Letter from Melissa Milios Davis, CMP Interim Director

Dear Friends,

As we turn the page to 2020 and reflect on the Colorado Media Project’s first full year advocating for stronger local news in our state, more than anything my colleagues and I are overcome with a sense of gratitude. New friends and partners from all over the state and the U.S. have embraced the Colorado Media Project and enthusiastically joined us in envisioning a new future for local news and civic engagement. The numbers speak for themselves: In 2019, we held 19 events that gathered nearly 1,200 participants, representing more than 120 journalism, philanthropy, advocacy and community organizations, in addition to our deeper project-based work with newsrooms.

We’re committed to carrying that momentum forward, and 2020 will be an exciting year for the Colorado Media Project. We are pleased to announce a series of partnerships that advance the CMP’s mission to strengthen the three C’s — capacity, collaboration and community in 2020. Here’s a preview of what CMP and our partners have in store:

Supporting a new, mission-driven, collaborative newsroom for Colorado: Opening in 2020, the COLab at Rocky Mountain Public Media’s new building in downtown Denver brings together a core group of 10 Colorado newsrooms and support organizations co-locating there. CMP is funding strategic and business planning for the future partners, who are setting the vision and goals for how they’ll collaborate among themselves — and with news organizations and communities throughout the state. CMP also plans to invest in staffing and resources to support the new collaborative.
Establishing the Leadership + Learning Fund for Colorado journalists: In 2019, we provided a handful of travel grants to journalists from all over the state, enabling them to attend CMP workshops in Denver, and bring with them invaluable perspectives on the diversity of issues that concern Coloradans. This year, in partnership with the Colorado Press Association (CPA), and with the support of Rose Community Foundation, we’re expanding that program to offer mini-grants for local journalists seeking professional development opportunities in Colorado and beyond. Stay tuned for application and eligibility details.
Increasing access to public information via the Local Legal Initiative: Every newsroom in Colorado — and the public in general — will benefit from this new, two-year initiative to provide pro bono legal support for local journalists and newsrooms pursuing enterprise and investigative journalism. Colorado was one of just five states selected by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to receive the support, made possible by a $10 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Coordinated locally through a partnership between the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, CMP, CPA, and the Colorado Broadcasters Association, the initiative will hire a new, pro bono lawyer to serve newsrooms statewide out of the COLab, and greatly increases our statewide capacity to ensure transparency, accountability, and access to information. See the RCFP job posting here.
Combatting online misinformation in the runup to the 2020 election: Former CMP director Nancy Watzman is now managing the Local News Fellowship program on behalf of First Draft News, an organization devoted to training journalists to track and counter misinformation in their communities. This year, with support from Democracy Fund, FDN will place fellows in five states potentially vulnerable to “information pollution,” including Colorado, to serve as a collaborative, statewide hub to monitor and combat misinformation. Fellowship applications are being considered on a rolling basis through January 31 (APPLY).
Engaging more Coloradans in the future of local news and civic participation: Building on the release of CMP’s “Local News is a Public Good: Public Pathways for Supporting Coloradans’ Civic News and Information Needs in the 21st Century" and community conversations about the future of local news, CMP will partner with Free Press to launch News Voices: Colorado. The initiative will seek to strengthen connections between newsrooms and communities across the state, with special attention to needs and opportunities in underserved low-income, rural, and racial and ethnic communities. News Voices: Colorado will hire a Colorado-based community organizer to lead this work — be on the lookout for a job posting soon.

On Jan. 22, we invited our partners from all of these initiatives to join us for “2020 Focus with the Colorado Media Project + Partners,” the second in our Brown Bag Webinar Series. If you missed the call, we recorded it for your convenience.

We hope that you will join us in making 2020 a strong year for Colorado journalism. Thank you for your continued support of the Colorado Media Project. Onward!

Sincerely,

Melissa Milios Davis
Interim Director, Colorado Media Project
Vice President, Informed Communities, Gates Family Foundation