Summit on rural journalism explores ways philanthropy can support local news media, individually and collectively

Fifh in a series of reports on the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, held June 3-4 by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky. Previous articles were on the state of rural journalism, the Summit-driven effort for sustainability in rural journalism, nonprofit models and help from higher-education journalism programs. 

By Al Cross

Director and professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Philanthropy is becoming part of the business model at many American newspapers, but not so much among rural weeklies and dailies. Rural philanthropy has always been something of an oxymoron, with most of the big money staying in big places. The National Summit on Journalism in Rural America explored how philanthropy can help rural news outlets.

Editors and publishers at chain-owned rural papers may think that their ownership model precludes asking for philanthropic help from individuals and institutions, but one of the better examples of philanthropy helping a non-metropolitan paper is at the Traverse City Record-Eagle in Michigan, a daily owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. 

Nathan Payne

Nathan Payne, who recently moved from the editorship of the Record-Eagle to be the rural team editor for Kaiser Health News, discussed at the Summit how he raised support through the local community foundation, a type of philanthropy that is becoming more common in rural areas. 

When Payne needed matching money to get a reporter from Report for America two years ago, he got more and different help than he expected from the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation. He said people in Traverse City see the value of "20 professional skeptics all over the community, turning over rocks" but they didn't really know the state of local journalism. He said involving the community foundation added a trust factor to a chain paper asking for money.

The philanthropy has put $10,000 into a community news fund that helps the Record-Eagle, but that hasn’t meant as much as the help it has given the paper with fund-raising. Payne and Publisher Paul Heidbreder got guidance and support from a retired journalist in the community who was interested in the paper’s future, and their meetings with the foundation's executive director helped Payne frame his case for financial support from others. Last year, he ran a crowdfunding campaign that raised about $8,500 and an end-of-year email campaign that produced $5,550. This year, the paper has $15,000 from foundations, and it has expanded its coverage area to include more rural counties, a rarity today.

An RFA report said some foundation board members were reluctant to fund journalism or a for-profit business, but Executive Director Dave Mengebier said he persuaded the board and the local funding community that “If you want to have healthy, resilient, thriving communities, which is part of our vision statement, then there are certain institutions that are really important to exist in your community. This includes having a newspaper, you know, along with things like having a community library, and, and a vibrant arts-and-culture community.”

Dennis Brack

A similarly enlightened community is Rappahannock County, Virginia, pop. 7,400, where the weekly Rappahannock News has added muscle to its newsroom with the help of Foothills Forum, a local philanthropy that was created specifically to help the independently owned paper. The county "has tradition of deep civic engagement," Publisher Dennis Brack said at the Summit. He acknowledged later that its proximity to Washington, D.C., 90 miles to the east, and the presence of many retirees from D.C., also help.

The first funded project was a poll of the county, to which 42 percent of residents responded. "The findings themselves made news," Brack said; residents said what mattered most to them was privacy, beauty, family farms, and internet and cell service. So the next funded project, using freelance journalists, was on the "digital dilemma;" the second was on land use, always a major issue in exurban counties, then housing. In the pandemic, the News produced a daily newsletter.

Brack said the paper and Foothills Forum are independently operated, with an operating agreement that is public, along with the names of donors, but are "highly collaborative." The only direct subsidies have been sharing the match for RFA reporter and picking up the pay for a part-timer during the pandemic.

Jody Lawrence-Turner

At least one philanthropy has been created specifically for rural news: the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism, headed by Jody Lawrence-Turner, who is also project editor at The Bulletin in Bend, whose owners founded the philanthropy. She said it was created to help rural news organizations adapt and adjust their business models, with strategic advice on digital revenue and other topics, partnerships on stories, micro-grants, talent recruitment and development.

FORJ's first big pilot project addresses a growing complaint of rural editors and publishers: They can't find qualified people who want to work in local news. One solution often suggested is developing interest and talent among students in high school or even middle school. FORJ's Future Journalists of America pilot at four high schools in Bend newsrooms hosts a lab with sessions taught by professionals in a semester-long curriculum: media literacy, professional craft, doing assignments with news staffers, a digital, district-wide publication, and exploration of sustainable business models. The overall goal is to sell "a career with a purpose, ensuring the continuation of a free democracy," Lawrence-Turner said.

The Summit session on "Putting Philanthropy in Your Business Model" is on YouTube, here.

Philanthropy was mentioned in other sessions. Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro of the National Trust for Local News discussed how the Trust and philanthropic partners bought a chain of 24 community papers in Colorado and put them into a nonprofit, creating an umbrella model for other places.

The Trust, the Institute for Nonprofit News, the Kentucky Press Association and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (sponsor of the Summit) have conducted a survey of newspaper owners in Appalachian Kentucky with the Mountain Association, an Appalachian Kentucky development organization that wants to keep the papers in local hands, perhaps using a nonprofit umbrella for those in distressed counties where for-profit buyers either wouldn't be interested or could damage the papers.

Philanthropy would be needed to fund such a model, but that challenge could also be an opportunity. If an umbrella nonprofit was also committed to improving coverage of regional issues, across the county lines that typically define rural newspaper markets, that could attract funders. "Successful papers don't think geographically" but are "breaking out of geographic jail," Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University said at the Summit's opening session, which is here on YouTube, along with other sessions.