Op/Ed: We started Indiana Local News Initiative because local news is vital to democracy
Local journalism — non-partisan, fact-based news and information — is fundamental to our democracy. Study after study shows more local community news means more voting, a stronger sense of place and connectedness, less political polarization and less government corruption.
Local hard-working journalists across Indiana’s media landscape operate at the very foundation of our democracy. They are our eyes and ears at our local school board and city council meetings, and they engage us in the stories of our communities. However, sadly, there are hundreds fewer journalists in our state today than there were just a generation ago.
The reality is traditional models of journalism have shifted, making our precious “democracy-protecting” community news less accessible. In 2021, I was honored to join a group of community leaders in partnership with the American Journalism Project, to talk to more than 1,000 residents of diverse backgrounds across 79 counties in Indiana about local news. The message we got was crystal clear. Hoosiers, especially in underserved communities, do not get enough unbiased, fact-based information about their local communities.
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Our steering committee — including Tamara Winfrey-Harris, president of the Women's Fund of Central Indiana; Mark Miles, chief executive officer of Penske Entertainment Corp.; Rafael Sanchez, chief impact officer at Old National Bank; Myrta Pulliam, journalist and community leader; Kevin Corcoran, veteran Indiana journalist and strategy director at Lumina Foundation, and myself — felt this was a call for us to work together to respond. We believe it will take collaborative action from all of Indiana’s newsrooms and our communities to come together and restore the vital information resources that are foundational to our local democracy. Now, we are working with 11 philanthropies, over a dozen news organizations and the American Journalism Project to get this movement started as the Indiana Local News Initiative.
The Initiative is a new, nonprofit organization dedicated to making quality, independent local news and information freely accessible to all Hoosiers, with community and collaboration at the core of its mission. With over $10 million raised so far, our strategies are straightforward:
Fill gaps by creating new independent newsrooms
Facilitate investment in partner news organizations
Foster collaboration with Indiana news outlets
Indiana will benefit from a new 25-person independent news organization in Central Indiana as well as a new five-person newsroom in Gary by Capital B, a nonprofit news organization serving Black communities. The new Central Indiana newsroom will take an innovative, community-centered approach to its journalism, including launching the award-winning Documenters program by City Bureau that trains and pays people to cover local public meetings, and increase public accountability. Content generated by the initiative will be free and available for use across media outlets.
We’ve launched a search for an editor in chief and community journalism director to lead the newsroom, details of which can be found at localnewsforindiana.org.
The initiative has also facilitated investments in four Indiana news outlets — Franklin College’s StatehouseFile.com, the Indianapolis Recorder, the Indiana Citizen and Public News Service — helping to add staff, increase news sharing and reduce paywalls.
Additionally, media partners have agreed to work together to distribute and amplify news to increase access for all Hoosiers, especially in underserved communities. As the former president and publisher of IndyStar, I am passionate about the role of journalism in fueling our democracy, and I am proud to see the growing collaboration occurring among Indiana media outlets to address critical information gaps.
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The result will be an infusion of more than 30 local journalism jobs across Initiative partners, and as we continue to grow this coalition, more will be on the way. This is a monumental effort that started with the generosity of over a thousand Hoosiers who put in the time to share with us what they wanted to see from local news and grew into a coalition that is among the biggest of its kind in the nation. Thank you to the passionate and generous philanthropists who are supporting democracy at its core.
In a typewriter (remember those?) on the table in our home is a quote: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in our bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.”
Indiana — It’s time we work together. More local community news. Democracy. Freedom. Join us.
Karen Ferguson Fuson is chair of the Indiana Local News Initiative and former publisher of the Indianapolis Star.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: New nonprofit initiative to focus on local news in Indianapolis, Gary
