“What happens to our communities when quality journalism diminishes or disappears altogether?” The News Voices: Free Press New Jersey project, supported by the Democracy Fund and the Dodge Foundation, seeks to address this question through “a bold effort to build meaningful relationships between local newsrooms and their communities [and] to create a collaborative network of people invested in the future of local news toward vibrant inclusive communities.” This innovative project is led by Fiona Morgan and Mike Rispoli of Free Press.
News Voices will build a network of residents, civic leaders, journalists, and academics to advocate for quality and sustainable journalism. Essentially, the project harnesses the people power of New Jersey “to foster better local journalism.”
The News Voices project proposes that the current landscape of journalism requires focusing on saving traditional outlets including newspapers while adopting new technology. However, this initiative focuses on the purposes of journalism: holding the powerful accountable, informing audiences, and acting in the public interest.
Free Press has chosen to pilot this program in New Jersey because the state’s close proximity to the New York and Philadelphia media markets. As Free Press points out “If New Jersey were its own market, it would be the fourth largest in the country.” This proximity has often led to the overshadowing of New Jersey’s local issues within news within outlets based in other states but having audiences in New Jersey. As startup journalism communities within the state grow they continue to focus on nonprofit and for-profit online new organizations and experimenting social media platforms. News Voices New Jersey “want[s] to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds, with shared interests, to make our communities and local news institutions stronger.”
We at the Democracy Fund continue to be interested in bringing newsrooms and a renewed focus on local communities into the public dialogue. News Voices is also looking for additional voices from journalists and the community to highlight topical issues for local journalism. You can join the News Voices: New Jersey project by emailing Mike Rispoli at mrispoli@freepress.net.