“Journalism moves fast…philanthropy moves slow.” Press Forward’s director wants to bring them together
On April 30, Press Forward made the announcement many local news outlets had been waiting for since September: The philanthropic coalition launched its first national open call inviting eligible local news organizations to apply for grants.1
When that open call went live, Dale Anglin had been on the job less than two months. She officially assumed her role as inaugural Press Forward director on March 11, about six months after the philanthropic initiative to invest more than $500 million into local news over five years was first announced, and four months after the first local chapters were established (as of last week, there are about 21 chapters across the country). Anglin joined Press Forward from the Cleveland Foundation, where she’d helped support startup news outlet Signal Cleveland (she continues to serve on the board).
She’s spent much of her first couple of months on the job on the road, traveling to communities across the country to meet local journalists and funders. I caught her between trips and conferences earlier this month (when she was about to attend her youngest son’s graduation from Howard) to talk through what her job has entailed in these early days, and how she’s thinking about what Press Forward is and isn’t.
Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Just the word “journalism” is not what some people are using for this work. Some people are using “civic media,” “storytelling,” “narrative change,” pick your word — to different people, they mean different things and they resonate with different types of people. I stopped using the term journalism when I was trying to create Signal in Cleveland and talking to residents because they were like, “We don’t need that, we got journalism, we got Fox 8, we got whatever.” When I said “news and information that you can use on a daily basis to make decisions,” they said, “Oh, no, we don’t have that. We talk to so-and-so to get that information.” I use different words depending on who I talk to right now.
Other fields have gone through this — “what’s the word that works with everybody?” In childcare it was “early childcare,” it was “daycare,” etc.
In some of the towns where there are no longer news outlets, there is a college there. And in some places, and this is documented too, that college, either a class or full program, or full school, is doing original reporting and getting that reporting out to the community. You see that right now with what’s happening on some of these college campuses — those student reporters are doing amazing work. So I didn’t want to leave them out of the first open call. I don’t know how many we’re going to fund. But every industry, always, should think about pipeline…
The other thing is, if you want well-adjusted adults, you work with them when they’re young. To me, journalism is an incredible training mechanism for youth development — the same way you may not become an artist but art can teach you so many things about your eye, and color, and persistence, and failure. Journalism does the same thing. It teaches critical thinking, it teaches you how to look at the world in different ways, How to speak to different types of people? Do you know how incredible that is for youth development? I want every kid I know to go through a journalism program, whether they become a journalist or not.
I was learning, for example, recently in West Virginia and Charleston, from a couple of publishers about their daily issues in dealing with tech. And we’re all pushing tech — help with audience development, and help with maximizing your website, and help with revenue tracking, and all sorts of stuff. Sometimes it turns out some group or cohort gives them access to a certain type of tech, or teaches them about a certain type of tech, but that tech may not be around three years from now. It’s a problem.
I’m learning about how important and complicated the policy world is going to be. We want policy solutions, but we all have different opinions about the best way. Should it be market-driven and as neutral as possible? Which legislatures should we go after? Are we being responsive or proactive? We’re going to form a policy working group so that we can try to come up with some best practices or things to try.
I’m learning how much a range of people see this issue. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, it doesn’t matter your age. I’ve talked to young people, and I’ve talked to older people, and there certain things [they] thought were always going to be around. I think we thought local news was just always going to be around. And now that it’s not always around, you go, “Wait a minute, I did like that. We did need that.” To me, it’s a unifying issue, one of the few we probably have left. A wide range of communities see this as an issue. So how can we help those communities think through what would work best in their communities?
Well, the nature of the problem has changed. Bottom line is — and it’s not just journalism, art fills this too, music fills this — we need community builders. We need them desperately at the local level. We are just too far apart. The nature of the society has shifted. Everybody’s got to do something different to get us to where we would like to be. I don’t think we want to be where we are now. I hear that from so many people — “We don’t like what’s happening.” No matter what side you’re on, “we don’t like it.” It doesn’t feel good.
So then, how do each of us as personal people and residents, and how do organizations or particular ecosystems, try to help fix that problem? It turns out local news reporting is an incredible way to fix it.
Now, I know reporters weren’t [always] trained to do that, I understand. But we see places where when they are willing to shift just a little bit — they do their reporting, and they think about community building — they get into the community a little bit more than what they might have done 20 years ago; they build the coffee shop in Texas; they do the spelling bee in Cleveland; someone calls in, they actually help the person figure out about their immigration status as opposed to sending them off to somebody else — it turns out that’s an incredible role.
- Both for-profit and nonprofit local outlets in existence since September 2023 that have operating budgets under $1 million can apply to receive $100,000 in general operating funding. The coalition ultimately expects to fund around 100 outlets, drawing from its pooled fund. Applications are due at 11:59 p.m. ET on June 12. You can watch the first info session about applying here, or sign up for another info session next month here).