puntos Platform wrote about the difficulty of running a bilingual, independent nonprofit multimedia newsroom. “Funders, policymakers and media allies must rethink how they value and support journalism that doesn’t fit traditional molds,” he wrote.
🎙️Jai Smith of Lehigh Daily News was a featured guest on the Journalism Salute podcast, talking about why he started the publication and his vision for what it will become. Bryan Vance of Stumptown Savings was a guest on a different Journalism Salute episode, discussing his work as a creator and service journalist.
📱Garnet Henderson and Susan Rinkunas of Automony News were guests on the rePROS Fight Back podcast, discussing their new publication about reproductive rights and justice, and how it can not only teach but empower.
🌟Nancy Flores of Austin Vida was profiled by Press Forward in its Local News Leader Spotlight. She talked about the outlet’s community essay series and a recent event featuring live readings of the essays. “Our biggest hope with the event is that attendees realize their stories are worthy of being told,” she said.
📹Esta es la Cosa produced a Spanish-language video report on Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff’s report of ICE abuse of immigrants in detention centers in Texas, California, Georgia and Florida.
📖The Left on Read bookstore, run by TMBP Media’s Latasha Eley Kelly, was featured by the American Booksellers Association in USA Today. “Left on Read stands out as a bookstore that prioritizes Black voices while welcoming all who appreciate rich, diverse storytelling,” she said.
🇵🇷Connect Puerto Rico, a monthly curated newsletter, covered the recent flooding from Hurricane Erin as well as President Trump dismissing six of seven members of Puerto Rico’s federally appointed Fiscal Oversight and Management Board. The newsletter noted that legal challenges might come over the dismissals.
Best practices for getting journalism grants in Nieman Reports
An inside look at the journalism grant review process reveals how to write a winning application: Read the instructions carefully, flesh out your story, and please, don’t rely on artificial intelligence tools.
The Covering Climate Now Academy
The Covering Climate Now Academy is a free, live online course for journalists looking to strengthen their climate skills. From September to December 2025, you’ll join a cohort of journalists from around the world to explore key climate topics, from science and justice to health, diplomacy and misinformation, through interactive and practical sessions. Apply by September 8.
Safety for Trans Journalists: A Press Freedom Briefing, from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
Trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive communities face an ever-increasing range of restrictions and regulations, both from the federal government and a majority of U.S. states. News leaders and managers need to be aware of the risks their trans staff face working in this current environment and implement policies to mitigate those risks, which pose a danger to press freedom and media safety.
RJI Community-Centered Symposium on November 13 and 14
RJI will host a symposium for a cohort of 30 community-centered journalists to come together to share and create thoughtful and actionable ways to serve their communities better. This year’s symposium will be hosted by Mirror Indy in Indianapolis. Attendees will get a free hotel room and a stipend to try a new idea from the symposium. Apply here by October 25.
Featured image: The 505omatic team (left to right): Dezbaa’, J. Alex Morgan, Warren Langford, Georgina Hahn, Katy Gross and Devon Ludlow. (Photo courtesy of 505omatic.)
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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