Afrik Digest

Afrik Digest International Magazine is a cultural and lifestyle journal with its publishing base in Colorado USA. The publication is authentic in the way it retells the story of the members of our community and gives readers a sufficient splash of entertainment, fashion, business, education-inspired stories, and information from within the United States and the continent of Africa. It has continued to own the responsibility to inform the global community on diversity, inclusion, and trends.

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Support From colorado media project

Advancing Equity 2023, 2022; #newsCOneeds 2022

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $15,000 to support Afrik Digest in meeting the news and information needs of Colorado's African immigrant residents, and continued leadership of the Ethnic Media Exchange

2023 Advancing Equity Update: In response to increasing printing costs, Afrik Digest has shifted to a digital-focused model, completing a website update and printing less frequently - and navigating the common challenges of any newsroom making such a transition: reduced certainty about audience engagement with their digital product, and a need to focus on communicating the vision behind the change to an audience used to a different product. Their founder, Vera Idam, has been an active participant in the CPA’s Ethnic Media Ad Network working group, and has reconvened peer media leaders in Aurora via the Ethnic Media Exchange, to identify additional common challenges and opportunities for collective solutions. 

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2022 Advancing Equity Award: $15,000 to support networking events and dialogues between Colorado's mainstream newsroom media and African immigrants with expertise in diverse subject matters, in partnership with the Pan-African Business Association and the Urban Tikkun Centre

2022 Advancing Equity Impact: The Advancing Equity grant helped our organization to address the following specific challenges of our community:

1. Economic empowerment and community integration - This was achieved with our 'New Era of Black Entrepreneurs'. People of all races gathered together to discuss the challenges of blacks people in business and pointed ourselves to the path to the solution.

2. Community visibility, best practices to media content and coverage. This was tackled in our COLORADO ETHNIC MEDIA EXCHANGE-Strengthening connections engagement in March.

We hope to hold more engagements and networking events in 2023, within and outside of our community. The experience of this year is going to follow me into the future. It was amazing.

Asian Avenue Magazine

The mission of Asian Avenue Magazine is to build bridges of awareness, knowledge, and understanding between the diverse Asian Pacific American (APA) communities and the general public through cultural insights, pop culture, news, and information. We are the only English-printed publication in Colorado focused on the APA community and culture.

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SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT

Advancing Equity 2023, 2022; Informed Communities COVID-19 Funding 2021, 2020

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $15,000 to support Asian Avenue Magazine in organizing a database of Asian-American journalists in the Denver area, launching an Asian-American journalist affinity group with learning events, and supporting the Colorado Ethnic Media Exchange.

2023 Advancing Equity Update: Mile High Asian Media has completed their database, and convened a group of 30-40 Asian-American media professionals in Colorado, interested in establishing a formal affiliation group, and is planning to hold a summit gathering of this group in the fall. They have found a number of their members to be new to Colorado, and in search of deeper connections with existing AAPI communities in the state. 

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2022 Advancing Equity Award: $17,000 to support a DEI assessment and training for staff, and to increase translation of articles into other Asian languages.

2022 Advancing Equity Impact: The AELN grant helped address several needs in Colorado’s Asian community: (1) the need for connection and opportunity to share our stories; (2) the need to provide in-language information and resources; and (3) the need to better support Asian journalists in the Denver market. This funding allowed Mile High Asian Media to meet with community members to strengthen relationships and build trust. In this process, we heard the need to re-establish the Asian American Journalists Association chapter in Denver to better support our local journalists.

Alamosa Citizen

AlamosaCitizen.com is a member-supported, nonpartisan daily online newspaper that works to provide information and build civic involvement in the San Luis Valley. We are a vibrant digital voice for our diverse communities that will:

• Report on daily news events and happenings

• Develop issue-oriented enterprise journalism

• Develop community-supported daily podcasts and live-stream broadcasts

• Create live-event programming for a rich mixture of community-oriented content.

SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT

Advancing Equity 2023; #newsCOneeds 2023

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $5,000 to support the Alamosa Citizen with business growth, sustainability support and coaching.

2023 Advancing Equity Update: This year, the Alamosa Citizen has launched a digital ad campaign, alongside their new Outdoor Citizen podcast, securing 15-20 new supporting members, and a slate of new advertisers. They are in the process of transitioning their CMS to Newspack, and have been connected with the CPA’s Digital Transitions Working Group. They have also supported the creation of the Rural Journalism Institute of the San Luis Valley, a new nonprofit supporting three paid high school journalism interns.

Aurora Chapter, NAACP

The mission of the Aurora Chapter of the NAACP is to achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.

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Support From colorado media project

Advancing Equity 2023

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $20,000 to support the Aurora Branch of the NAACP's Black Voices Pipeline Project in providing a media literacy and youth journalism program featuring 1-1 mentorship and instruction, publication of student projects in Black-led news organizations, and a youth media showcase to celebrate youth achievements. 

2023 Advancing Equity Update: The Aurora NAACP has completed its second cohort of the Black Voices Pipeline Project, in partnership with the Cherry Creek School District, serving a total of 39 students. This session concluded with a showcase of student work in June, including podcasts, interviews, journalistic writing, poetry, and creative writing.  Phase Two of this project will support 25 Phase One students, who will work with the Black Voices advisory committee mentors to continue to hone and build upon their projects. 

Colorado Chinese News

Colorado Chinese News is a free weekly newspaper serving Chinese, Asian and other major communities in the Rocky Mountain Region and beyond.

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Support From colorado media project

Advancing Equity 2023, #newsCOneeds 2023

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $5,000 to support Colorado Chinese News in meeting the news and information needs of Colorado's Chinese residents.

2023 Advancing Equity Update: Colorado Chinese News has used their grant to complete urgent security and stability updates to their website. Having lost a significant portion of print revenue since the pandemic, they plan to slowly grow their digital product, and have signed up for sustainability analysis coaching, and engaged with the Ethnic Media Ad Network Working Group.

Ethiopian Community television - KETO FM

KETO FM is an FM radio station branded as "KETO 93.9 FM". The station is operated by ECTV, Inc broadcasting an international multicultural music format. This station is licensed to Aurora and is broadcast across the Denver metro area. There are over 130 languages spoken among Aurora’s communities. KETO-FM’s target audience are people who speak these languages including immigrants living in Aurora & the metro-Denver area.

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Support From colorado media project

Advancing Equity 2023, 2022; #newsCOneeds 2020, Informed Communities COVID-19 funding

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $10,000 to support KETO FM in meeting the news and information needs of Colorado's Ethiopian and multicultural residents, and continued participation in the Ethnic Media Exchange.

2023 Advancing Equity Update: KETO FM has used its grant funding to support key investments in broadcast equipment and software upgrades, and is planning an array of summer events to promote the station’s new capacities. KETO FM has been working in partnership with the City of Denver as they establish a new sister city in Ethiopia, providing translation services. In the wake of the pandemic, they have found increased demand and competition for translation services. 

KBNO - Que Bueno Radio

Que Bueno1280 is a Spanish-language radio station that has served Colorado for over 50 years, informing and empowering Latino and emerging communities in their native language - Spanish.

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SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT

Advancing Equity 2023

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $5,000 to support Que Bueno Radio in meeting the local news and information needs of Colorado's Spanish-speaking residents.

2023 Advancing Equity Update: KBNO has hired two part-time reporters on a project basis, focused on key community issues. Having active staff members working in the community has generated new channels of community engagement for the station, gathering community voices to share on air. To expand their capacity for community coverage, they have established a partnership with El Comercio de Colorado, whose publisher, Jesus Sanchez-Melean, joins the show regularly to provide a summary of recent headlines, or commentary on key community news. 

La Voz Colorado

La Voz Colorado is a weekly digital and print newspaper serving the Colorado Latino market in both English and Spanish,. La Voz is the only Hispanic newspaper that distributes statewide and in a bilingual format, with a digital edition of the same hard copy newspaper hosted on their site.

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SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT

Advancing Equity 2023; #newsCOneeds 2023

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $5,000 to support La Voz Colorado in meeting the local news and information needs of Colorado's Spanish-speaking residents.

2023 Advancing Equity Update: La Voz is among the many newsrooms grappling with increasing print costs, and exploring transitions to more digital-focused models. Having redesigned their website after the pandemic, they’ve seen a 50% increase in digital readers across all platforms over the last year. They now face the challenge of integrating this growing audience into a sustainable set of business and revenue strategies, and have signed up for a sustainability analysis from CPA, with the expectation that they will eventually be a digital-first, or digital-only publication.

Red, White and Brown Media

Red, White and Brown Media facilitates substantive conversations about culture and politics through the lens of South Asian American race and identity — via journalism, social media and events.

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SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT

Advancing Equity 2023

2023 Advancing Equity Award: $3,500 to support Red, White and Brown Media with start-up mentorship, coaching and capacity building. 

2023 Advancing Equity Update: Red, White and Brown Media’s Co-Founder and Editor, Vignesh Ramachandran, has met intermittently with CMP’s team to refine his plans for his data-driven media start-up. He has identified a gap in accessible data on AAPI communities in Colorado, and plans to conduct community focus groups to identify key under-reported stories, assemble data that puts those stories into context, and explore opportunities to connect this project with projects other Colorado media organizations are already working on. RWB Media is an example of the kind of small, digital focused entrepreneurial start-up organization that CMP needs to better understand how to support and connect to the broader local news ecosystem.