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.
In this pivotal time for the future of local civic news, CMP seeks candidates and nominations for its next Director. The Director will play a crucial role in advancing CMP’s mission to support sustainable, equitable, and community-centered journalism in Colorado. Reporting to CMP’s Executive Committee, and employed by CMP’s fiscal sponsor, the Rose Community Foundation, this leadership position requires a dynamic and strategic individual with a passion for public service and accessible civic information, exceptional relationship-building skills, and deep expertise in fundraising, strategic communications, coalition building, and organizational management.
Locally owned and non-profit newsrooms serving communities across Colorado are invited to apply to join the 2024 #newsCOneeds Year-End Giving Challenge, and apply for matching grant funding from CMP.
The Spotlight: Colorado Fund aims to empower local Colorado-based news organizations to produce high-quality, in-depth, nonpartisan investigative reporting focused on a single topic. The guiding purpose of this fund (and the projects it supports) is to raise public awareness about critical issues facing our state and to catalyze positive change in our institutions and communities.
Across Colorado from Greeley to Pueblo -- through partnerships with print, digital, radio, and television stations -- Rocky Mountain Public Media's Above the Noise initiative aims to set the table for civil conversations that build trust among neighbors and empower communities to cope with the rise of artificial intelligence, deep fakes and widespread misinformation.
Against the headwinds of divisive national rhetoric, increasing polarization of local communities, digital overwhelm and social isolation — we believe it’s time for pragmatic, solutions-focused Coloradans to reclaim the public square from political pundits and conflict entrepreneurs. As the new documentary “Join or Die” puts it, building “community connections could hold the answers to our democracy’s present crisis.”
While many groups and individuals are hard at work across the sector, for the past 3.5 years Colorado Media Project has attempted to serve as a center of gravity for engaging non-journalists — especially those from underserved communities — in this pivotal time for the future of local civic news. We see our role as helping to catalyze, fund, and advocate for innovations that make Colorado's local news ecosystem more sustainable, collaborative, trustworthy and accountable to the public it serves.
On The Colorado Sun’s first anniversary, editor and co-founder Larry Ryckman writes: “None of us set out to be small business owners, but we did it because it was important and needed to be done. As I have often said, this is not a crisis for journalists. It’s a crisis for communities and — I’m really stepping onto my soapbox here — for our very democracy.”
By Melissa Milios Davis, Gates Family Foundation
As Colorado's media landscape has continued to evolve, the Gates Family Foundation has invested in a wide variety of high-quality local news outlets. Local news is a key component of healthy, thriving communities – and its absence is harbinger of diminished communities.
Join the conversation:
