Tiny News Collective to provide funding to six local news start-ups dankennedy.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dankennedy.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lawyers for Reporters connects local news outlets with free legal services
The pro-bono service helps new news outlets that often cover and serve underrepresented communities not only stay in business, but also build a sustainable business over time.
By Hanaa’ Tameez@hanaatameez May 18, 2021, 2:16 p.m.
May 18, 2021, 2:16 p.m.
In Shasta County, California, Annelise Pierce is the founder of the nonprofit news outlet Shasta Scout, where she covers underreported stories in her region of Northern California.
This past March, she published a story about a music producer associated with Bethel Church, an evangelical megachurch in Redding, California, who was producing a documentary series about recalling Shasta County supervisors (“Follow along as we drain our local swamp”). From her piece:
I’m of two minds about Substack. As a newsletter-and-blogging platform that is attractive and simplifies the task of writers charging readers for their work, it’s fine. As a venture capital-backed company whose leaders seem to have visions of world domination (and endless riches), well, I’m more than a little skeptical.
Which is to say that I’m dubious about Substack Local, a just-announced initiative under which 30 lucky local journalists will be able to get start-up funding and health insurance in order to cover their communities. Obviously the idea addresses the two biggest obstacles to going independent. And if it works, presumably there will be many more such Substack-backed local projects to come.
Union leaders and management at the Hartford Courant spoke out Thursday about legislation that would allow Courant subscribers to sue the paper’s owners over cost-cutting measures. Mark Pazniokas of the nonprofit CT Mirror himself a Courant alum covers the story.
As expected, management and an association of newspaper publishers criticized the measure as an assault on the First Amendment, while proponents cited an 1887 charter that the legislature granted to the Courant. That charter was revised in 1951.
“So there is a history of the legislature passing special acts about the corporate structure of the parent company of the Hartford Courant,” said Sen. Matt Lesser, according to the Mirror’s report. “That is different from me going in and saying, ‘I’m looking to manage the news operations of the publication.’”
Tiny News Collective aims to launch 500 new local news organizations in three years
At least half of the new newsrooms will be “based in communities that are unserved or underserved, run by founders who have historically been shut out.”
By Sarah Scire@SarahScire Jan. 12, 2021, 10:40 a.m.
Jan. 12, 2021, 10:40 a.m.
The project will offer entrepreneurial journalists a tech stack, business training, legal assistance, and back-office services like payroll for around $100 a month. From the announcement:
[We’re] proud to announce a new effort to make the path to journalism entrepreneurship easier: The Tiny News Collective, a new partnership providing the tools, resources and commonwealth of knowledge to help people build sustainable news organizations that reflect and serve their communities.