Colorado’s local newsrooms were busier than ever in 2020, demonstrating their civic value as an essential public service. Local journalists are our neighbors who provide potentially life-saving information on the COVID public health crisis and Colorado wildfires, fact-check online misinformation, hold a mirror to our communities, and hold the powerful to account.

CMP’s 2020 #newsCOneeds matching grant challenge helped 25 nonprofit and/or locally owned newsrooms raise a quarter-million dollars for local journalism.

Here are 10 ways newsrooms and local journalism supporters can help amplify the message “local news as an essential public service” year round:

Share the love. Use the #newsCOneeds hashtag to tag great journalism from your favorite local newsrooms.
Ask for support: COLab partners can use our #newsCOneeds toolkit to create custom house ads, social promotion tiles, or emails to your readers/listeners/viewers -- and ask them to help sustain your local journalism. Please note: Only COLab partners receive access to the toolkit, which includes email templates written specifically for our year-end matching grant program. Feel free to adjust the language to fit your own organization. Click here to join the COLab.
Spotlight collaboration. Run a story on the #newsCOneeds Matching Challenge -- 25 locally-owned, independent newsrooms raising a quarter-million dollars for local news. Position your newsroom as a collaborator in this trusted local network.
Find local validators. Ask a respected local leader and/or passionate supporter of your newsroom to submit an op-ed about the value your journalism brings to the community.
Make it a chorus. CMP is working to gather a series of op-eds from state/national leaders that you can run throughout the month, adding more voices of support. (Check StoryShare for op-eds submitted by CMP, and we’ll also send out heads up as they are posted.)
Lift the veil. Use social media to take followers behind the scenes to see how your news is made (ex: Instagram Stories, TikTok, FB Live, Snapchat, etc). Give an emerging (social/visual) journalist in your newsroom the opportunity to take the lead.
Amplify the message: Invite CMP or COLab to talk about the campaign for a TV or radio segment.
Build your list. Send a simple “Love our journalism? Share it.” email to your supporters, to grow your audience.
Engage your audience. Ask your readers/listeners/viewers to send in audio/video clips talking about their favorite local stories. Make a montage of these audio/video clips.
Include other voices. Run a feature profile on how one or more of CMP’s Informed Communities grantees are reaching BIPOC Coloradans in the time of COVID.