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: Check Out This Guide to Audience Revenue and EngagementThe Membership Puzzle Project and the Tow Center have completed a terrific and useful guide on how reader revenue and audience engagement can go hand in hand. Learn about the differences between subscriptions, memberships, and donations. Consider how to make reader revenue one part of a multi-pronged revenue strategy. The report is strategically broken down into sections and includes a long glossary. The team also opened up an editable growing glossary and resource list as well.   

Building Capacity of Nonprofit News to Cultivate Support

We hear a lot of doom and gloom about local news, but we at the Local Fix think there’s lots to celebrate and highlight, too. One huge positive thing this week? The results from NewsMatch were released, and hoo boy, they’re exciting. In the last three months of 2017, more than 202,000 donors contributed $33 million to 109 local, nonprofit newsrooms. Of those 202,000 donors, 43,000 gave to an organization for the first time. NewsMatch sparked a lot of energy and proved that people support reporting they trust and rely on. It is just one piece of a much larger puzzle, but one with lots to learn from and with a lot of potential.

• NewsMatch Leads to Record Setting Year for Nonprofit News – Democracy Fund 
• Local News is a Building Block to Rebuild Trust – Trust, Media, and Democracy 
• “The median donation [to FCIR] was $50, demonstrating the power of small donors” – Florida Center for Investigative Reporting 
• These people support fearless investigative reporting in Wisconsin – Wisconsin Watch 
• How donations will support ICIJ in 2018 –ICIJ

Visuals Matter

Photography, and visual journalists, are integral to local journalism, but are they getting the attention and money they deserve? Poynter recently announced that they were going to spend more time reporting on photojournalism after facing backlash over sharing tools for organizations to find free images. They opened up an important and useful conversation about how visual journalism leads to more credibility, legality, and better journalism. We don’t feature as much visual journalism here in the Fix as we should either, so this was a reminder for us.  The links below provide more background and useful resources. Plus, there’s an article from 1952 that reads like it could be from today, saying that photojournalists need to be included in conversations about press freedom.

• We’re going to spend a lot more time reporting on photojournalism. What should we cover? – Poynter 
• Visuals Have Value And So Do Visual Journalists – NPPA
• From the Archives: Does Press Freedom Include Photography? – October 1952 issue of Nieman Reports 

Heartbreak and Frustration

It feels like there’s not much that can be said after the shooting in Florida this week. Local journalists are grappling with the aftermath of multiple mass shootings and figuring out how to cover them responsibly and with compassion. Here are a few resources on working with people caught in tragic events, as well as ideas on how to prevent a vicious copycat cycles.

• The Heartbreak and Frustration of Covering One Mass Shooting After Another – The New Yorker  
• Working With Victims and Survivors – Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma 
• Zeynep Tufekci on how media can report on mass shootings without inspiring copycats (from 2012) – The Atlantic 

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.