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The News-Gazette is among 205 small local media organizations – at least one in every state - chosen to receive a grant from a program created to strengthen local news coverage. The grant is through Press Forward, the national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news, and was announced last week.
Press Forward via The Miami Foundation is making these grants as part of the Closing Local Coverage Gaps open call in the amount of $100,000 over two years. The general purpose of the Closing Local Coverage Gaps grants is to support organizations in providing original reporting in underserved communities. Grant applicants could be nonprofit or for-profit organizations, in print, online or a combination of both. Applicants had to have an annual budget of under $1 million and have been in existence for at least one year.
Press Forward, a project of The Miami Foundation, is a national movement to strengthen our democracy by revitalizing local news and information. A coalition of funders is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news, and scale the infrastructure the sector needs to thrive.
“The News-Gazette is proud to be part of a bright mosaic of independent, nonpartisan sources that are reimagining what local news looks like across America,” said News-Gazette publisher Matt Paxton. “Our peers include newer nonprofits some launched as information needs became evident during the pandemic. Others are enduring for-profits continuing to adapt and innovate after a century, or in the case of The News-Gazette, 223 years in business.”
Some newsrooms are reporting on the vast American countryside - where they are often the only news source for hundreds of miles - while other outlets are covering people of color and linguistically diverse communities that traditional news sources have overlooked.
Paxton continued, “On the one hand, getting such a large infusion is somewhat overwhelming in terms of prioritizing how to use it. On the other hand, some major concerns can begin to be addressed, such as the paper’s sustainable future as a locally owned news source, stepping up its online and digital programs and possibly even attending to issues with the paper’s building.”
The News-Gazette was one of 931 applicants in the call for grant proposals in the spring. Those were winnowed down to 400 finalists, and then from those, the final grant award winners were chosen. Other Virginia grantees were Charlottesville Tomorrow, Vinegar Hill Magazine, both in Charlottesville, The Recorder in Monterey, and the Henrico Citizen in the Richmond area.
To learn more about Press Forward, go to pressforward. news.
