Tiny News Collective

🎉 Big congratulations to TNC member The Harvey World Herald and founder Amethyst J. Davis on this amazing news about philanthropic support for operations from Square One Foundation. This grant will allow Harvey World Herald to focus on diversifying revenue streams and supporting operational sustainability. When Amethyst launched Harvey World Herald in 2022, she was bringing independent, nonpartisan news to a place that had lost its newspaper many years earlier. It is wonderful to see the growth of what she's built and to see others in the community supporting her vision. https://lnkd.in/egaaAVsu #localnews #entrepreneurship #bipocleadership

📅 Mark your calendars for our first AMA with membership director Andrea Faye Hart on July 30 at 3 p.m. ET. She's ready to answer questions you might have about the Collective, the community of founders we serve and our member benefits. Register here: http://bit.ly/TNCAMA #entrepreneurship #localnews

👀 What we're reading: We love this story from Journalism.co.uk about the success of Black Ballad, co-founded by a Black woman in Britain to fill a need she saw in her community. Her story resonated with us, since so many TNC founders have had similar experiences: "She was an ambitious lifestyle writer who was struggling to find the right opportunities in a competitive industry with little diversity. So she created the opportunity for herself." We especially appreciate the relentless focus on prioritizing her audience: "The temptation for Black businesses is to expand beyond the core audience base - [which in our case is] Black women - to scale faster or bigger. We’ve never done that - some might say to our financial detriment - but to me, our priority will always be our community." https://lnkd.in/gEGhhZi7 #entrepreneurship #media #community #bipocleadership

👀 Check out our July edition of Tiny News Collective's 🚀 Big Blast monthly email newsletter where we focus on the central value of community, with shoutouts to founders and publishers such as: 📣 Nancy Flores of Austin Vida speaking at the NAHJ (National Association of Hispanic Journalists) conference. 🎤 Delonte Harrod of Intersection Magazine speaking at a Maryland Humanities summit on local news and mental health. 💰 Rascal News running an innovative, transparent fundraising drive, including on Twitch. #entrepreneurs #startups #localnews https://lnkd.in/e528ZYti

📊 We are excited to share our progress on an important part of our work this year: a metrics program for tiny newsrooms. We've finished the research phase of the work, so we thought it was a good time to go public with what we're learning. Thanks to a grant from The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, we will roll out a metrics program for our TNC members later this year with an emphasis on aligning metrics of success with our members' community-oriented missions. A big thanks to many people and organizations for their help during this research phase (including several of our members): Jeannette Antongiorgi Andruss, Teri Mott and Emily Christensen (The SHOUT), Cara Kuhlman (Future Tides), Amy Bushatz (Mat-Su Sentinel), Latasha N. Eley Kelly, Ph.D., Lindsay Green-Barber (Impact Architects), Eli Flournoy (Media Growth Partners), Sarah Day Owen Wiskirchen, Emily Roseman (Institute for Nonprofit News), Chloe Kizer (LION: Local Independent Online News Publishers), Sophie Ho (News Revenue Hub, Ishena Robinson (URL Media), Nicolás Ríos (Documented), Ned Berke (BlueLena), Liz Worthington (American Press Institute), Tyler Fisher, Kara Meyberg Guzman (Santa Cruz Local), Becky Pallack (Arizona Luminaria), Styli C. (Daily Maverick) and Nahima "Ema" Ahmed. https://lnkd.in/efprMvHX #localnews #entrepreneurship #metrics #mission

✅ We're working on the July edition of our monthly newsletter right now, and you're not going to want to miss it when it comes out next week. If you haven't signed up for it yet, take a moment to do so now. You'll learn all about what's going on at TNC and hear more about what our innovative members are doing across the country. https://lnkd.in/eqgHgvqG #localnews #entrepreneurship

👋🏽 If you're in Minneapolis for this important event about local news in Minnesota with Report for America, please make sure to attend the panel featuring TNC member Nora Hertel of Project Optimist. https://lnkd.in/eScnimbv #localnews #entrepreneurship

👀 What we're reading: Jennifer Brandel looks at the work of Living Room Conversations and what journalists can learn from their approach of bringing people together to discuss an agreed-upon topic - with help from a tested conversation guide - listen and learn from one another, and walk away with more connection and understanding. That understanding and connection ultimately help to build more trust, something that journalists lament we don't have enough of. Jenn quotes Becca Kearl, the executive director of Living Room Conversations: "Throughout my interview with her, she kept dropping profound truths that newsrooms don’t often pick up and examine, like, 'Connection generates confidence and trust,' and, 'So much we know and believe is a result of the people and information we’re connected to,' and 'A small conversation seeds connection, and when you’re feeling more connected you’re more willing to listen.'” https://lnkd.in/eRTewe_h #community #localnews #trust

Many people in the journalism field are talking about the "promise versus peril" aspects of AI as it relates to content and revenue. But as a journalism support organization, we have seen it come up in another way: around community management. Learn why and how we put together a community care agreement for the use of AI tools in our community spaces, in this piece by TNC staff member Pilar de Haro. A big thanks to Sophie Ho and Sisi Wei for their advice and the ethos behind the DEI Coalition for Anti-Racist, Equitable, and Just Newsrooms (cc: OpenNews) that helped inspire our community care agreement. https://lnkd.in/grZc6uYC #communitymanagement #bravespace #ai #journalism

🎉 We kept this secret for a long time, but we're glad that the news is out today: One of our newest TNC members The 51st has announced its name and a fundraising campaign to get started with the important work of covering Washington, D.C., in the wake of a pullback from local news by the city's media institutions. These founders were galvanized by the shutdown of DCist by public media station WAMU 88.5, and they are forging a new path of a worker-led local newsroom. We're so glad to count them among our members. Teresa Frontado Natalie Delgadillo Maddie Poore Colleen Grablick Abigail Higgins "'We were very intentional about not relaunching DCist,' said [co-founder] Eric Falquero. 'This is something new, of wanting to take the best pieces of what we did together there, and build upon that and expand.' He wants to reach DCist’s fans but also 'look beyond the audiences we had there. We’re in it for the long haul.'" https://lnkd.in/eN5ksQX9 #localnews #dc #entrepreneurship