On the heels of its $300 million commitment to local news, free speech, and media literacy — and its commission-generated report espousing transparency and diversity — the Knight Foundation hosted its regular gathering of funders, fundees, and other smart journalism folk. This year had a special focus on sustainability in local news and encouraging other local funders to step up beyond Knight’s home bases of Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. (Disclosure: Knight has been a Nieman Lab funder in the past.)
Those funders, journalists, and yes librarians too gathered in Miami this week. Presentations largely centered on amplifying diverse local news efforts to rebuild trust in the media more broadly, with a danah boyd keynote; the staple AI + ethics panel with Julia Angwin, Craig Newmark, and others; a showcase of exemplary projects like City Bureau and Resolve Philadelphia; and the launch of the American Journalism Project, a venture philanthropy effort co-led by Chalkbeat founder Elizabeth Green and Texas Tribune founder John Thornton, with $42 million in its first fund. (Green’s one-month-old son also made a cameo appearance when Thornton shared a photo to explain her absence.)
One more thing to keep in mind: The welcoming of local foundations into the journalism-funding fold is great — unless your local area doesn’t have much of a philanthropic community to speak of.
while it's great that some cities are able to find a local benefactor or a foundation that loves that place, this is predominantly going to happen in the kind of cities that are able to support the creation of wealthy people in the first place.
— Heather Bryant (@HBCompass) February 27, 2019
Here’s Knight’s summary notes of those sessions, but folks on Twitter also shared lively (and lovely) quotes from the forum. Here’s our collection of the topline thoughts:
On the role local media can play:
Are we preparing young people for citizenship the way we are trying to prepare them for, say, careers in science? #infoneeds
— Karen Rundlet (@kbmiami) February 25, 2019
Local news is a place to rebuild trust. “The shorter the distance between our neighbors and our news, the stronger our community.” #infoneeds @knightfdn
— Brian Norman (@BrianNorman13) February 26, 2019
"The way we inform ourselves is insufficient to meet the demands of the 21st Century," @ibarguen @knightfdn as he launches the Knight Media Forum in Miami. "We're here because we think one of the 3 ways forward is local news." Looking forward to great conversations. #infoneeds pic.twitter.com/Cj3dcYmiQP
— Dawn Garcia (@degarciaknight) February 26, 2019
Main focus here is local news, but Ibarguen says need to consider role of AI to solve disinformation problems and whether laws need to evolve to current landscape (eg: apply product liability law to digital products?)
— Arielle Levin Becker (@ariellelb) February 26, 2019
Researcher danah boyd on disinformation, media manipulation, and why YouTube is vital for journalists to pay attention to:
At #infoneeds @zephoria points out that a lot of young people get essentially ALL their news — and do most of their search — on YouTube. Journalists do not even begin to understand this.
— Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) February 26, 2019
This is why journalists have to not only be discerning, but also in constant, ongoing conversation with the communities they serve. #infoneeds #newsvoices
— Alicia Bell (@aliciacbell) February 26, 2019
Google’s design assumes people will click on the result and consume content. But @zephoria shows that the headline and notification is often the end of the story, not the beginning. All frame and no content—ripe for exploitation. @knightfdn #infoneeds
— Brian Norman (@BrianNorman13) February 26, 2019
"Journalists do the work of conspiracy theorists and the far-right when they amplify the words that have been staged for them" @zephoria speaking on data voids and internet algorithms' and bad actors' influence in spreading disinformation. #InfoNeeds
— Grace Dearing (@GraceDearing) February 26, 2019
Now we get to the fun part of @zephoria’s talk on local news where she criticizes capitalism, hedge funds, and private equity’s role in decimating community-rooted media #infoneeds pic.twitter.com/xfFNdfdFGA
— Mike Rispoli (@RispoliMike) February 26, 2019
Resilience isn’t about deleting content; it’s about having networks of people that you can turn to and trust, danah boyd says. Real solution is thinking about our communities and realizing information bridges them. #infoneeds
— Arielle Levin Becker (@ariellelb) February 26, 2019
When you are in a position of power, you are in a position to amplify. Choose to amplify messages that bring communities together, not hate. You aren’t reporting the discord; you’re amplifying it- @zephoria #Infoneeds
— Mike Rispoli (@RispoliMike) February 26, 2019
On emerging and existing efforts to engage and equip communities to participate in journalism:
“Community journalism won’t survive unless the community supports it.” -Steve Waldman, Report for America #infoneeds
— Alicia Bell (@aliciacbell) February 26, 2019
.@bechang8 of @city_bureau lays out 4 interrelated crises in journalism #Infoneeds pic.twitter.com/LFhAkfu8aR
— Lindsay Green-Barber (@WhimsicaLinds) February 26, 2019
Core tenets of @JournalismProj
1/market failure in local news
2/local journalism central to democracy
3/The fix is a “we the people” fixCould not agree more. So exciting to see the scale and ambition needed to transform local news coming into fruition. @knightfdn #infoneeds pic.twitter.com/i0kchvgxlT
— Elizabeth Hansen (@ehansen02) February 26, 2019
"Funders don't always have answers, they have money," says Karen Rundlet of @knightfdn — looking to work with communities to surface solutions, which is why @soljourno approach is generative for informing communities. #infoneeds
— Jessica Clark (@beyondbroadcast) February 26, 2019
“To get where I’m going I need to walk away from where I was” John Thornton quoting Winnie the Pooh on why American Journalism Project believes in creation of new news organizations rather than fixing legacy media as it announces $42M launch #infoneeds
— Burt Herman (@burtherman) February 26, 2019
.@evanasmith: “We have no competitors, only current and future collaborators.”
THAT is the new mindset leaders need to build the next news ecosystem. #infoneeds @TexasTribune @JournalismProj
— Elizabeth Hansen (@ehansen02) February 26, 2019
American Journalism Project putting in place grant process by June, to give out first
in Q4 2019. Key criteria will be journalism bona fides, local support, convening community of interest, public mission #Infoneeds
— Burt Herman (@burtherman) February 26, 2019
in Q4 2019. Key criteria will be journalism bona fides, local support, convening community of interest, public mission Why local journalists need to pay attention to AI/automated decision-making:
There's no repository of information about how/where AI is being deployed in various communities. Lack of local reporters exacerbates ignorance. People need to be asking more hard questions of policymakers. @LatoyaPeterson #infoneeds
— Jessica Clark (@beyondbroadcast) February 26, 2019
.@LatoyaPeterson makes the case for specialized watchdog journalism for local and community use of AI. YES! this requires a fluency and new knowledge base for local governance journalists #infoneeds
— dana coester (@poetabook) February 26, 2019
Better to use the term "automated decisionmaking" rather than AI to clarify what's going on, says @JuliaAngwin There's too much baggage around the word "intelligence" #infoneeds
— Jessica Clark (@beyondbroadcast) February 26, 2019
.@JuliaAngwin: Ask of automated decision making tools – 1) what does this mean for autonomy? 2) what is the due process/method to dispute outcomes? 3) what is the disparate impact? #infoneeds #AI
— Lauren McKown (@laurenmckown) February 26, 2019
Good things to keep in mind (broadband access!):
This is a point that keeps coming up at #infoneeds: binary of nonprofit vs. for-profit isn't working anymore, "the OS is broken," and we need to move to "for profit for purpose."
— Jessica Clark (@beyondbroadcast) February 26, 2019
I’m still stuck on how we create equitable access to web based technology when so many of our communities have limited (to no access) to broadband. That means many of our communities are aggressively being left behind for the future. #infoneeds
— Candice Fortman (@Cande313) February 26, 2019
This round up of academic research on the impact of local news on civic outcomes and democratic health may be of interest to those at #infoneeds. https://t.co/ubAgbyc9l8
— Josh Stearns (@jcstearns) February 27, 2019
Why “ethnic media” is not an additive and framing it as such is harmful:
Jennifer Preston asks @MirtaOjito why Spanish-language news media tends to have higher trust from communities they serve. One answer: place for immigrants to get basic info about snow days, flu shots, etc. Also: townhalls. Get close to community. Listen. @knightfdn #infoneeds
— Brian Norman (@BrianNorman13) February 27, 2019
Such a great point by @MirtaOjito: English-speaking media do their reporting top-down. Start with gettin info from people in position of power, then go to the community for quotes. Think about how that impacts the journalism, or what that signals to the public. #infoneeds
— Mike Rispoli (@RispoliMike) February 27, 2019
Misinformation fuels distrust/division, but so does missed information: people/places/priorities that are unrepresented. So is some journalism inherently more trustworthy? Hearing @city_bureau & also “bottom to top” Spanish-lang reporting from @MirtaOjito, I say yes #infoneeds
— Julie Moos (@juliemmoos) February 27, 2019
“It’s important that we stop thinking of ethnic media as a ‘nice to have,’ as something on the side. It’s a must have.” #infoneeds @knightfdn #communitymedia @Qcitymetro pic.twitter.com/JqecZjBSJ2
— Mauri Ingram (@MauriI) February 27, 2019
Only people of color reporting on their community are labeled as biased. Why have this term “ethnic media” when it’s journalism. “We are giving people a lens that the mainstream media is not covering. We are close to the communities… “ Julio Varela, @futuromedia #infoneeds pic.twitter.com/eGxxHmIkHe
— Charles Thomas (@cthomasclt) February 27, 2019
On the dynamic between funders and grantees:
As funders, we know who we know and we tend to give credibility to folks like us, Im says. We realized we needed to find the people who wouldn’t come to us. #infoneeds
— Arielle Levin Becker (@ariellelb) February 27, 2019
Don’t just inform. Don’t just engage. Equip the community to do journalism and promote civic engagement- @d_holli
#InfoNeeds
— Mike Rispoli (@RispoliMike) February 27, 2019
.@thorntonaustin on the importance of #nonprofit local news: We need to think about our local news organizations as fundamentally civic rather than commercial in nature. #infoneeds #lovelocalnews
— Anusha A (@AnushaA100) February 27, 2019
Kathy Im (@macfound): Foundations should give unrestricted funding to those closest to the ground.
The #infoneeds room: pic.twitter.com/Ygr0aGecoL
— Alicia Bell (@aliciacbell) February 27, 2019
Pretty radical statement from Kathy Im of @macfound, reflecting on power dynamics between foundations and grantees: "What does it mean to share power — and relinquish power? Letting people who are closer to the work decide…putting the resources in their hands." #infoneeds pic.twitter.com/gFKusxKTJa
— Dawn Garcia (@degarciaknight) February 27, 2019
Speaking of radical transparency – wonderful to hear John Bebow, @CenterforMI say that this is the last time someone like him should present on their work & need to amplify more diverse voices in spaces like Knight Media Forum. This is what builds trust. #Infoneeds @jwmcconnell
— Chad Lubelsky (@clubelly) February 27, 2019
Kathy Im of @macfound talking about the urgency + moral imperative of funders to share power and relinquish control and support the people closest to the work do their job was *the* highlight of this conference. Watch the video. Funders need to grapple w/ their power! #infoneeds
— Molly de Aguiar (@MollydeAguiar) February 27, 2019
"Newsrooms are providing information to help people live their lives. We're making the case that news is a cause. And we're at the beginning of something." – @knightfdn's @kbmiami on why journalism is a public good. #infoneeds
— NewsMatch (@NewsMatch) February 27, 2019