The New England Independent News Outlets Conference brought together 18 publications with staffers from two foundations to discuss how to get more financial support from local and regional funders
On Saturday, May 17, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism hosted the New England Independent News Outlets Conference at the Community Church of Boston in Boston’s Copley Square. The event was called under the auspices of the New England working group of the Alliance of Nonprofit News Outlets—the national grassroots trade association, now 49 member-outlets strong, founded by BINJ in 2023.
The purpose of the event was an extension of a dialogue sparked by the launch of Press Forward, a consortium of major national foundations interested in increasing donations to struggling newsrooms in response to the ongoing collapse of the journalism industry, in part by pushing local and regional funders to start funding news production at scale. BINJ and fellow ANNO member-outlets aimed to do our part to aid that initiative by asking grant-making foundations around New England to support local and statewide independent news outlets in the public interest … something most of them have never done before.
To that end, we invited nearly 30 foundations from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut to attend the four-hour conference and talk with leaders of news outlets from around the region about why we feel it is vital to get more support from funders.
The 18 news organizations in attendance, including BINJ, were: Boston Compass (Mass.), Brookline.News (Mass.), Burlington Buzz (Mass.), Cambridge Day (Mass.), East Greenwich News (RI), ecoRI News (RI), Harpswell Anchor (Maine), InDepth NH (NH), Lexington Observer (Mass.), Marblehead Current (Mass.), the Flipside (Mass.), the Local News (Mass.), the Shoestring (Mass.), the SOME Publication (Mass.), the Swellesley Report (Mass.), Waltham Times (Mass.), and YourArlington.com (Mass.). We were also joined by the new support organization Journalism New England (Maine).
While BINJ staff and the other news outlet reps were gratified that the Boston Foundation and the Rhode Island-based van Beuren Charitable Foundation fielded staff members at our confab, many who spoke were clearly dismayed to find that the vast majority of the foundations that we invited chose not to attend (though a handful had schedule conflicts, in fairness).
Nevertheless, after an hour of introductions in which representatives of each news outlet and foundation present briefly discussed their organization’s mission—and in the case of the foundation staffers, what their funding focuses are and how much they have funded news outlets to date—BINJ Development Director Linda Pinkow moderated two sessions on how independent news outlets can start pushing New England-based foundations to fund our sector in a more strategic and coordinated manner before more cities, towns, and counties lose what little local news coverage they have. The foundation staffers on hand were extremely helpful in shaping that conversation and starting to think of ways to attract more of their colleagues to attend a second conference that participating editors, publishers, and board members then decided to hold this fall.
News outlet representatives also spent a good deal of time reviewing other driving needs their organizations have and how they might work together to meet those needs.
After the event, ecoRI News Publisher Joanna Detz sent out a follow-up survey to news publications in attendance to check support for a fall conference and solicit comments about the first one. Of the ten publications that responded to date, support for a second conference remains unanimous.
Takeaways were positive about more collaboration between indy news outlets in the survey, but ranged between hopeful and frustrated about chances for more support from New England funders:
- “The state of local news funding is as abysmal as I thought and outlets that do exist require someone to work overtime for [low] pay. Surprisingly, however, there seems to be some glimmer of hope yet alive in these people’s minds.”
- “It’s hard out here! But people are still stepping up and doing the work. If help is coming, it won’t likely be from local foundations.”
- “Small nonprofit publishers in New England and beyond should try to speak with one voice more often.”
- “We all need more money, and it needs to be secure and continuous, not one-off grants.”
- “We need more collaboration.”
BINJ will continue networking with allied independent news outlets in New England and beyond to improve the fortunes of our sector of the news industry. Indy publishers that would like to work with us toward that goal can contact us at info@binj.news anytime.
