Knight Foundation, University of Vermont donors fund center to support local news media and help colleges do likewise

The University of Vermont is launching the Center for Community News, an effort to support local news media and help colleges do likewise. The $400,000 in funding comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and donors to the university's College of Arts & Sciences.

The project "builds on the successful Community News model in Vermont, which brings students together with professional editors to provide news reporting at no cost to local news outlets," a university news release said. The center's mission "is to inspire and enable collaborations between local media outlets and students." to do that, it plans to:

• Building and maintain a comprehensive database of academic-news collaborations in the U.S. Academics, administrators and journalists who are involved in such programs are invited to fill out this form to be included and potentially get involved in future efforts.
• Give direct support to academic and news institutions, creating case studies and advisory materials for organizations that want to launch or expand news partnerships.
• Keep innovating the Community News model, exploring ways to grow it with new partners and a statewide content-sharing tool.
• Keep training citizen reporters in the ethics, mechanics, and skills of responsible local journalism. The Community News Service recently graduated its third class of citizen reporters, in partnership with the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications in New Hampshire.
• In coordination with the Knight Foundation, identify regions where it will focus its efforts.

David Goodman of VT Digger recently interviewed Richard Watts, coordinator of the news service and director of the center; Lisa Scagliotti, founder and editor of Waterbury Roundabout, a new community news outlet; and Dom Minadeo, a university senior, assistant editor of The Winooski News and a reporter for the news service. The 30-minute podcast is here.