Small newsrooms or coalitions that provide original reporting in underserved communities — and have budgets under $1 million — are eligible to apply. At least 100 newsrooms nationwide will receive around $100,000 each over two years in unrestricted funds.
New white paper by Corey Hutchins of Colorado College shares findings from a 2023 CMP-supported working group — and explores solutions. In addition to sharing ideas surfaced by newsroom and higher education leaders in the working group, the report captures takeaways from newsroom-hosted student internships supported by CMP through its Advancing Equity in Local News program in 2023, and from a cohort-based program that COLab provided for students placed in Colorado newsrooms in summer 2023. It is published to contribute to ecosystem learning and continuous improvement of Colorado’s journalism workforce pipeline.
More than two dozen Colorado newsrooms have launched an unprecedented collaboration to better cover the 2024 elections.
The Colorado Health Foundation, The Colorado Trust, Gates Family Foundation, The Gill Foundation, and Rose Community Foundation have stepped forward to lead Press Forward Colorado as a local affiliate of the nationwide initiative.
Colorado’s local and statewide newsrooms and nonpartisan community and civic groups are invited to join forces with Rocky Mountain Public Media, Colorado State University’s Center for Public Deliberation, the Colorado Press Association, Colorado News Collaborative, and the Colorado Media Project in a statewide campaign to reclaim and reimagine the public square across all of Colorado’s 64 counties.
All Colorado newsrooms are invited to participate in this project to the depth of their choosing. This could range from promoting the initiative and encouraging your audiences to participate in regional events, to asking your community the common questions (to be developed in conjunction with participating newsrooms), to reporting the results and ensuring your community is represented in the statewide reporting, to joining a cohort that will receive additional training and support for community listening and engagement, and/or joining the steering committee for the project.
The five-month fellowship features a series of four “Water Fluency for Journalists” workshops presented by Fresh Water News (an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news service) in addition to coaching support for individual and collaborative reporting projects from the Colorado News Collaborative. The fellowship experience and $1,000 journalist stipends are made possible with support from the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation.
The Colorado Community Media properties -- 24 in all -- were purchased by The National Trust for Local News. This is a new nonprofit organization whose mission is to support local news organizations like CCM so they can remain in local ownership and control, and make the transformations communities want from their local news organizations. This is the first deal of its kind in the nation.
News coverage can be seen below here:
New Deal: Colorado-national consortium buys community papers - Washington Post
How Colorado Sun Shone on 24 Newspapers - Denver Westword
‘Tell Stories That Matter:’ Colorado Community Media Sold to Journalism Partnership
Join CMP on Thursday, May 25, for Replanting Community News: Why a new chapter for 24 weekly newspapers matters for Colorado — and the nation, a panel discussing this transaction.
These trusted Colorado news sources will receive a total of $85,000 in grants to support local journalism and community listening and reporting projects that address critical information needs, questions, and concerns about uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine among communities of color and other marginalized groups.
In the summer of 2020, two surveys — one conducted by University of Denver (DU) with support from The Colorado Trust and the other one by Colorado Press Association (CPA) and Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) of their members and partners — assessed Colorado journalists’ views of their own news outlets and coverage, and of the state of the broader news ecosystem in Colorado. In their answers, journalists highlight strengths, identify weaknesses, and propose solutions for improving local journalism in Colorado.
Sen. Bennet’s co-sponsored legislation would create a 13-member commission to examine new pathways to public funding for local news that meets information needs and addresses inequities in coverage and representation. Journalists from outlets large and small and offered insights into how they're faring, prodded Bennet about what his bill might accomplish, and urged him to examine certain aspects he might not have considered.
In partnership with Colorado News Collaborative and News Revenue Hub, our 2020 #newsCOneeds campaign and matching grant challenge will become an ecosystem-wide, public awareness-building opportunity for all Colorado newsrooms to spotlight the positive impacts they are making in their communities, and to build trust in and support for their local public-service journalism.
“All politics is local,” so the saying goes. The same could be said for misinformation. The 2016 elections brought stories of Macedonian teens pulling quick profits and Russian agents seeding polarization across the United States. But 2020 is teaching us that whatever the origins of a rumor, misleading meme or photo, it is the local twist and organic amplification that give it power — often leading to impact offline.
This fall, we’re working with partners to help build a diverse, community-minded governing board and working committees to help guide the Colorado News Collaborative, or COLab. Innovative thinkers — particularly those from outside of the journalism field, outside of the Front Range, and from historically marginalized communities — let us know you’re interested!
Join the conversation:
