It is widely accepted now that layoffs and the gutting of broadcast, print and digital newsrooms across the United States undermines our democracy. PBS viewers and readers have told us they’re worried about the inability to hold the powerful accountable. And in this space, we’ve talked about the recent torrent of bad news for the news. As part of our drive to amplify the voices of people who are embedded in the critical issues of our time, we invited the words of Tracie Powell, founder of The Pivot Fund and a leading strategist on the sustainability of local news.
--Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, PBS Public Editor
News deserts aren’t new – they’re simply spreading. At the same time, news outlets are emerging that show us a way forward – and it looks very different from the past.
The Pivot Fund
The loss of almost a third of America’s local newspapers in the past two decades has been an unnatural disaster, opening gaping holes in the news landscape.
Yet today’s expanding void of trustworthy news coverage is nothing new for many people. In many urban neighborhoods, American Indian reservations, and rural swaths of the United States, reliable news and information have always been as scarce as water in the Mojave. For them, there never really was a golden age of newspapers.
In metro areas, newspapers often stationed reporters in wealthy suburbs while ignoring urban neighborhoods that advertisers didn’t covet. Reporters’ visits to these neighborhoods were usually to report on crime. While small-town newspapers were once lifelines for local readers, many counties had no newspapers, or maybe a single weekly covering a huge area. And before the internet, newscasts on television and radio were more likely delivered from big cities by repeater stations and satellites.
Recognizing the troubling news deserts, the nation’s major philanthropies are starting to prioritize local journalism. They know that a healthy democracy requires informed and engaged citizens.
But there are trap doors. One is that by answering this call to action, philanthropy inadvertently recreates the inequitable news landscapes of the past, only now in digital form.
Trust as currency
This is why we should look at the flowers blooming in some news deserts for a way forward. Sadly, most of these new community outlets are not on philanthropy’s radar screen. The promising microsites need investment to expand, but major foundations and wealthy donors only see their small audiences and small staffs of reporters and editors. They fail to see that many of these budding news outlets have one thing that money can’t buy – the trust of their communities.
For example: A number of strong hyperlocal sites were launched on social media, some still live only there, and their founders don’t necessarily call themselves journalists. TakeATLSCOOP, which provides independent, accurate news and information to Atlantans. It has 873,000 followers on Instagram, dwarfing the readership of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Other outlets are more niche, but what they have in common is knowing their audiences and how to stretch a dollar. Pasa la Voz, on the Georgia coast, started as a Facebook group providing hurricane safety information to Spanish speakers. It grew into a source of a wide range of news and information designed to help immigrants succeed. Advertisers, from local businesses to the state health department, followed the audience.
The Pivot Fund invested in Pasa la Voz in 2022. Its founder, Elizabeth (Lisa) Galarza, the daughter of migrant farmworkers, responded by hiring the editor of the Spanish-language digital news outlet in Charleston, South Carolina. This merged two publications and launched a new website, a WhatsApp channel, and a strategy for public events. Now that she’s able to concentrate full-time on generating revenue, Galarza has brought in more income than the Pivot investment.
Betting on the local angle
In rural La Grange, Georgia, April Ross also made her name reporting live on Facebook. She caught the attention of a local cable TV station owner, who confided that he wanted to get out of the TV business. She ended up buying the station with a loan from a local bank and combined her mostly Black Facebook following with the station’s mostly white, evangelical audience. She used an investment from Pivot to hire a sports director, whose coverage went even further to bridge La Grange’s racial divide. As with Pasa la Voz, advertisers followed. Today the sports coverage helps pay for Ross’ newsgathering.
The Institute for Nonprofit News is another organization trying to foster diverse and equitable reporting. Its Rural News Networkleverages the experience of 60 independent newsrooms across 30 states, including several tribal newsrooms. Public media is also pushing back against the spread of news deserts with regional collaborations. One example is Rocky Mountain Public Media in Colorado. Rather than competition among separate broadcast, digital and print outlets, the Colorado News Collaborative now includes 180 newsrooms.
Yet, on the national level, these efforts fall short. Across the country, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of hyperlocal sites informing their communities without any connection to journalism organizations or funders. Think of the impact of supporting these outlets at scale. Rather than fostering the news and public affairs inequality of the past, we’d create a news landscape as diverse as our country, led by people with strong roots in their communities.
This is The Pivot Fund’s goal: We start on the ground, mostly in long-marginalized communities of color, and ask residents whom they trust for news and information. We then verify whether those outlets adhere to standards of independent journalism. Right now, we are starting a landscape analysis in the Midwest with the support of regional foundations and donors. (We’re happy to share our methodology with anyone who wants to do the same work in other regions.)
The early results? Clear evidence that the future of journalism may look unfamiliar to many, including some of the biggest financial supporters of local news. But if this new future is diverse and equitable, I am convinced it means we’re doing it right this time.
Tracie Powell, a leader in philanthropy for racial equity in news media, founded The Pivot Fund to support BIPOC-led and serving community newsrooms. As a Shorenstein Center Research Fellow at Harvard, she focused her research on funding and capacity building for BIPOC media. Powell previously chaired LION Publishers, founded the Racial Equity in Journalism (REJ) Fund, and created AllDigitocracy.org to address the media's impact on diverse communities. With a rich history, including a senior fellowship at the Democracy Fund and a 2016 JSK Fellowship at Stanford, Powell continues reshaping journalism through inclusivity and equity.