For Immediate Release
Sam Moody, Associate Director, Colorado Media Project
Press Forward Colorado
sam@coloradomediaproject.com | (860) 519-6176
Denver, October 16 - Press Forward Colorado today announced that nine local media outlets have been awarded $900,000 in grants as part of the Press Forward national foundation’s first open call for funding.
These nine Colorado newsrooms - Alamosa Citizen, Asian Avenue Magazine, Aurora Sentinel Community Media, El Comercio de Colorado, KVNF Mountain Grown Community Radio, Ouray County Plaindealer, San Miguel Basin Forum, Sopris Sun, and World Journal - will each receive $50,000 per year for the next two years to support their work serving their communities, and closing coverage gaps for communities of color, rural communities, and linguistically diverse communities.
The Press Forward grant recipients had to meet the following criteria:
Have an annual operating budget of less than $1 million.
Be in operation since at least September 1, 2023.
Show a commitment to editorial excellence, independence and transparency.
Each of these newsrooms is producing the everyday stories people need to make decisions about their daily lives - from emergency responses to wildfires, to key community issues like housing affordability, and how Coloradans’ tax money is being spent.
Press Forward, a coalition of 20 donors, formed a national initiative to strengthen communities and democracy by supporting local news and information with an infusion of more than a half-billion dollars over five years. Press Forward’s goal is to enhance local journalism at an unprecedented level to re-center local news as a force for community cohesion; support new models and solutions that are ready to scale; and close longstanding inequities in journalism coverage and practice.
As the host of the Colorado Chapter of the national movement, Colorado Media Project and Press Forward Colorado fund, catalyze and advocate for a healthier local news and information ecosystem for all Coloradans.
“Press Forward received more than 900 applications and from that group selected 205 recipients for $20 million in funding,” said Sam Moody, Associate Director of the Colorado Media Project. “The fact that nine Colorado newsrooms were funded is a credit to the innovation, journalistic excellence, and commitment to meeting community needs of Colorado’s local newsrooms, and the six years of investment in collaboration and capacity building among newsrooms that CMP’s funders have supported”.
Meet Colorado’s Press Forward National Grantees:
Alamosa Citizen is a member-supported, nonpartisan daily online newspaper that works to provide information and build civic involvement in the San Luis Valley. It reports on daily news events and happenings and develops issue-oriented enterprise journalism, community-supported daily podcasts and live-stream broadcasts, and live-event Programming. https://www.alamosacitizen.com/
Asian Avenue Magazine is a monthly publication that shares the stories of Colorado’s Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) residents to build bridges of awareness, knowledge, and understanding between the diverse AANHPI communities and the public. https://www.asianavemag.com/
Aurora Sentinel Community Media provides factual, trusted, nonpartisan news, investigations, and features about the Aurora region and its diverse community. The nonprofit corporation was created to grow a robust, thriving news organization with the capacity to cover the issues and interests of the greater community of Aurora. https://sentinelcolorado.com/
El Comercio de Colorado is a bilingual multimedia organization targeting the growing Hispanic/Latinx community in Colorado since 2006. El Comercio’s goal is to empower the Hispanic/Latinx community through information, engagement, and advocacy. https://elcomerciodecolorado.com/
KVNF Mountain Grown Community Radio engages its communities by providing access to diverse music, news, and voices, envisioning listeners who are participating, inspired, active, and well-informed with a local and global perspective that emphasizes journalistic integrity. https://www.kvnf.org/
Ouray County Plaindealer is the only trusted source of local news in a rural Colorado mountain community of roughly 5,000 residents. The Plaindealer’s journalists seek truth and report it, with the goal of informing the community with fact-based, nonpartisan articles. While maintaining high standards for accuracy and fairness, the Plaindealer produces quality journalism for the community, which would be a news desert without it. https://www.ouraynews.com/
San Miguel Basin Forum covers all sides of issues respectfully and gives a voice to all community members in the West End of Montrose and San Miguel counties. https://sanmiguelbasinforum.com/
Serving the Roaring Fork Valley, Sopris Sun informs, inspires, and builds community by fostering diverse and independent journalism. https://soprissun.com/
World Journal promotes a sense of community and cooperation among the citizens of the Rocky Mountain Southwest. https://worldjournalnewspaper.com/
This was Press Forward National’s first open call for applications. Emerging from 900+ applications, a bright mosaic of 205 independent, nonpartisan news sources—with a range of business models and audiences—were awarded a total of $20 million over the next two years.
Press Forward Colorado was established in February of 2024, housed by Colorado Media Project, which has served as a cross-sector catalyst, funder and advocate for Colorado’s local news ecosystem since 2018.
###