By Darryl Holliday
2021 was a year of new beginnings. Life-saving vaccines allowed Americans to reconnect with relatives and friends. Communities began the process of rebuilding and reimagining a future beyond the pandemic. And across the country, new media organizations and projects are acknowledging past harms and building new models for local news and information. We’ve been lucky this past year to work with innovative journalists and community organizers who are reimagining what local media can be and do.
Reflecting on what we’ve learned this year, I’m sharing City Bureau’s wishlist for the future of local news in 2022, not as a fantasy, but as something we believe we can achieve together. Take a look and if you've got one to add, join the conversation by tweeting @City_Bureau with #LocalMediaWishlist.
Since 2017 City Bureau’s Chicago Documenters has been training and paying anyone with an interest to cover local government meetings. Along with providing a powerful information resource and mechanism for accountability, these opportunities are often transformative for the participants. From Resolve Philly’s Info Hub Captains to the Long Beach Post’s Community Editorial Boards, we’re inspired by the growing number of media organizations that are devising innovative ways to pay community members to participate in the development and delivery of local media—creating a more democratic foundation for local media in the process.
Since 2016 we’ve hosted almost 150 editions of the Public Newsroom, hosting in-person trainings and virtual conversations that blur the line between mediamakers and the communities their work impacts. We’ve learned an important lesson for media more broadly: The relationships people have around news and information are just as important as access to information. We look outside of journalism for ideas to shape the future: community radio stations, churches, block clubs, even barber shops and ice cream shops, all play a role in helping people find information they need in a context they trust. What can we learn from those networks of trust to build a better future for journalism?
Year after year we see that there is no substitute for the power of lived experience to inform reporting. In 2021 we had reporting fellows whose neighborhoods are directly affected by industrial pollution reporting on environmental justice, while others who had seen community gardens revitalizing their blocks reported on the city's support (or lack thereof) for urban farmers. We’re far from alone in this approach: our friends at Cicero Independiente, Canopy Atlanta and Énois are doing great work on this, centering community members in their process and paying them to produce original reporting.
While this wishlist isn’t exhaustive, and we know that it’s bound to grow and evolve, we invite you to participate in the work of making these dreams real by donating any amount today. Now through the end of the year, your donation will receive a 2x match from #NewsMatch, so there is no better time to give.
Collectively, we have come so far in the past few years and none of this would have been possible without your support. Thank you and we can’t wait to build what comes next, together.
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