Welcome to the Local Fix. Each week we look at key debates in journalism sustainability and community engagement through the lens of local news.  But first, we always begin with one good idea…

One Good Idea: Newsletter Nerds
It’s a little meta to share tips on how to do an email newsletter in an email newsletter, but we couldn’t resist sharing this powerpoint full of useful advice from a recent ONA NYC event. Get ideas on how to test what’s working, grow your newsletter audience, and even how to build a newsletter writing team. (Thanks Naeema Campbell for sharing the link with us)

Expanding Engagement and Listening

This week – with a bunch of great partners – Democracy Fund helped launch a new $650,000 fund dedicated to helping newsrooms listen to and engage their communities. The Community Listening and Engagement Fund (CLEF) was created in partnership with the News Integrity Initiative, Lenfest Institute and Knight Foundation and will initially support 50-75 newsrooms who want to adopt new reporting practices like Hearken and Groundsource. You can find out more about applying for the fund here or attend this upcoming webinar.​

• A New Fund Aims to Put the Public Back into the Public Square – Democracy Fund 
• “Turns out collaboration can stimulate markets that support innovation, sustainability, *and* the public good.” A good thread with newsroom examples 
• Why defining your community is the key to building trust (and one model for doing it) – Adam Thomas 
• The Year of Listening – Molly de Aguiar 

Doing More with Data Together

In the last month or two, we’ve seen an encouraging trend of local organizations working together to collect, share data, and report out important local data driven stories. Shared data banks and building joint capacity across geographies may promise to unlock new stories and make data driven reporting more accessible to a wide array of newsrooms. These collaborations are not easy, but we are increasingly seeing models that might be able to be replicated in other places. 

• The State of Data in Newsrooms: Findings and Recommendations – Carolina Data Desk 
• Chicago Data Collaborative (made up of 7 local news and civic groups) launches criminal justice data portal – Chicago Reader 
• A network of news outlets and data agencies wants to unlock untold data stories across Europe – NiemanLab 
• In the UK, data journalism and investigations are getting more local – Journalism.co.uk 
• The Center for Cooperative Media in NJ is hatching joint data plans too – Stefanie Murray  

Who Run the World?

What happens when you stop being polite, and you start getting real about inclusion? Take the example of Outside Magazine – they’ve been working to bring in more diverse voices, especially women, and the results are showing. They’ve taken some specific, actionable steps, including keeping track of who is getting bylines. Not that we need a reminder, but Vox and the Smithsonian Magazine’s articles clearly share what we lose when women’s voices are driven out of journalism. (Spoiler alert: it’s not good). But to leave on a positive note, you can’t help but be excited about the future of women in journalism after reading about the newest members of Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media. Who run the world indeed. 

• “Punchier and stronger” and with way more women: How Outside Magazine got to be badass online – NiemanLab 
• Poynter announces Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media class and expansion of program – Poynter 
• When harassment drives women out of journalism – Vox 
• These Women Reporters Went Undercover to Get the Most Important Scoops of Their Day – Smithsonian 

Have a good weekend,
Josh and Teresa
@jcstearns, @gteresa

The Local Fix is a project of the Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program, which invests in innovations and institutions that are reinventing local media and expanding the public square. Disclosure: Some projects mentioned in this newsletter may be funded by Democracy Fund, you can find a full list of the organizations we support on our website.